This catalog explores the psychological and social implications
contained in the hybrid creatures and fantastic scenarios created
by contemporary artists whose works will appear in the exhibition
"Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, " which opens
at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts in February 2012.
Curator Mark Scala's introductory essay focuses on anthropomorphism
in the mythology, folklore, and art of many cultures as it
contrasts with the dominant Western view of human exceptionalism.
Scala also provides an art historical context, linking the visual
fabulists of today to artists of the Romantic, Symbolist, and
Surrealist periods who sought to transcend oppositions such as
rationality and intuition, fear and desire, the physical and the
spiritual.
Discussing how artists adapt traditional stories to give mythic
form to the very real dilemmas of contemporary life, Jack Zipes's
"Fairy-Tale Collisions" centers on Paula Rego, Kiki Smith, and
Cindy Sherman. From a generation of women who have attained
prominence since the 1980s, these artists alter fairy-tale imagery
to subvert or rewrite social roles and codes.
In "Metamorphosis of the Monstrous," Marina Warner discusses
works in the exhibition in the context of historical conceptions of
monsters as expressions of alterity, bestiality, or sinfulness. Her
reminder that contemporary monster images offer "a promise and a
warning about the variety, heterogeneity, and possible combinations
and recombinations in the order of things" sets the stage for
Suzanne Anker's essay, punningly titled "The Extant Vamp (or the)
Ire of It All: Fairy Tales and Genetic Engineering." Considering
representations of hybrid bodies by Patricia Piccinini, Janaina
Tschape, Saya Woolfalk, and others, which evoke imagined beings of
the past as a way to envision the recombinant creatures that may
lie in the future, Anker shows how artists explore the social,
ethical, and future implications of biological design and enhanced
evolution.
Accompanying an exhibition of contemporary art in which
depictions of marvelous creatures and fantastic narratives provide
both chills and delights, the essays in "Fairy Tales, Monsters, and
the Genetic Imagination" explore the meaning of this fabulist
revival through the lenses of social and art history, literature,
feminism, animal studies, and science.
General
Imprint: |
Vanderbilt University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
February 2012 |
First published: |
February 2012 |
Editors: |
Mark W Scala
|
Dimensions: |
279 x 241 x 10mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
160 |
Edition: |
New |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8265-1814-9 |
Categories: |
Books >
Arts & Architecture >
The arts: general issues >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8265-1814-1 |
Barcode: |
9780826518149 |
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