Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century provides a unique and authoritative guide to modern responses to art. Featuring 48 essays on major twentieth-century writers and thinkers, and written by an international panel of expert contributors, it introduces readers to the key approaches and analytical tools of contemporary art study and debate, including iconography, formalism, Marxism, feminism, semiotics, Freudian psychoanalysis, object-relations theory, aesthetics, the psychology of perception, and deconstruction.
Each entry includes:
* a critical essay
* a short biography
* a bibliography listing both primary and secondary texts
Unique in its range and accessibly written, this book, together with its companion volume Key Writers on Art: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century, provides an invaluable guide for students as well as general readers with an interest in art history, aesthetics and visual culture.

Seeing the Apocalypse: Essays on Bird Box is the first volume to explore Josh Malerman's best-selling novel and its recent film adaptation, which broke streaming records and became a cultural touchstone, emerging as a staple in the genre of contemporary horror. The essays in this collection offer an interdisciplinary approach to Bird Box, one that draws on the fields of gender studies, cultural studies, and disability studies. The contributors examine how Bird Box provokes questions about a range of issues including the human body and its existence in the world, the ethical obligations that shape community, and the anxieties arising from technological development. Taken together, the essays of this volume show how a critical examination of Bird Box offers readers a guide for thinking through human experience in our own troubled, apocalyptic times.

The New Cinematic Weird argues that weird fiction is rising also in audiovisual culture. Presenting several detailed analyses of weird cinematic works, the book shows how the new cinematic weird is best understood as atmospheric worldings - affective intensities that suffuse the experience of the cinematic weird. The weird exists as an experiential field, an inflation of the world. These worldings disclose a variety of experiences. The book engagingly shows how creepy, unsettling, ominous, uneasy, and eerie atmospheres provide a way into the weird experience. This book is important to anyone interested in the audiovisual weird, cinematic atmospheres, how audiovisual media produce worlds, and how weird fiction challenges our conception of the way the world is.

This book examines Shyam Benegal's films and alternative image(s) of India in his cinema, and traces the trajectory of changing aesthetics of his cinema in the post-liberalisation era. The book engages with the challenges faced by India as a nation-state in post-colonial times. Looking at hybrid and complex narratives of films like Manthan, Junoon, Kalyug, Charandas Chor, Sooraj Ka Satvaan Ghoda, Zubeidaa and Well Done Abba , among others, it analyses how these stories and characters, adapted and derived from mythology, folk-tales, historical fiction and novels, are rooted in the socio-political contexts of modern India. The author explores diverse themes in Benegal's cinema such as the loss of home and identity, women's sexuality, and the status of dalits and Muslims in India. He also focuses on how the filmmaker expertly weaves history with myth, culture, and contemporary politics and discusses the debate around the interpretive value of film adaptations, adaptation of history and the representations of marginalised communities and liminal spaces. The book will be useful for students and researchers of film studies, cultural studies, and the humanities. It will also interest readers of Indian cinema and the social and cultural history of India.

This book analyzes practices of collecting in European art museums from 1989 to the present, arguing that museums actualize absence both consciously and unconsciously, while misrepresentation is an outcome of the absent perspectives and voices of minority community members which are rarely considered in relation to contemporary art. Difficult knowledge is proposed as a way of dealing with absence productively. Drawing on social art history, museology, postcolonial theory, and memory studies, Margaret Tali analyzes the collections of four modern and contemporary art museums across Europe: the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, and the Kumu Museum in Tallinn.

Identity and Diversity in New Music: The New Complexities aims to enrich the discussion of how musicians and educators can best engage with audiences, by addressing issues of diversity and identity that have played a vital role in the reception of new music, but have been little-considered to date. Marilyn Nonken offers an innovative theoretical approach that considers how the environments surrounding new music performances influence listeners' experiences, drawing on work in ecological psychology. Using four case studies of influential new music ensembles from across the twentieth century, she considers how diversity arises in the musical environment, its impact on artists and creativity, and the events and engagement it makes possible. Ultimately, she connects theory to practice with suggestions for how musicians and educators can make innovative music environments inclusive.

