James Falling for Gravity

Invisible Forces in Contemporary Art
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78707-820-8
Verlag: Peter Lang
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Web PDF

This book begins with the observation that contemporary artists have embraced and employed gravity as an immaterial readymade. Necessarily focusing on material practices – chiefly sculpture, installation, performance, and film – this discussion takes account of how and why artists have used gravity and explores the similarities between their work and the popular cultural forms of circus, vaudeville, burlesque, and film. Works by Rodney Graham, Stan Douglas, and Robert Smithson are mediated through ideas of Gnostic doubt, atomism, and new materialism. In other examples – by John Wood and Paul Harrison, Gordon Matta-Clark, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Trisha Brown, and Bas Jan Ader – mass and momentum, falling objects, and falling bodies are examined in relation to architecture, sculpture, and dance. In performances, projects and events curated by Bruce Nauman, Santiago Sierra, and Catherine Yass, gravity is resisted in Sisyphean ordeals and death-defying stunts. This account of contemporary art and performance, read through the invisible membrane of gravity, exposes new and distinctive approaches to agency reduction, authorial doubt, and redemptive failure.

Autoren/Hrsg.

James, Catherine

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstformen, Kunsthandwerk Installations-, Aktions-, Computer- und Videokunst
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstformen, Kunsthandwerk Bildhauerei, Plastik, Denkmäler

Inhaltsverzeichnis

CONTENTS: On Shaky Ground – The Cosmic Cage – Heavy Stuff – Vertigo – Critical Mass

Über Autor(innen)

Catherine James is Lecturer in Academic Practice at University of the Arts London. Since completing her doctoral studies at the London Consortium in 2004, she served as Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Art at Christie’s Education for many years and has contributed to a variety of conferences and journals related to her research on gravity in art and performance.