Brutal Aesthetics : : Dubuffet, Bataille, Jorn, Paolozzi, Oldenburg / / Hal Foster.

How artists created an aesthetic of “positive barbarism” in a world devastated by World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bombIn Brutal Aesthetics, leading art historian Hal Foster explores how postwar artists and writers searched for a new foundation of culture after the massive devastation of...

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Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts eBook Package
VerfasserIn:
Place / Publishing House:Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2023]
©2020
Year of Publication:2023
Language:English
Series:The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts ; 35
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (296 p.) :; 182 b/w illus.
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Other title:Frontmatter --
Contents --
Introduction: Positive Barbarism --
1 Jean Dubuffet and His Brutes --
2 Georges Bataille and His Caves --
3 Asger Jorn and His Creatures --
4 Eduardo Paolozzi and His Hollow Gods --
5 Claes Oldenburg and His Ray Guns --
Acknowledgments --
Notes --
Index --
Photography and Copyright Credits
Summary:How artists created an aesthetic of “positive barbarism” in a world devastated by World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bombIn Brutal Aesthetics, leading art historian Hal Foster explores how postwar artists and writers searched for a new foundation of culture after the massive devastation of World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb. Inspired by the notion that modernist art can teach us how to survive a civilization become barbaric, Foster examines the various ways that key figures from the early 1940s to the early 1960s sought to develop a “brutal aesthetics” adequate to the destruction around them.With a focus on the philosopher Georges Bataille, the painters Jean Dubuffet and Asger Jorn, and the sculptors Eduardo Paolozzi and Claes Oldenburg, Foster investigates a manifold move to strip art down, or to reveal it as already bare, in order to begin again. What does Bataille seek in the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux? How does Dubuffet imagine an art brut, an art unscathed by culture? Why does Jorn populate his paintings with “human animals”? What does Paolozzi see in his monstrous figures assembled from industrial debris? And why does Oldenburg remake everyday products from urban scrap?A study of artistic practices made desperate by a world in crisis, Brutal Aesthetics is an intriguing account of a difficult era in twentieth-century culture, one that has important implications for our own.Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCPlease note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780691253084
9783111292908
DOI:10.1515/9780691253084?locatt=mode:legacy
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Hal Foster.