Peter Harrop offers a reappraisal of mummers' plays, which have long been regarded as a form of 'folk' or 'traditional' drama, somehow separate from the mainstream of British theatre. This fresh view of folk and tradition explores how mummers' plays emerged in an 18th century theatrical environment of popular spouting clubs and private theatricals, yet quickly transformed into 'traditionary' drama with echoes of an ancient past. Harrop suggests that by the late 19th century the plays had been appropriated by antiquarians and folklorists, leaving mummer's plays as a strangely separate and categorised form. This book considers how that happened, and the ways in which these late 19th century ideas were absorbed into the mummers' plays, providing a new lease of life for them in the 20th and 21st centuries. Ideal for anyone with a specialised interest in this unique form, Mummers' Plays Revisited spans recent work in theatre history, performance studies and folklore to offer a comprehensive and engaging study.

Originally published in 2003, Charles Edward Horn's Memoirs of His Father and Himself is an annotated collection of the memoirs of Charles Edward Horn. They include an account of Horn's father, Charles Frederick Horn, who arrived penniless in London in 1782 and rose to become music master to Queen Charlotte. Today he is most remembered for his pioneering publications of J.S. Bach's music in England. Charles Edward Horn's memoir covers his activities in England and Ireland and provide numerous details of English musical life in the Georgian era not previously known to scholars. They are supplemented in this book by transcripts of four other autobiographical accounts of the Horns, a summary of their extant correspondence and a chronology of their activities.

In comparison with Literary Studies and Media and Film Studies, the disciplines of Theatre and Performance, with their strong anthropocentric heritage, have been relatively slow in responding to such things as climate change, species extinction, or pollution and toxicity etc. However, in the wake of recent work on animals, cyborgs, and objects, as well as publications with a specific focus on ecology and environment, there are real signs that theatre and performance scholars are beginning to make their own contribution to the Environmental Humanities. But if theatre critics are engaged in new forms of ecocritical analysis, it is worth posing a pertinent question from the outset: namely, what can theatre do ecologically? In this book, leading researchers and practitioners seek to answer that question from a number of perspectives and with diverse methodologies. Topics include: reflections on rehearsal processes, scores for performance, site-based interventions, ideas of conflict, investigations of temporality and time ecology, ecospectating, and the experience of disappointment. Taken together, these essays make an important intervention in the emergent (inter)disciplines of the Environmental Humanities and further our understanding of the ecological potential of Theatre and Performance in ways that are cautious, tentative but also generative. This book was originally published as a special issue of Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism.

This volume is a collection of five Sinhala plays, translated into English, which were written and performed during the most violent phase of modern Sri Lankan history. Ranjini Obeyesekere's translation of these five well-known and celebrated plays by K. B. Herath, Prasannajith Abeysuriya, Dhananjaya Karunarathne, Prasanna Jayakody and Rajitha Dissanayake highlights and explores the dynamic period of Sri Lankan theater and performance arts in the 1980s and 1990s. The plays in this collection offered a political space for criticism, introspection, discussion and protest during a time of suppression of voices, political violence and terror. Audiences flocked to the theater to watch plays produced by talented dramatists and artists who were experimenting with forms and themes under extremely challenging circumstances, shoe-string budgets and strict censorship. Kanchuka Dharmasiri's introduction to the volume further details the history and socio-political contexts of the theater of this period, discussing themes such as dissent, identity and the brutal power of the state. She also looks at the unique formal elements employed in these plays as well as their influence and reach. This volume is a significant addition to the growing corpus of Sinhala literature in translation. It will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of literature, performance studies, cultural studies, and the politics and history of Sri Lanka.

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971 examines the beginnings of Ono's extensive career, demonstrating her pioneering role in visual art, performance and music during the 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition begins in New York in December 1960, where Ono initiated a performance series with La Monte Young in her Chambers Street loft. Over the course of the decade, Ono earned international recognition, staging Cut Piece in Tokyo and Kyoto in 1964, exhibiting at the Indica Gallery in London in 1966, and launching her global War is Over! campaign in 1969. Ono returned to New York in the early 1970s and organized an unsanctioned `one woman show' at The Museum of Modern Art. Over forty years after Ono's unofficial MoMA debut, the Museum will present its first exhibition dedicated exclusively to the artist's work. The publication evaluates the broader cultural context of Ono's early work and features five sections reflecting her geographic locations during this period and the corresponding evolution of her artistic practice. Each chapter includes an introduction written by a guest scholar, artwork descriptions, new interviews with key figures from the time, and a selection of primary documents culled from newspapers, magazines and journals.

Theatre and Performance in East Africa looks at indigenous performances to unearth the aesthetic principles, sensibilities and critical framework that underpin African performance and theatre. The book develops new paradigms for thinking about African performance in general through the construction of a critical framework that addresses questions concerning performance particularities and coherences, challenging previous understandings. To this end, it establishes a common critical and theoretical framework for indigenous performance using case studies from East Africa that are also reflected elsewhere in the continent. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and performance, especially those with an interest in the close relationship between theatre and performance with culture.

