Each of the five volumes in the Stone Art Theory Institutes series, and the seminars on which they are based, brings together a range of scholars who are not always directly familiar with one another's work. The outcome of each of these convergences is an extensive and "unpredictable conversation" on knotty and provocative issues about art. This fourth volume in the series, Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic, focuses on questions revolving around the concepts of the aesthetic, the anti-aesthetic, and the political. The book is about the fact that now, almost thirty years after Hal Foster defined the anti-aesthetic, there is still no viable alternative to the dichotomy between aesthetics and anti- or nonaesthetic art. The impasse is made more difficult by the proliferation of identity politics, and it is made less negotiable by the hegemony of anti-aesthetics in academic discourse on art. The central question of this book is whether artists and academicians are free of this choice in practice, in pedagogy, and in theory. The contributors are Stephanie Benzaquen, J. M. Bernstein, Karen Busk-Jepsen, Luis Camnitzer, Diarmuid Costello, Joana Cunha Leal, Angela Dimitrakaki, Alexander Dumbadze, T. Brandon Evans, Geng Youzhuang, Boris Groys, Beata Hock, Gordon Hughes, Michael Kelly, Grant Kester, Meredith Kooi, Cary Levine, Sunil Manghani, William Mazzarella, Justin McKeown, Andrew McNamara, Eve Meltzer, Nadja Millner-Larsen, Maria Filomena Molder, Carrie Noland, Gary Peters, Aaron Richmond, Lauren Ross, Toni Ross, Eva Schuermann, Gregory Sholette, Noah Simblist, Jon Simons, Robert Storr, Martin Sundberg, Timotheus Vermeulen, and Rebecca Zorach.
James Elkins is E. C. Chadbourne Professor in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He coedited the first two volumes in the series, Art and Globalization (Penn State, 2010) and What Is an Image? (Penn State, 2011), and edited the third, What Do Artists Know? (Penn State, 2012). Harper Montgomery is the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Professor of Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art and Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College.
Contents Series Preface Introduction, James Elkins The Seminars 1 Introductory Seminar 2 The Anti-Aesthetic in the 1980s: Craig Owens's "The Allegorical Impulse" 3 The Anti-Aesthetic in the 1990s: The Body 4 Theory and Criticism 5 Theoretical Positions: Critical Theory 6 Theoretical Positions: Ranciere, Deleuze, Relational Aesthetics 7 Theoretical Positions: Affect Theory in Art History 8 Theoretical Positions: Affect Theory at Large 9 Things Missing from This Book Assessments Preface, Harper Montgomery Grant Kester Alexander Dumbadze Geng Youzhuang Cary Levine Boris Groys Gregory Sholette Eva Schuermann Maria Filomena Molder Gary Peters Andrew McNamara Gordon Hughes Toni Ross Justin McKeown Timotheus Vermeulen Noah Simblist Rebecca Zorach Carrie Noland Robert Storr William Mazzarella Luis Camnitzer Jon Simons Angela Dimitrikaki Afterword, Gretchen Bakke Notes on the Contributors Index
