Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap Between Art and Life

From Publishers Weekly
By now, collections of Columbia University philosopher Danto's review-essays on contemporary art are familiar; this fifth installment again centers on work reprinted from his regular column in the Nation, where he has been art critic since 1984. Danto may be one of the few critics whose work reads better in book form than as a journalistic review. His critical judgments are often less ends in themselves than jumping off points for explorations of particularly vexing problems in aesthetics, threaded through with references to art and philosophy classics, all of it undertaken in clear language and with an even, appreciative tone. In these 40-plus pieces, each of which is six to eight pages long, Danto covers younger artists like John Currin and Renee Cox; older living masters like Gerhard Richter and Sol LeWitt; New York School artists like Philip Guston and Joan Mitchell, whose reputations are still settling; and Modernist masters like Malevich, Giacometti and Picasso. Given an art scene and museum world driven to a great extent by power, glitz and internecine politics, Danto's reflective approach can be a welcome respite for insiders and a friendly introduction to aesthetics as it continues to play out in real time. Agent, George Borchardt. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Ever curious about the interplay between art and life, philosopher and art-critic Danto approaches each work of art, exhibition, and brain-teasing art-generated issue with a puzzle-solvers' delight. Knowledgeable, lively, and omnivorous, Danto has been covering art for the Nation for 20 years, writing essays notable for their sophistication and warmth. His latest collection covers the first three years of the twenty-first century and focuses primarily on art's infiltration into life and art's deliberate separation from beauty. Danto makes unexpected yet fertile connections, beginning his enlightening consideration of South African artist William Kentridge, for instance, with a visit to Matisse, and introducing Barnett Newman via Henry James. Danto's analyses of Barbara Kruger and Gerhard Richter are crisp and invigorating. He is quite frank about the mystification generated by Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle. And his musings on art in the wake of 9/11 are incisive and moving. In art, Danto sees a response to the times and an expression of the human spirit, an evolution of thought and an embodiment of being. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
An Incisive Account of the Bizarre, Often Bewildering Art World of Today

Arthur Danto's new collection finds him, and the art world, at a point when the art world has become pluralistic, even chaotic-with one medium as good as the next-when the moment for "next things" has passed.
Since 1984, when Danto-already an eminent philosopher--became The Nation's art critic, he has been one of the foremost theorists of contemporary art's history and evolution, and at the same time the most incisive and illuminating critic of new work. In his view, the historical development of art reached a kind of zenith in the pop period, most famously with Warhol's Brillo Boxes. Danto's five volumes of review essays (all published by FSG) form a kind of chronicle of the art world since the Brillo moment, and a running appraisal of the great variety of significant work made since then. In this new book, he shows how work that bridges the gap between art and life is now the definitive work of our time: Damien Hirst's arrays of skeletons and anatomical models, Barbara Kruger's tchotchke-ready slogans, Renee Cox's nude portrait of herself at the Last Supper. To the obvious question--is this stuff really art?--Danto replies with an enthusiastic yes, explaining, with a philosopher's clarity and an art lover's sense of delight, how these "unnatural wonders" show us who we are.


About the Author
Arthur C. Danto is the Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Columbia University, art critic for The Nation, and the author of many books about art and philosophy. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the artist Barbara Westman.



Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

A collection of pieces written since "the end of art"-not to be confused with the death of art. Borrowing his concept from Hegel, respected critic Danto observes that unlike the centuries of art made for spiritual needs, the art of our time has generally lost the power to communicate on its own and must be explained, because we have only an external relationship with it. Plato argued that pictures are the same as dreams, shadows, reflections or illusions, but now that contemporary artists use any or all materials, we often view the actual object as art. Paradoxically, now that it no longer offers the illusion or reflection of reality, art is no longer understood as an essential part of life and has to be interpreted in a museum. What is the difference, asks Danto (Philosophy/Columbia Univ.; Madonna of the Future, 2000, etc.), between Warhol's Brillo Box and a cardboard case of Brillo Pads? He illustrates these introductory thoughts with more than two dozen columns from the Nation (required reading for those who pay attention to contemporary art since it began publishing Danto in 1984), ranging from the 2000 Whitney Biennial through the artistic reaction to September 11 and the nation's culture wars while dealing with major artists and exhibitions of the recent past. Danto sympathetically assesses Damien Hirst (sliced-up sharks suspended in formaldehyde) and eloquently explains why some initially impenetrable art might have compelling statements to make, but he doesn't spare artists he feels are not pulling their weight, lamenting the hot Paul McCarthy's juvenile art of "disgust" and tackling the very uneven quality of the talented (and even hotter) Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle. Alsoincluded are a handful of essays written for exhibition catalogues, transcripts of lectures, and reviews of important exhibitions of such pre-end artists as Leonardo, Gentileschi, and Chardin. Among the most sensible, intelligent, logical, and accessible art criticism of the last five years.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices