Discipline and Varnish: Rhetoric, Subjectivity, and Counter-Memory in the Museum (Hermeneutics of Art)

Patin, Thomas

ISBN 10: 0820438065 / ISBN 13: 9780820438061

Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc, New York, 1999

About this Item

Two small nicks to the lower spine area, else a clean and tight hardcover. The book's interior and text are clean and unmarked; unused. 157pp. With bibliography and index.

Seller Inventory # 008105

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Discipline and Varnish: Rhetoric, Subjectivity, and Counter-Memory in the Museum (Hermeneutics of Art)
• Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing Inc, New York
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0820438065
• ISBN 13: 9780820438061
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: None issued

About this title

Synopsis

The Museum of Modern Art in New York combines the rhetoric of modernist domestic architecture, formalist art theory, and modernist museology in its exhibition spaces. Discipline and Varnish investigates how this combination of rhetorical devices has produced not only a persuasive understanding of the history of modernist art, but also a set of «subjectivity effects» that uses the formalist notion of «autonomy» as a powerful model for subjectivity. However, MOMA's rhetoric of display eventually contradicts its three-dimensional discourse on art and aesthetics, undermining the museum's model for subjectivity as well. This study ends with a look at possible alternative relations between museology and subjectivity through analyses of the Wexner Center for the Arts and the plans for the National Museum of the American Indian.

About the Author

The Author: Thomas Patin is Assistant Professor of Art History at Ohio University. He received his Ph.D. in Art History at the University of Washington, Seattle. He was awarded the College Art Association's Professional Development Fellowship in American Art for 1995-1997. In addition to numerous articles about art and architecture and reviews of contemporary art, he co-authored Art Words: A Glossary of Contemporary Art Theory.