A different set of purposes define culture today than those that preoccupied the world in the immediate decades of decolonization. Focusing on art and music in diverse parts of the world, Daniel Herwitz explores a world that has largely shifted from the earlier days of nationalism, decolonization and cultural exclusion, to one of global markets and networks. Using examples from India and Mexico to South Africa, Australia and China, Herwitz argues that the cultural politics and art being produced in these places are now post- postcolonial. Where the postcolonial downplayed formerly Eurocentric forms and celebrated art with national consciousness, the rules for 21st century cultural authenticity are quickly disappearing. Young people think of themselves in relation to global culture rather than nation-¬-building; the project of producing a new and modern art for the incipient and rising postcolonial nation is out of date. By examining the shift in which art accesses the past and the rise of trends such as hitching consumer culture to celebrity forms and branding, Herwitz's original and engaging exploration of contemporary art captures the ways in which art has given way to a new form of production, altering everything from the role of tradition and heritage in contemporary art to the terms of its vision and circulation.
Visual art has a ubiquitous political cast today. But which politics? Daniel Herwitz seeks clarity on the various things meant by politics, and how we can evaluate their presumptions or aspirations in contemporary art. Drawing on the work of William Kentridge, drenched in violence, race, and power, and the artworld immolations of Banksy, Herwitz's examples range from the NEA 4 and the question of offense-as-dissent, to the community driven work of George Gittoes, the identity politics of contemporary American art and (for contrast with the power of visual media) literature written in dialogue with truth commissions. He is interested in understanding art practices today in the light of two opposing inheritances: the avant-gardes and their politicization of the experimental art object, and 18th-century aesthetics, preaching the autonomy of the art object, which he interprets as the cultural compliment to modern liberalism. His historically-informed approach reveals how crucial this pair of legacies is to reading the tensions in voice and character of art today. Driven by questions about the capacity of the visual medium to speak politically or acquire political agency, this book is for anyone working in aesthetics or the art world concerned with the fate of cultural politics in a world spinning out of control, yet within reach of emancipation.
The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history. Yet the postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny. Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. In this absorbing book, he travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.
A meditation on the lessons to be learned from South Africa's transformation in the wake of apartheid. Justice, truth, and identity; race, society, and law--all come into dramatic play as South Africa makes the tumultuous transition to a post-apartheid democracy. Seeking the timeless through the timely and trying to find the deeper meaning in the sweep of events, Daniel Herwitz brings the vast resources of the philosophical essay to bear on the new realities of post-apartheid South Africa--from racial identity to truth commissions, from architecture to film and television. A public intellectual's reflections on public life, Herwitz's essays question how the new South Africa has constructed its concepts of reconciliation and return and how its historical emergence has meant a rethinking, reimagining, reexperiencing, relabeling, and repoliticizing of race. Herwitz's purpose is to give a philosophical reading of society--a society already relying on implicitly philosophical concepts in its social and political agendas. Working through these concepts, testing their relevance for reading society, his book itself becomes a part of the politics of definition and description in the new South Africa.
New arts created in the context of new social realities are impacting our traditional ideas about aesthetics. Art, art markets and aesthetics now interact in ways that demand new forms of thought and revision of old. Cosmopolitan Aesthetics presents the first thorough account of the challenges facing aesthetics today in the light of globalization, introducing the history that underpins them. This is an ideal starting point for anyone looking to better understand 21st century art and aesthetics. Beginning with globalization and the nature of global art markets today, Daniel Herwitz offers new insight into postcolonial aesthetics, colonial legacies, cultural property, the problems of global communication and aesthetic diversity, and the uneasy connection between aesthetics and politics, before providing a crucial grounding in 18th and 19th century aesthetics, with discussion of the three great modern aestheticians David Hume, Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel.
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophical thought that arises from deep engagement with the arts. It is about larger issues such as meaning, identity, and medium that arise in the exploration of art, music, film and literature. Aesthetics: Key Concepts in Philosophy offers a thorough, lucid and stimulating account of the central theories and ideas encountered in aesthetics. The text is thematically structured, covering the discipline's principal concepts: taste, aesthetic judgment, aesthetic experience, and the definition of art. It includes an overview of the history of aesthetics and guides the reader through the work of all major philosophers who have engaged with aesthetics.
