CONTEMPRARY ABSURDITIES, EXISTENTIAL CRISES, AND VISUAL ART
(Coedited with Charlotte Kent)
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An edited collection consisting of essays and artworks by distinguished and emerging theorists, artists, and scholars. It explains how our contemporary moment is absurd and how absurdity is a useful, potentially radical tool within the contemporary.
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Some have called this an age of absurdity, and as such Contemporary Absurdities, Existential Crises, and Visual Art presents the contributions of artists, theorists, and scholars whose words and works investigate the absurd as a condition of, a tactic for, and a subject in the contemporary.
The absurd is a lens on the disturbances of our moment and a challenge to the propositions about and solutions for the world. The absurd shakes off the paralysis that what we know must be the only thing we (re)produce. Those willing to recognize that and confront it, rather than flee from it, are thereby introduced to the political writ large.
This edited collection adopts ideas and practices associated with the absurd to explain how the contemporary moment is absurd and how absurdity is a useful, potentially radical tool within the contemporary. Critical art allows the absurd a space within which audiences can observe their own tendencies and assumptions. The absurd in art reveals our inculcation into hegemonic belief structures and the necessity to question the systems to which we subscribe. Today we see the absurd in memes, performative politics, and art, expressing theconfusion and disorientation wrought by the endless, emerging crises of our 24/7 relations.
The absurd is a lens on the disturbances of our moment and a challenge to the propositions about and solutions for the world. The absurd shakes off the paralysis that what we know must be the only thing we (re)produce. Those willing to recognize that and confront it, rather than flee from it, are thereby introduced to the political writ large.
This edited collection adopts ideas and practices associated with the absurd to explain how the contemporary moment is absurd and how absurdity is a useful, potentially radical tool within the contemporary. Critical art allows the absurd a space within which audiences can observe their own tendencies and assumptions. The absurd in art reveals our inculcation into hegemonic belief structures and the necessity to question the systems to which we subscribe. Today we see the absurd in memes, performative politics, and art, expressing theconfusion and disorientation wrought by the endless, emerging crises of our 24/7 relations.
Published by Intellect Books
USD 149.95 | 284 pages | Aug 26, 2024
ISBN 9781789389067, Hardback, 244 x 170 mm, 35 b&w illus.
Contributors include: Adam Zaretsky, Andy Holden, Aroussiak Gabrielian, Bager Akbay, Carla Gannis, Charlotte Kent, Dave Ball, Graham Harman, Grant Bollmer, Jennifer Lyn Morone, Katherine Guinness, Maggie Hennefeld, Mary Mattingly, Mary Ann Caws, and the Janks Collective Archives (Jerstin Crosby, Ben Kinsley, and Jessica Langley)
Purchase from the publisher here
USD 149.95 | 284 pages | Aug 26, 2024
ISBN 9781789389067, Hardback, 244 x 170 mm, 35 b&w illus.
Contributors include: Adam Zaretsky, Andy Holden, Aroussiak Gabrielian, Bager Akbay, Carla Gannis, Charlotte Kent, Dave Ball, Graham Harman, Grant Bollmer, Jennifer Lyn Morone, Katherine Guinness, Maggie Hennefeld, Mary Mattingly, Mary Ann Caws, and the Janks Collective Archives (Jerstin Crosby, Ben Kinsley, and Jessica Langley)
Purchase from the publisher here