Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic

Published by Penn State University Press 2013

Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic

Edited by: James Elkins and Harper Montgomery

Volume 4 in the series The Stone Art Theory Institutes

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271063171

Overview
Contents

About this book

Each of the five volumes in the Stone Art Theory Institutes series, and the seminars on which they are based, brings together a range of scholars who are not always directly familiar with one another’s work. The outcome of each of these convergences is an extensive and “unpredictable conversation” on knotty and provocative issues about art. This fourth volume in the series, Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic, focuses on questions revolving around the concepts of the aesthetic, the anti-aesthetic, and the political. The book is about the fact that now, almost thirty years after Hal Foster defined the anti-aesthetic, there is still no viable alternative to the dichotomy between aesthetics and anti- or nonaesthetic art. The impasse is made more difficult by the proliferation of identity politics, and it is made less negotiable by the hegemony of anti-aesthetics in academic discourse on art. The central question of this book is whether artists and academicians are free of this choice in practice, in pedagogy, and in theory.

The contributors are Stéphanie Benzaquen, J. M. Bernstein, Karen Busk-Jepsen, Luis Camnitzer, Diarmuid Costello, Joana Cunha Leal, Angela Dimitrakaki, Alexander Dumbadze, T. Brandon Evans, Geng Youzhuang, Boris Groys, Beáta Hock, Gordon Hughes, Michael Kelly, Grant Kester, Meredith Kooi, Cary Levine, Sunil Manghani, William Mazzarella, Justin McKeown, Andrew McNamara, Eve Meltzer, Nadja Millner-Larsen, Maria Filomena Molder, Carrie Noland, Gary Peters, Aaron Richmond, Lauren Ross, Toni Ross, Eva Schürmann, Gregory Sholette, Noah Simblist, Jon Simons, Robert Storr, Martin Sundberg, Timotheus Vermeulen, and Rebecca Zorach.

Author / Editor information

Elkins James :

James Elkins is E. C. Chadbourne Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He coedited the first two volumes in the series, Art and Globalization (Penn State, 2010) and What Is an Image? (Penn State, 2011), and edited the third, What Do Artists Know? (Penn State, 2012).Montgomery Harper :

Harper Montgomery is the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Professor of Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art and Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Series Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction James Elkins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
The Seminars
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
1 Introductory Seminar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2 The Anti-Aesthetic in the 1980s: Craig Owens’s “The Allegorical Impulse” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
3 The Anti-Aesthetic in the 1990s: The Body Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
4 Theory and Criticism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
5 Theoretical Positions: Critical Theory Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
6 Theoretical Positions: Rancière, Deleuze, Relational Aesthetics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
7 Theoretical Positions: Affect Theory in Art History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
8 Theoretical Positions: Affect Theory at Large Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
9 Things Missing from This Book Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Assessments
Preface Harper Montgomery Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
The october revolution Grant Kester Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
“This” Alexander Dumbadze Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
The chinese reception Geng Youzhuang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
A gaping hole Cary Levine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
Not aesthetics or anti-aesthetics but poetics Boris Groys Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
Ellipses and détente Gregory Sholette Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
What if we really have never been modern Eva Schürmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
Beyond aesthetic and anti-aesthetic three miniatures Maria Filomena Molder Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Get over it Gary Peters Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Beyond “beyondness” Andrew McNamara Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
Re: re: post Gordon Hughes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
The elusive “beyond” of aesthetic and anti-aesthetic Toni Ross Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
On politics, art, and mobbing rancière Justin McKeown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
As if Timotheus Vermeulen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
How do you pronounce the politics of aesthetics Noah Simblist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Remarkable oversights, or could we actually make politics easier to talk about Rebecca Zorach Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Adorno and affect Carrie Noland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Let’s not and say we did Robert Storr Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Why is adorno so repulsive William Mazzarella Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	190
Theory cataracts Luis Camnitzer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Moving beyond aesthetics and politics Jon Simons Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
The aesthetic, the anti-aesthetic, and then what? why answering this question involves thinking about art as labor Angela Dimitrakaki Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Afterword the bathwater and the baby Gretchen Bakke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Notes on the contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231