In Endless Andness, Mieke Bal pioneers a new understanding of the political potential of abstract art which does not passively yield its meaning to the viewer but creates it anew - an art perceived not only through the retina but experienced viscerally. In this book, the third of her companion volumes on art's political agency, Bal explores perception through an intense engagement with the work of Belgian sculptor Ann Veronica Janssens. In a series of vividly-recalled encounters with Janssen's practice over a number of years, Balpresents a new conception of embodied perception - art experienced in a body conjured into participation and transformed by the experience. From Janssens' 'mist room' works and the CorpsNoir sculptures through to the fugitive, porous Aerogel, Bal traces an art which eludes the subject-object distinction to alter our ideas about the potential of political art in abstract and figurative forms. Enticing us simultaneously to lose ourselves and to come home, the tenuous materiality of installation art empowers those who live in the permanently lost and migratoryc ondition that characterizes contemporary experience. In celebrating and interrogating the work of this prolific and innovative artist, Mieke Baltransforms our understanding of non-representational art to create a new awareness of perception and performance in the shared spaces of our world.
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List of Figures Prologue Introduction 1. How to Do Things with Clouds 2. Light Matters 3. Inside the Polis 4. Serendipity 5. And-ness Epilogue: Ten Ways of Sharing Space References
Both a profound reflection on the categories for thinking about art, and a study of a remarkable series of art installations. Endless Andness is a powerful and eloquent evocation of the experience of art that otherwise would envelop the viewer in its singular spaces. In exploring such concepts as performativity, deixis, and participatory observation, concepts that enable reflection on Janssens' art events, Mieke Bal offers a broad framework for thinking about art today.
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A new, provocative theory of contemporary art and its political potential by a globally-renowned aesthetician.
New theory of contemporary art challenging the academic and artistic status quo

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781472521743
Publisert
2013-06-20
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Vekt
620 gr
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
138 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
336

Forfatter

Biographical note

Mieke Bal is the author of Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, and many other books. She is Professor of the Theory of Literature at the University of Amsterdam, and has also been affiliated with Columbia University, the University of Rochester, and Cornell University, USA.