On Abstract ArtMany people are intrigued by the abstract work of artists like Mondrian and Jackson Pollock yet find it difficult to explain why. In this timely and original book, Briony Fer introduces abstract painting and sculpture of the twentieth century and explores new ways to think about abstract art and the problems of interpretation it raises. Fer speculates on the kind of language required to describe the often tantalizing effects of key abstract works and on ways to discuss critical issues when a work of art is without 'subject matter.' Drawing particularly on psychoanalytic theory and the writings of Georges Bataille, she examines a wide range of models of abstraction, ranging from the early European emphasis on the transcendental possibilities of pure form to later modernist frameworks developed in the United States. Each of the ten chapters in the book addresses a particular problem associated with abstract art by focusing closely on specific works produced by such artists as Malevich, Mondrian, Kandinsky, Arp, Miró, Pollock, Eva Hesse, and Donald Judd. Fer investigates the involvement of women artists such as Lyubov Popova and the problems of sexual difference in the development of abstract art. Countering the idealizing rhetoric of modernist criticism, On Abstract Art uncovers a latent corporeal and darker side to abstraction and deepens today’s discussion of a variety of critical concerns in contemporary art. |
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Contents
Mondrians Excess | 33 |
The Laws of Chance | 55 |
Bataille on Painting | 77 |
The Cut | 93 |
Eva Hesse and Minimalism | 109 |
Judds Specific Objects | 131 |
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34 Drawings abstract art abstract painting aesthetic anxiety Arp's artist Bataille's Black Square body Buchloh cadmium red castration characterised claimed Clement Greenberg collage Collected Essays colour criticism Cubism described discussed Donald Judd dust effects Eva Hesse exhibition fantasy feminine figure floorpieces Freud Fried Gallery Georges Bataille Greenberg grid Hesse Hesse's Ibid idea insists invoked Joan Miro Judd Judd's kind Klein Krauss Lacan language Leiris Lippard literal London look Malevich means Merleau-Ponty metaphors Metronomic Irregularity Minimal Art Minimalism Minimalist Miro's Modern Art modern painting modernist monochrome narcissistic Newman optical paper Paris photographs Picasso pictorial picture Piet Mondrian Pollock Popova principle psychic purity Rachel Whiteread relation Richter Rosalind Krauss sculpture sense Seuphor sexual space Specific Objects spectator spectator's structure suggest Suprematism Suprematist surface Surrealism Surrealist symbolic tion trans uncanny Untitled vision whilst Whiteread writing wrote York Yve-Alain Bois Yves Klein