Princess Diana, Jackie O, Grace Kelly-the star icon is the most talked about yet least understood persona. The object of adoration, fantasy, and cult obsession, the star icon is a celebrity, yet she is also something more: a dazzling figure at the center of a media pantomime that is at once voyeuristic and zealously guarded. With skill and humor, Daniel Herwitz pokes at the gears of the celebrity-making machine, recruiting a philosopher's interest in the media, an eye for society, and a love of popular culture to divine our yearning for these iconic figures and the role they play in our lives. Herwitz portrays the star icon as caught between transcendence and trauma. An effervescent being living on a distant, exalted planet, the star icon is also a melodramatic heroine desperate to escape her life and the ever-watchful eye of the media. The public buoys her up and then eagerly watches her fall, her collapse providing a satisfying conclusion to a story sensationally told-while leaving the public yearning for a rebirth. Herwitz locates this double life in the opposing tensions of film, television, religion, and consumer culture, offering fresh perspectives on these subjects while ingeniously mapping society's creation (and destruction) of these special aesthetic stars. Herwitz has a soft spot for popular culture yet remains deeply skeptical of public illusion. He worries that the media distances us from even minimal insight into those who are transfigured into star icons. It also blinds us to the shaping of our political present.
New social realities and changes in contemporary art are impacting our traditional ideas about aesthetics. Art, art markets and aesthetics now interact in ways that demand new forms of thought. 'Cosmopolitan Aesthetics' presents the first thorough account of the challenges facing aesthetics today, introducing the history that underpins them. This is an ideal starting point for anyone looking to better understand 21st century aesthetics and art. Not only does Daniel Herwitz show how aesthetics was born as a series of philosophical positions on taste, beauty and the sublime, he explains what a global world means for aesthetics.
Artists and critics regularly enlist theory in the creation and assessment of artworks, but few have scrutinized the art theories themselves. Here, Daniel examines and critiques the norms, assumptions, historical conditions, and institutions that have framed the development and uses of art theory. Spurred by the theoretical claims of Arthur Danto, a leader in the philosophy of the avant-garde, Herwitz reexamines the art and theory of major figures in the avant-garde movement including John Cage, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Andy Warhol.
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophical thought that arises from engagement with the arts. It is about larger issues, such as meaning, identity, and medium, that arise in the exploration of art, music, film and literature. Aesthetics: Key Concepts in Philosophy offers a thorough, lucid and stimulating account of the central theories and ideas encountered in aesthetics. The text is thematically structured, covering the discipline's principal concepts: taste, aesthetic judgment, aesthetic experience and the definition of art. Ideal for students across the arts and humanities, the book stresses.
Artists and critics regularly enlist theory in the creation and assessment of artworks, but few have scrutinized the art theories themselves. Here, Daniel examines and critiques the norms, assumptions, historical conditions, and institutions that have framed the development and uses of art theory. Spurred by the theoretical claims of Arthur Danto, a leader in the philosophy of the avant-garde, Herwitz reexamines the art and theory of major figures in the avant-garde movement including John Cage, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Andy Warhol.
Artists and critics regularly enlist theory in their creation and assessment of artworks, but few have scrutinized the art theories themselves. Making Theory/Constructing Art: On the Authority of the Avant-Garde is among the first philosophical texts to provide a close encounter with this theoretical tendency in twentieth-century art and aesthetics, exploring the norms, assumptions, historical conditions, and institutions that have framed the development and uses of theory in art. In a series of intricate readings of constructivism, Mondrian, and John Cage, Daniel Herwitz outlines the avant-garde's belief that theory can perfectly prefigure the avant-garde art object and invest it with utopian force. Through similarly insightful treatments of Arthur Danto, Andy Warhol, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and postmodern art and theory, Herwitz demonstrates how the contemporary art world is heir to the avant-garde's theoretical assumptions and practices. In fact, avant-garde art objects live as art only by partly resisting the master theories of their makers and interpreters. Skillfully resisting the lure of grand theory himself, Herwitz urges the art world to be more self-critical and self-reflective about its uses of theory. Making Theory/Constructing Art is as accessible and entertainingly written as it is philosophically incisive. Since the book is both a philosophical and a cultural encounter with theory in twentieth-century art, it will engage all those who have tried to grapple with the inscrutability of the theoretical art muse.
