The Mediation Of Ornament

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The Mediation of Ornament

Author : Oleg Grabar
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691252777
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mediation of Ornament by : Oleg Grabar

Download or read book The Mediation of Ornament written by Oleg Grabar and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ornamentation enables a direct and immediate encounter between viewers and art objects Based on universal motifs, ornamentation occurs in many artistic traditions, though it reaches its most expressive, tangible, and unique form in the art of the Islamic world. The Mediation of Ornament shares a veteran art historian’s love for the sheer sensuality of Islamic ornamentation, but also uses this art to show how ornament serves as a consistent intermediary between viewers and artistic works from all cultures and periods. Oleg Grabar analyzes early and medieval Islamic objects, ranging from frontispieces in Yemen to tilework in the Alhambra, and compares them to Western examples, treating all pieces as testimony of the work, life, thought, and emotion experienced in one society. The Mediation of Ornament is essential reading for admirers of Islamic art and anyone interested in the ways of perceiving and understanding the arts more broadly.

The Mediation of Ornament. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1989

Author : Oleg Grabar
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (491 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mediation of Ornament. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1989 by : Oleg Grabar

Download or read book The Mediation of Ornament. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1989 written by Oleg Grabar and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Arts of Allusion

Author : Margaret S. Graves
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190695935
Total Pages : 572 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis Arts of Allusion by : Margaret S. Graves

Download or read book Arts of Allusion written by Margaret S. Graves and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The art of the object reached unparalleled heights in the medieval Islamic world, yet the intellectual dimensions of ceramics, metalwares, and other plastic arts in this milieu have not always been acknowledged. Arts of Allusion reveals the object as a crucial site where pre-modern craftsmen of the eastern Mediterranean and Persianate realms engaged in fertile dialogue with poetry, literature, painting, and, perhaps most strikingly, architecture. Lanterns fashioned after miniature shrines, incense burners in the form of domed monuments, earthenware jars articulated with arches and windows, inkwells that allude to tents: through close studies of objects from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, this book reveals that allusions to architecture abound across media in the portable arts of the medieval Islamic world. Arts of Allusion draws upon a broad range of material evidence as well as medieval texts to locate its subjects in a cultural landscape where the material, visual, and verbal realms were intertwined. Moving far beyond the initial identification of architectural types with their miniature counterparts in the plastic arts, Margaret Graves develops a series of new frameworks for exploring the intelligent art of the allusive object. These address materiality, representation, and perception, and examine contemporary literary and poetic paradigms of metaphor, description, and indirect reference as tools for approaching the plastic arts. Arguing for the role of the intellect in the applied arts and for the communicative potential of ornament, Arts of Allusion asserts the reinstatement of craftsmanship into Islamic intellectual history.

The Topkapi Scroll

Author : Gülru Necipoğlu
Publisher : Getty Publications
ISBN 13 : 0892363355
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (923 download)

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Book Synopsis The Topkapi Scroll by : Gülru Necipoğlu

Download or read book The Topkapi Scroll written by Gülru Necipoğlu and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 1996-03-01 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since precious few architectural drawings and no theoretical treatises on architecture remain from the premodern Islamic world, the Timurid pattern scroll in the collection of the Topkapi Palace Museum Library is an exceedingly rich and valuable source of information. In the course of her in-depth analysis of this scroll dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, Gülru Necipoğlu throws new light on the conceptualization, recording, and transmission of architectural design in the Islamic world between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. Her text has particularly far-reaching implications for recent discussions on vision, subjectivity, and the semiotics of abstract representation. She also compares the Islamic understanding of geometry with that found in medieval Western art, making this book particularly valuable for all historians and critics of architecture. The scroll, with its 114 individual geometric patterns for wall surfaces and vaulting, is reproduced entirely in color in this elegant, large-format volume. An extensive catalogue includes illustrations showing the underlying geometries (in the form of incised “dead” drawings) from which the individual patterns are generated. An essay by Mohammad al-Asad discusses the geometry of the muqarnas and demonstrates by means of CAD drawings how one of the scroll’s patterns could be used co design a three-dimensional vault.

