Art and Subjecthood: The Return of the Human Figure in Semiocapitalism - Softcover

Ina Blom; Oliver Brokel; Caroline Busta; Stefan Deines; Hal Foster; Stefanie Heraeus; Jutta Koether

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1934105759 ISBN 13: 9781934105757

Publisher: Sternberg Press, 2011

Synopsis

Many contemporary artworks evoke the human figure: consider the omnipresence of the mannequin in current installations of artists like John Miller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Heimo Zobernig, or David Lieske. Or consider the revival of a minimalist vocabulary, which embraces anthropomorphism as in the works of Isa Genzken and Rachel Harrison. This book brings together contributions from the eponymous conference, all of which seek to speculate on the reasons as to why, since the turn of the millennium, we have encountered so many artworks that tend to reconcile Minimalism with suggestions of the human figure. It proposes that this new artistic convention becomes rather questionable when discussed in the light of Franco Berardi's theory of semiocapitalism―a power technology that aims squarely at our human resources. The participants of this conference were asked to offer possible explanations for this wide acceptance of anthropomorphism―could it be that this is a manifestation of the increasingly desperate desire for art to have agency?

Contributors
Ina Blom, Oliver Brokel, Caroline Busta, Stefan Deines, Hal Foster, Stefanie Heraeus, Jutta Koether, Magdalena Nieslony, Michael Sanchez

Institut für Kunstkritik Series

About this title

About the Author:

Daniel Birnbaum is a Swedish art critic, theoretician, and curator. He was the director of the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Stockholm from 2010 to 2018, and currently directs the VR company, Acute Art.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sternberg Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1934105759
• ISBN 13: 9781934105757
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 98
• Editor: Isabelle Graw, Daniel Birnbaum, Nikolaus Hirsch