Breaking the Bronze Ceiling uncovers a glaring omission in our global memorial landscape—the conspicuous absence of women. Exploring this neglected narrative, the book emerges as the foremost guide to women's memorialization across diverse cultures and ages. As global memorials come under intense examination, with metropolises vying for a more inclusive recognition of female contributions, this book stands at the forefront of contemporary discussion. The book’s thought-provoking essays artfully traverse the complex terrains of gender portrayal, urban tales, ancestral practices, and grassroots activism—all anchored in the bedrock of cultural remembrance. Rich in the range of cases discussed, the book sifts through multifaceted representations of women, from Marians to Liberties, to handmaidens, to particular historical women. Breaking the Bronze Ceiling offers a panoramic view of worldwide memorials, critically analyzing grandiose tributes while also honoring subtle gestures—be it evocative plaques, inspiring namesakes, or dynamic demonstrations. The book will be of interest to historians of art and architecture, as well as to activists, governmental bodies, urban planners, and NGOs committed to regional history and memory. More than a mere compilation, Breaking the Bronze Ceiling epitomizes a movement. The book comprehensively assesses the portrayal of women in public art and offers a fervent plea to address the severe underrepresentation of women in memorials. Contributors: Carolina Aguilera, Manuela Badilla, Daniel E. Coslett, Erika Doss, Tania Gutiérrez-Monroy, Daniel Herwitz, Katherine Hite, Lauren Kroiz, Ana María León, Fernando Luis Martínez Nespral, Pía Montealegre, Sierra Rooney, Daniela Sandler, Kirk Savage, Susan Slyomovics, Marita Sturken, Amanda Su, Dell Upton, Nathaniel Robert Walker, and Mechtild Widrich
The postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the 18th and 19th centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny. This book reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked by examining situations in South Africa, India, and the US, to capture its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.
Princess Diana, Jackie O, Grace Kelly-the star icon is the most talked about yet least understood persona. The object of adoration, fantasy, and cult obsession, the star icon is a celebrity, yet she is also something more: a dazzling figure at the center of a media pantomime that is at once voyeuristic and zealously guarded. With skill and humor, Daniel Herwitz pokes at the gears of the celebrity-making machine, recruiting a philosopher's interest in the media, an eye for society, and a love of popular culture to divine our yearning for these iconic figures and the role they play in our lives. Herwitz portrays the star icon as caught between transcendence and trauma. An effervescent being living on a distant, exalted planet, the star icon is also a melodramatic heroine desperate to escape her life and the ever-watchful eye of the media. The public buoys her up and then eagerly watches her fall, her collapse providing a satisfying conclusion to a story sensationally told-while leaving the public yearning for a rebirth. Herwitz locates this double life in the opposing tensions of film, television, religion, and consumer culture, offering fresh perspectives on these subjects while ingeniously mapping society's creation (and destruction) of these special aesthetic stars. Herwitz has a soft spot for popular culture yet remains deeply skeptical of public illusion. He worries that the media distances us from even minimal insight into those who are transfigured into star icons. It also blinds us to the shaping of our political present.
This anthology collects nine exceptional novels that were written by high school students from New York City during the summer of 2005 in 826NYC's Young Adult Writers' Colony. Ranging from comedic, to fiercly political, to deeply personal, these novels are immensely entertaining and forecast a bright future for this brand new generation of novelists. As novelist Richard Powers says in his foreword, There comes a time when we must decide whether we love the world enough to hand it over to its next lover . . . [This is a book of] nine worlds that nine people could not find and so had to make themselves. Here it is before you: how the story ends this time. And how it starts again.
New arts created in the context of new social realities are impacting our traditional ideas about aesthetics. Art, art markets and aesthetics now interact in ways that demand new forms of thought and revision of old. Cosmopolitan Aesthetics presents the first thorough account of the challenges facing aesthetics today in the light of globalization, introducing the history that underpins them. This is an ideal starting point for anyone looking to better understand 21st century art and aesthetics. Beginning with globalization and the nature of global art markets today, Daniel Herwitz offers new insight into postcolonial aesthetics, colonial legacies, cultural property, the problems of global communication and aesthetic diversity, and the uneasy connection between aesthetics and politics, before providing a crucial grounding in 18th and 19th century aesthetics, with discussion of the three great modern aestheticians David Hume, Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel.
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