Scenography and Art History reimagines scenography as a critical concept for art history, and is the first book to demonstrate the importance and usefulness of this concept for art historians and scholars in related fields. It provides a vital evaluation of the contemporary importance of scenography as a critical tool for art historians and scholars from related branches of study addressing phenomena such as witchy designs, Early Modern festival books, live rock performances, digital fashion photography, and outdoor dance interventions. With its nuanced and detailed case studies, this book is an innovative contribution to ongoing debates within art history and visual studies concerning multisensory events. It extends the existing literature by demonstrating the importance of a reimagined scenography concept for comprehending historical and contemporary art histories and visual cultures more broadly. The book contends that scenography is no longer restricted to the traditional space of the theatre, but has become an important concept for approaching art historical and contemporary objects and events. It explores scenography not solely as a critical approach and theoretical concept, but also as an important practice linked with unrecognized labour and broader political, social and gendered issues in a great variety of contexts, such as festive culture, sacred settings, fashion, film, or performing arts. Designed as a key resource for students, teachers and researchers in art history, visual studies, and related subjects, the book, through its cross-disciplinary frame, does consider, implicitly and explicitly, the roles of both scenography and art in society.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays brings together scholars in the fields of art history, theatre, visual culture, and literature to explore intersections between the European avant-garde (c. 1880–1945) and themes of health and hygiene, such as illness, contagion, cleanliness, and contamination. Examining the artistic oeuvres of some of the canonical names of modern art – including Edgar Degas, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, George Orwell, Marcel Duchamp, and Antonin Artaud – this book investigates instances where the heightened political, social, and cultural currencies embedded within issues of hygiene and contagion have been mobilised, and subversively exploited, to fuel the critical strategy at play. This edited volume promotes an interdisciplinary and socio-historically contextualised understanding of the criticality of the avant-garde gesture and cultivates scholarship that moves beyond the limits of traditional academic subjects to produce innovative and thought-provoking connections and interrelations across various fields. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, literature, theatre, cultural studies, modern history, medical humanities, and visual culture.

Great works of art cannot be fully understood in a single encounter: to revisit and reconsider art again and again throughout one's life is to be richly rewarded with an ever-deepening appreciation and insight. Similar benefits come from analysing a work of painting, sculpture or installation in detail. Modern Art in Detail: 75 Masterpieces spotlights the finer points that even connoisseurs may miss, casting light upon minutiae that a quick glance will almost certainly fail to reveal. These include subtle internal details, and the technical tricks employed by the artist to achieve particular effects. The book also looks at the themes and external and personal factors influencing the creation of an artwork - everything from global political events, to groundbreaking movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Primitivism, and even scientific and mathematical theories, which are often of great relevance. The book examines 75 works of modern art, from Vincent van Gogh's The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), to Paula Rego's Visions (2015) , deftly charting the shift from the supremacy of artistic technique to the more recent dominance of the idea (or concept) behind the artwork itself.

Digital artist Zheng Wei Gu (AKA Guweiz) shares his anime-inspired world in this beautifully produced and insightful book, leading you through his fantasy world with a portfolio packed with gritty detail and a surreal vibe. Guweiz began drawing when he was 17, inspired by an anime art tutorial on YouTube. Discovering a natural talent, he carried on drawing and quickly amassed a fan-base for his edgy illustration style. Throughout this book, readers will discover his artistic journey from the very beginning, with behind-the-scenes details about how some of his most popular pieces were created. He reveals his secrets for turning influences into truly original digital art, including that all-important narrative that takes drawing and painting beyond the purely visual. Step-by-step tutorials share techniques and tips to help you create these sorts of effects in your art, resulting in images with the depth of detail and intrigue that Guweiz has made his trademark. The artist's unique urban take on the popular manga/anime style is gripping right from the first page, from the surreal take on Japanese lifestyle to the urban fantasy he creates.

Shio Kusaka’s ceramic vessels articulate poetic connections, creating a cohesive and unique installation. ---------- “It’s a striking effect—some pieces are bowl-shaped, others are cylindrical, a few have slim, sloping necks. Their linear arrangement suggests some kind of progression through time and space.” — Document Journal ----------- While pulling inspiration and techniques from ancient Japanese ceramics as well as from popular culture and everyday life, Kusaka carves new language into her artwork. Employing various types of clay and firing methods, she experiments with line, color, and size to bring fresh life to the medium. This harmonious presentation is created from individual pieces and thematic groupings, resulting in an extraordinary, unified installation to be experienced in the round. Created in close collaboration with the artist and with many detail images, this book provides a deep dive into Kusaka’s incredible work one light year. Published after Kusaka’s hugely successful exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, in 2022, this catalogue studies her singular installation from all angles. A text by Kusaka illuminates her working process and provides unique insight into this particular work.

