This interdisciplinary book investigates the various ways in which North American and European modern and contemporary artists, authors, and musicians have returned to earlier works of their own, engaging in inventive revivals and transformations of the past in the present. The book is distinctive in its focus on such revisits, as well as in the diversity of art forms under review: In addition to visual art, the book explores fiction, poetry, literary criticism, film, rock music, and philosophy. This scope, together with the time-span covered in the book, from the 1850s to the twenty-first century, allows for a broad view on retrospection and revision. The case studies presented here offer a diversified exploration of the widely different goals to which practitioners of the arts have made retrospection and revision functional against the background cultural, social, political, or personal forces and bring into view a wide range of artistic motivations.

Pursuing a new and timely line of research in world art studies, Humor in Global Contemporary Art is the first edited collection to thoroughly examine the role of culture-specific and transcultural humor in contemporary art from a global perspective. Since the 1960s, an increasing number of artists from across the world have applied humor in their work, often to ridicule ethical transgressions such as corruption, inequality, humiliation, greed, and abuse of power. Exploring the degree to which humor has played a role in art created from the 1960s onwards, its function as a cultural signifier, and the tensions that arise from the transcultural movement of art in different contexts, this book opens new conversations regarding the significant role that humor plays in politically and socially-engaged art. With an impressive array of global scholars, covering four major continental regions, the book moves through four distinct sections: Africa and the Middle East; Asia and Oceania; South and North America; and Europe, in turn highlighting the cultural specificity of each region. In these times of globalization and biennialization, when we are increasingly confronted with humorous art from a variety of cultures and countries, this book will provide readers with a culturally sensitive understanding of the ways in humor has become vital to many contemporary artists working in a globally-connected world.