Utopia & Contemporary Art


Book Description

Utopia has become a controversial concept, spanning the field between the belief in an ideal society and the dystopian nightmare. Within the last decade, the contemporary art scene has witnessed a return of utopia and utopian thinking. Whether detectable as an impulse, critically reassessed as a concept, or cautiously or daringly articulated in a specific vision--utopia continues to matter. This publication investigates the meanings of utopia in contemporary art. Theorists, critics, and curators discuss the different ways of thinking and performing utopia in contemporary art from a broad range of angles. The essays explore the current relevance of utopia as well as how people in different societies live, think, act, and imagine. The two parts, Utopia Revisited and Utopian Positions, provide both a theoretical backdrop for the reformulations of utopia in contemporary art as well as examinations of specific utopian stances in connection with the three-year utopia project at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art and solo shows by Qiu Anxiong, Katharina Grosse, and Olafur Eliasson.




Utopia Post Utopia


Book Description

Much of the art and art theory of the 1980s has addressed the question Abigail Solomon-Godeau asks in her essay for this book: whether "the art object can carve a place for itself outside the determinations of the already-written, the already-seen, the sign." "Utopia Post Utopia" takes up the debate on this issue which has crystallized around the theoretical opposition between nature and culture, or more specifically the analysis of a nature (human and otherwise) which is culturally produced."Utopia Post Utopia" approaches the nature-culture opposition from both the point of view of the lingering nostalgia for an essential nature, as well as the aggressive replacement of "reality" with simulations of both the natural and man-made environment. It documents two shows: a sculptural installation conceived by Robert Gober including work by himself, Meg Webster, and Richard Prince; and an exhibition of photography by James Welling, Oliver Wasow, Dorit Cypis, Lorna Simpson, Jeff Wall, and Larry Johnson.In addition to Abigail Solomon-Godeau's contribution, essays by Fredric Jameson, Alice Jardine, Eric Michaud, Elisabeth Sussman and David Joselit critically examine such issues as the problematic nature of utopian impulses in recent art (Jameson); the question of authenticity (Jardine); the shifting relationship between the represented and real worlds (Michaud); the phenomenon of collaboration and ensemble in recent art production (Sussman); and meaning of photographic serialization and superimposition (Joselit).Distributed for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston where Elisabeth Sussman is Chief Curator and David Joselit Curator.




The Utopian Function of Art and Literature


Book Description

Essays in aesthetics by the philosopher Ernst Bloch that belong to the tradition of cultural criticism represented by Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. The aesthetic essays of the philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) belong to the rich tradition of cultural criticism represented by Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Bloch was a significant creative source for these thinkers, and his impact is nowhere more evident than in writings on art. Bloch was fascinated with art as a reflection of both social realities and human dreams. Whether he is discussing architecture or detective novels, the theme that drives his work is always the same—the striving for "something better," for a "homeland" that is more socially aware, more humane, more just. The book opens with an illuminating discussion between Bloch and Adorno on the meaning of utopia; then follow twelve essays written between 1930 and 1973 on topics such as aesthetic theory, genres such as music, painting, theater, film, opera, poetry, and the novel, and perhaps most important, popular culture in the form of fairy tales, detective stories, and dime novels. The MIT Press has previously published Ernst Bloch's Natural Law and Human Dignity and his magnum opus, The Principle of Hope. The Utopian Function of Art and Literature is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.




Utopia and Dissent


Book Description

"The most important study of art in California, particularly in terms of avant-garde activity around mid-century, that I am aware of."--Paul Karlstrom, Smithsonian Institution




Documents of Utopia


Book Description

1 Ruins of Utopia -- 2 Reinventing propaganda films -- 3 Archives of commodities -- 4 Digital Utopia in the post-internet age




To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art


Book Description

The definitive critical history of the new Cuban art.




The Struggle for Utopia


Book Description

. Focusing on the difficult relationship between art and social change, Margolin brings important new insights to our understanding of the avant-garde's role in a period of great political complexity.




Francesco Clemente


Book Description

Francesco Clemente's wide-eyed portraits and bold manipulations of images from art and popular culture have established him as one of today's foremost artists. Clemente continues to draw inspiration from a wide range of cultural sources in this, his most recent series, Nostalgia, Utopia, currently on display at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York.




Supercommunity


Book Description

Leading artists, theorists, and writers exhume the dystopian and utopian futures contained within the present “I am the supercommunity, and you are only starting to recognize me. I grew out of something that used to be humanity. Some have compared me to angry crowds in public squares; others compare me to wind and atmosphere, or to software.” Invited to exhibit at the 56th Venice Biennale, e-flux journal produced a single issue over a four-month span, publishing an article a day both online and on site from Venice. In essays, poems, short stories, and plays, artists and theorists trace the negative collective that is the subject of contemporary life, in which art, the internet, and globalization have shed their utopian guises but persist as naked power, in the face of apocalyptic ecological disaster and against the claims of the social commons. “I convert care to cruelty, and cruelty back to care. I convert political desires to economic flows and data, and then I convert them back again. I convert revolutions to revelations. I don’t want security, I want to leave, and then disperse myself everywhere and all the time.”




Dutch Utopia


Book Description

Showcasing more than seventy paintings from public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914 explores the work of forty-three American artists drawn to Holland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Escaping from the rapid urbanization of their time, these artists established colonies in six communities in the Netherlands—Dordrecht, Egmond, Katwijk, Laren, Rijsoord, and Volendam—with all but Dordrecht being small, preindustrial villages. Inspired by their pastoral surroundings as well as the great traditions of seventeenth-century Dutch art and the contemporary Hague school, these American artists created visions of Dutch society underpinned by a nostalgic yearning for a premodern way of life. Some even alluded to America’s own colonial Dutch heritage, exploring shared histories and cultural connections between the two countries. Organized by the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, Dutch Utopia examines the appeal of Holland for American artists during this period, through six pivotal themes: the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch painting; the impact of the contemporary Hague School; antimodernism and the American Progressive Movement; points of convergence in national identities; the proliferation of artist colonies in Holland; and the popular construction of “Dutchness” beyond the stereotypes of wooden shoes and windmills. Dutch Utopia includes works by artists who remain celebrated today, such as Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase, and John Singer Sargent, and by painters admired in their own time but less well-known now. These include accomplished women such as Elizabeth Nourse and Anna Stanley, as well as George Hitchcock, Gari Melchers, and Walter MacEwen, who built international reputations with Salon pictures of Dutch landscapes and costumed figures. These artists were among hundreds of Americans who traveled to the Netherlands between 1880 and 1914 to paint and to study. Some lived in Holland for decades, while others stayed only a week or two, but most passed quickly through the major cities to small rural communities, where they created picturesque idylls on canvas.