Brutal Aesthetics - Dubuffet, Bataille, Jorn, Paolozzi, Oldenburg (Hardcover)

How artists created an aesthetic of "positive barbarism" in a world devastated by World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb In Brutal Aesthetics, leading art historian Hal Foster explores how postwar artists and writers searched for a new foundation of culture after the massive devastation of World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb. Inspired by the notion that modernist art can teach us how to survive a civilization become barbaric, Foster examines the various ways that key figures from the early 1940s to the early 1960s sought to develop a "brutal aesthetics" adequate to the destruction around them. With a focus on the philosopher Georges Bataille, the painters Jean Dubuffet and Asger Jorn, and the sculptors Eduardo Paolozzi and Claes Oldenburg, Foster investigates a manifold move to strip art down, or to reveal it as already bare, in order to begin again. What does Bataille seek in the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux? How does Dubuffet imagine an art brut, an art unscathed by culture? Why does Jorn populate his paintings with "human animals"? What does Paolozzi see in his monstrous figures assembled from industrial debris? And why does Oldenburg remake everyday products from urban scrap? A study of artistic practices made desperate by a world in crisis, Brutal Aesthetics is an intriguing account of a difficult era in twentieth-century culture, one that has important implications for our own. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

General

Imprint:	Princeton University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Bollingen Series
Release date:	November 2020
First published:	2020
Authors:	Hal Foster
Dimensions:	260 x 191 x 26mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Trade binding
Pages:	296
ISBN-13:	978-0-691-20260-0
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > The arts: general issues > Theory of art Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > Popular culture Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > From 1900 > Art styles, 1960 - > Pop art
LSN:	0-691-20260-5
Barcode:	9780691202600

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