Sensuous Surfaces

Author : Jonathan Hay
Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1861898460
Total Pages : 442 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis Sensuous Surfaces by : Jonathan Hay

Download or read book Sensuous Surfaces written by Jonathan Hay and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2010-06-25 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Sensuous Surfaces, Jonathan Hay offers one of the most richly illustrated and in-depth introductions to the decorative arts of Ming and Qing dynasty China to date. Examining an immense number of works, he explores the materials and techniques, as well as the effects of patronage and taste, that together have formed a loose system of informal rules that define the decorative arts in early modern China. Hay demonstrates how this system—by engaging the actual and metaphorical potential of surface—guided the production and use of decorative arts from the late sixteenth century through the middle of the nineteenth, a period of explosive growth. He shows how the understanding of decorative arts made a fundamental contribution to the sensory education of China’s early modern urban population. Enriching his study with 280 color plates, he ultimately offers an elegant meditation, not only on Ming and Qing art but on the importance of the erotic in the form and function of decorations of all eras.

Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia

Author : Thomas E. A. Dale
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691011752
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (117 download)

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Book Synopsis Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia by : Thomas E. A. Dale

Download or read book Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia written by Thomas E. A. Dale and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against a historical backdrop of relic theft and propaganda campaigns waged by two cities vying for patriarchal authority in medieval Venetia, Thomas Dale shows how Romanesque mural painting shaped sacred space and institutional identity. His focus is on the late twelfth-century murals in the crypt of Aquileia Cathedral. The crypt, which contains the relics of Aquileia's founding bishop, Saint Hermagoras, has a historical significance rooted in a legend identifying the saint as a direct disciple of Saint Mark the Evangelist. On this basis, the Carolingians promoted the city's status as patriarchal see of Venetia--a claim that prompted Venice to steal Mark's relics from Alexandria, Egypt, and appropriate Aquileia's history. This book, the first English-language study of the crypt, explores how the paintings complement the relics of Hermagoras in their distinct devotional and political roles. Hermagoras's intercessory power is activated by his orant image displayed over the central aisle within a larger hierarchy of apostles, martyrs, and bishops. The surrounding hagiographic cycle justifies in legalistic fashion Aquileia's patriarchal title and the consecration of the city as locus sanctus of Venetia by the blood of its martyrs. The iconic images in the eastern lunettes present the Virgin's compassio as a pictorial model for the vicarious experience of Christ's Passion. Finally, a fictive curtain over the socle presents allegories of spiritual warfare in the form of exempla from crusades, pilgrimage, and the epic poem Psychomachia, which Dale analyzes as a gloss on the main program.

Histories of Ornament

Author : Gülru Necipoğlu
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691167281
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Histories of Ornament by : Gülru Necipoğlu

Download or read book Histories of Ornament written by Gülru Necipoğlu and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lavishly illustrated volume is the first major global history of ornament from the Middle Ages to today. Crossing historical and geographical boundaries in unprecedented ways and considering the role of ornament in both art and architecture, Histories of Ornament offers a nuanced examination that integrates medieval, Renaissance, baroque, and modern Euroamerican traditions with their Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Mesoamerican counterparts. At a time when ornament has re-emerged in architectural practice and is a topic of growing interest to art and architectural historians, the book reveals how the long history of ornament illuminates its global resurgence today. Organized by thematic sections on the significance, influence, and role of ornament, the book addresses ornament's current revival in architecture, its historiography and theories, its transcontinental mobility in medieval and early modern Europe and the Middle East, and its place in the context of industrialization and modernism. Throughout, Histories of Ornament emphasizes the portability and politics of ornament, figuration versus abstraction, cross-cultural dialogues, and the constant negotiation of local and global traditions. Featuring original essays by more than two dozen scholars from around the world, this authoritative and wide-ranging book provides an indispensable reference on the histories of ornament in a global context. Contributors include: Michele Bacci (Fribourg University); Anna Contadini (University of London); Thomas B. F. Cummins (Harvard); Chanchal Dadlani (Wake Forest); Daniela del Pesco (Universita degli Studi Roma Tre); Vittoria Di Palma (USC); Anne Dunlop (University of Melbourne); Marzia Faietti (University of Bologna); María Judith Feliciano (independent scholar); Finbarr Barry Flood (NYU); Jonathan Hay (NYU); Christopher P. Heuer (Clark Art); Rémi Labrusse (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense); Gülru Necipoğlu (Harvard); Marco Rosario Nobile (University of Palermo); Oya Pancaroğlu (Bosphorus University); Spyros Papapetros (Princeton); Alina Payne (Harvard); Antoine Picon (Harvard); David Pullins (Harvard); Jennifer L. Roberts (Harvard); David J. Roxburgh (Harvard); Hashim Sarkis (MIT); Robin Schuldenfrei (Courtauld); Avinoam Shalem (Columbia); and Gerhard Wolf (KHI, Florence).