This book provides the first comprehensive study of Anthony Neilson's unconventional rehearsal methodology. Neilson's notably collaborative rehearsal process affords an unusual amount of creative input to the actors he works with and has garnered much interest from scholars and practitioners alike. This study analyses material edited from 100 hours of footage of the rehearsals of Neilson's 2013 play Narrative at the Royal Court Theatre, as well as interviews with Neilson himself, the Narrative cast and actors from other Neilson productions. Replete with case studies, Gary Cassidy also considers the work of other relevant practitioners where appropriate, such as Katie Mitchell, Forced Entertainment, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Complicite's Simon McBurney, Stanislavski and Sarah Kane. Contemporary Rehearsal Practice will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners of theatre and performance and those who have an interest in rehearsal studies.

This book explores the concept of playmaking and activism through three research projects in which culturally and linguistically diverse high school students and young adults created original theatre around the issues that inform their lives and constrain their futures. Each study discussed by the author is considered through the lens of one or more best practices. The outcomes of the playmaking experiences, communicated through detailed ethnographic data and the voices of student participants, make a strong case for using what we already know about teaching to positively impact gross inequities of outcome for culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners in Applied Theatre, Theatre Education, and Art Therapy.

Drawing is not a crime! (TM) The bold and brash ARTtitude is back with another look at some of the most iconic and unusual artists of the moment. Representing countries as far-reaching and distinct as Colombia, Germany, Canada, Italy, France, and the U.S. (to name a few), the 36 international artists featured in this collection reveal the richness and diversity of contemporary graphic arts. The artists again pay tribute to the muses of their creativity, with appreciative nods to their predecessors and track lists of the music that inspires their work. ARTtitude 2 highlights some of the unique and diverse artists working today: Amanda Mocci, Jim Phillips, Conrad Roset, Cricket Press, Robert Proch, Ron Guyatt, T-Bone & Ajax, The Arcade Company, and many more.

Art Deco style, with its modern forms, rich colors, and brilliant glazes, appeared on the scene by 1910, exploded into great heights of popularity by 1925, and remained popular throughout the 1930s. In 475 brilliant color images worthy of the movement, the Art Deco decorated porcelains from Limoges, France, are displayed. While centering on the work of the talented artist Camille Tharaud, examples from Robj, Edouard Marcel Sandoz, Suzanne Lalique, and Royal Limoges are also included. Among the wares presented are over 500 delicate vases, tea sets, figurines, covered boxes and bowls, plates, and night lights. Additionally, Art Deco patterns and company names, direct from the pattern books of Gerard, Dufraisseix, Abbot, are on display.\nThe detailed text provides an indepth look at Camille Tharaud and his work, with an extensive bibliography, and index. Value ranges for the wares displayed are found in the captions.

This monograph traces the history of Kazakh filmmaking from its conception as a Soviet cultural construction project to its peak as fully-fledged national cinema to its eventual re-imagining as an art-house phenomenon. The author's analysis places leading directors-Shaken Aimanov, Abdulla Karsakbaev, Sultan-Akhmet Khodzhikov, Mazhit Begalin-in their sociopolitical and cultural context.

Part of the series Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies, this book focuses on the concepts that recur in any discussion of nature, culture and society among the indigenous. This final volume in the five-volume series deals with the two key concepts of performance and knowledge of the indigenous people from all continents of the world. With contributions from renowned scholars, activists and experts across the globe, it looks at issues and ideas of the indigenous peoples in the context of imagination, creativity, performance, audience, arts, music, dance, oral traditions, aesthetics and beauty in North America, South America, Australia, East Asia and India from cultural, historical and aesthetic points of view. Bringing together academic insights and experiences from the ground, this unique book, with its wide coverage, will serve as a comprehensive guide for students, teachers and scholars of indigenous studies. It will be essential reading for those in social and cultural anthropology, tribal studies, sociology and social exclusion studies, cultural studies, media studies and performing arts, literary and postcolonial studies, religion and theology, politics, Third World and Global South studies, as well as activists working with indigenous communities.