Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective
- Book Review,
by Arthur C. Danto
From Publishers Weekly
In Danto's view, artists' feelings of belonging to a continuous tradition vanished around 1965, one year after Andy Warhol's Brillo Box. In the current "post-historical" epoch, he writes, postmodernists make pathetic stabs at reconnecting with the past, when what is really necessary is an art responsive to human needs. In these often heavy, academic lectures and essays for journals and catalogues, the Columbia philosophy professor and Nation columnist interprets Pop Art as "a sacramental return of the thing to itself" and applies his definition of artworks as symbolic expressions to a discussion of African "primitive" art and Chinese painting. One challenging essay deals with Western art's "master narrative," comprising the Renaissance's "narrative of recovery," the Enlightenment scenario of progress and modernism which, for Danto, began when Van Gogh and Gauguin turned for inspiration to Japan, Egypt and Polynesia. Elsewhere he defends the National Endowment for the Arts' sponsorship of the controversial Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit and delves into minimalism, museum architecture and pluralism in the arts. Illustrations. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Nicholas Jenkins, New York Newsday
"Danto's richly digressive wit and learning keep us in tow. . . . In this period in which Art has evolved into Philosophy, Danto is producing a Criticism that at moments turns into a kind of Poetry."
Bruce Barcott, Seattle Weekly
"Rigorous, untrendy and wonderfully accessible . . . Danto [is] one of the most interesting and important critics of our time."
Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer
"[Danto is] the one contemporary thinker about art that every intellectual interested in the subject must read."
Book Description
In this collection of interconnected essays, Arthur C. Danto argues that Andy Warhol's Brillo Box of 1964 brought the established trajectory of Westen art to an end and gave rise to a pluralism which has changed the way art is made, perceived, and exhibited. Wonderfully illuminating and highly provocative, his essays explore how conceptions of artand resulting historical narrativesdiffer according to culture. They also grapple with the most challenging issues in art today, including censorship and state support of artists.
From the Back Cover
"Arthur Danto is the most radical writer on art in America (radical because his prose is clear, because he is indifferent to fashion, because he loves art." (Richard Sennett)
About the Author
Arthur C. Danto is Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and art critic for The Nation. Among his books are Playing with the Edge: The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe and Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present, both published by University of California Press. He was the winner of the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
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