Capacity: History, the World, and the Self in Contemporary Art and Criticism (Critical Voices in Art, Theory, & Culture Series,Vol 1) - Softcover

Thomas McEvilley; G. Roger Denson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9057010410 ISBN 13: 9789057010415

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

First Published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

About this title

About the Author:

Thomas McEvilley is a professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he heads the department of Art Criticism and Writing. Previously, he taught at Rice University in Houston, Texas. McEvilley holds a Ph.D. in classical philology. In addition to Greek and Latin, he has studied Sanskrit and has taught numerous courses on Greek and Indian culture, history of religion and philosophy, and art. He has published countless scholarly monographs and articles on early Greek poetry, philosophy, and religion, including the monumental study, The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (2002).
G. Roger Denson brings singular insight to Thomas McEvilley's writings. As a cultural critic who contributed to ART IN AMERICA, PARKETT, ARTSCRIBE, Duke University's CULTURAL POLITICS and HUFFINGTON POST, he has explored similar territory as McEvilley, but from the point of view of a nomadic ideologist. His approach matches that of his subject. He addresses the issues of pragmatism, historicism, and cultural relativism. In so doing, he effectively dismantles the need to establish a master narrative. The contrast and agreement between these two writers constitutes a mapping of the terrain of contemporary culture.

Review:

"McEvilley explores the idea that painting is in trouble not because formalism is dead (its philosophical bases are continually being reexamined), but because of [Clement] Greenberg's association of formalism with a Eurocentric tradition that falsely claims universality and eternal relevance. Indeed, the purpose of the essays reprinted in this anthology is not to kill off painting and sculpture and the transcendental beliefs associated with them, but to demonstrate the relativism of form and content, and of all aesthetic judgments about form and content. Mcvilley argues that art that is non-representational or art that lacks clear representations of objects and figures in them "may still be representational of structures of thought, political tensions, psychological attitudes."

"The unusual antiphonal structure of the book proves to be an interesting as well as novel way to reframe and 'add value' to previously published material. G. Roger Denson, a curator and critic who is McEvilley's commentator throughout the book, perceptively analyzes the relativist atitude. Denson's observations provide a particular edge to McEvilley's critique of Clement Greenberg's determinist interpretation of painting's evolution toward flatness. Exposing Greenberg's myopia toward ancient and non-Western cultures, he points out that 'In extending Greenberg's historicism and avant-garde logically in space and time, McEvilley takes us to societies that were the originators--the true avant-garde--of flat painting." -- Michelle C. Cone, Art Journal, College Art Association.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 9057010410
• ISBN 13: 9789057010415
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256