Unconsolable Contemporary: Observing Gerhard Richter
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.65 (801 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0822370018 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 184 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-02-07 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
So it is with Paul Rabinow's lively, risky intervention in the clan of prestigious art theorists and critics who have created the reception of Gerhard Richter, one of the most famous artists in the world today. "Sometimes the keenest observations on an overly familiar phenomena come from outside the family. Rabinow contests the prevailing clichés that underwrite Richter's canonization, employing an anthropological perspective to untangle the artist's experiments with form in the twilit afterlife of modernism."
He focuses on the work and persona of German painter Gerhard Richter, demonstrating how reflecting on Richter's work provides rich insights into the practices and stylization of what, following Aby Warburg, one might call "the afterlife of the modern." Rabinow opens with analyses of Richter's recent Birkenau exhibit: both the art work and its critical framing. In Unconsolable Contemporary Paul Rabinow continues his explorations of "a philosophic anthropology of the contemporary." Defining the contemporary as a moving ratio in which the modern becomes historical, Rabinow shows how an anthropological ethos of the contemporary can be realized by drawing on the work of art historians, cultural critics, social theorists, and others, thereby inventing a methodology he calls anthropological assemblage. In this innovative work, Rabinow elucidates the ways meaning is created within the contemporary.. He then chronicles Richter's experiments in image-making as well as his subtle inclusion of art historical and critical discourses about the modern. This, Rabinow contends, enables Richter to signal his awareness of the stakes of such th