How Folklore Shaped Modern Art: A Post‑Critical History of Aesthetics

Since the 1990s, artists and art writers around the world have increasingly undermined the essentialism associated with notions of “critical practice.” We can see this manifesting in the renewed relevance of what were previously considered “outsider” art practices, the emphasis on first‑person accounts of identity over critical theory, and the proliferation of exhibitions that refuse to distinguish between art and the productions of culture more generally. How Folklore Shaped Modern Art: A Post‑Critical History of Aesthetics underscores how the cultural traditions, belief systems and performed exchanges that were once integral to the folklore discipline are now central to contemporary art’s “post‑critical turn.” This shift is considered here as less a direct confrontation of critical procedures than a symptom of art’s inclusive ideals, overturning the historical separation of fine art from those “uncritical” forms located in material and commercial culture. In a global context, aesthetics is now just one of numerous traditions informing our encounters with visual culture today, symptomatic of the pull towards an impossibly pluralistic image of art that reflects the irreducible conditions of identity.

Details

Authors

Hill Wes

Personalities

Warhol Andy

Type

Book

Place of publication

New York City

Publisher

Routledge

Year

2016

Number of pages

182 pages

Language

English

ISBN

9781138931671

Open stacks or available on request

Open stacks

Illustrations

No

Bibliography

Yes

UDC code and author sign

709.042 Hil

Volumes

1

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