The Great Mosque of Isfahan

Author : Oleg Grabar
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781850431855
Total Pages : 141 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (318 download)

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Book Synopsis The Great Mosque of Isfahan by : Oleg Grabar

Download or read book The Great Mosque of Isfahan written by Oleg Grabar and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Mass Ornament

Author : Siegfried Kracauer
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674551633
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mass Ornament by : Siegfried Kracauer

Download or read book The Mass Ornament written by Siegfried Kracauer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mass Ornament today remains a refreshing tribute to popular culture, and its impressively interdisciplinary writings continue to shed light not only on Kracauer's later work but also on the ideas of the Frankfurt School, the genealogy of film theory and cultural studies, Weimar cultural politics, and, not least, the exigencies of intellectual exile.

The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages

Author : Ittai Weinryb
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316539024
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages by : Ittai Weinryb

Download or read book The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages written by Ittai Weinryb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the first full length study in English of monumental bronzes in the Middle Ages. Taking as its point of departure the common medieval reception of bronze sculpture as living or animated, the study closely analyzes the practice of lost wax casting (cire perdue) in western Europe and explores the cultural responses to large scale bronzes in the Middle Ages. Starting with mining, smelting, and the production of alloys, and ending with automata, water clocks and fountains, the book uncovers networks of meaning around which bronze sculptures were produced and consumed. The book is a path-breaking contribution to the study of metalwork in the Middle Ages and to the re-evaluation of medieval art more broadly, presenting an understudied body of work to reconsider what the materials and techniques embodied in public monuments meant to the medieval spectator.

Ornaments of the Metropolis

Author : Henrik Reeh
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262681633
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (626 download)

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Book Synopsis Ornaments of the Metropolis by : Henrik Reeh

Download or read book Ornaments of the Metropolis written by Henrik Reeh and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006-09-08 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Variations on the theme of the ornament in Kracauer's urban writings, suggesting ways in which the subjective can reappropraite urban life. For Siegfried Kracauer, the urban ornament was not just an aspect of design; it was the medium through which city dwellers interpreted the metropolis itself. In Ornaments of the Metropolis, Henrik Reeh traces variations on the theme of the ornament in Kracauer's writings on urbanism, from his early journalism in Germany between the wars to his "sociobiography" of Jacques Offenbach in Paris. Kracauer (1889-1966), often associated with the Frankfurt School and the intellectual milieu of Walter Benjamin, is best known for his writings on cinema and the philosophy of history. Reeh examines Kracauer's lesser-known early work, much of it written for the trendsetting newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1920s and early 1930s, and analyzes Kracauer's continuing reflections on modern urban life, through the pivotal idea of ornament. Kracauer deciphers the subjective experience of the city by viewing fragments of the city as dynamic ornaments; an employment exchange, a day shelter for the homeless, a movie theater, and an amusement park become urban microcosms. Reeh focuses on three substantial works written by Kracauer before his emigration to the United States in 1940. In the early autobiographical novel Ginster, Written by Himself, a young architect finds aesthetic pleasure in the ornamental forms that are largely unused in the profession of the time. The collection Streets of Berlin and Elsewhere, with many essays from Kracauer's years in Berlin, documents the subjectiveness of urban life. Finally, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time shows how the superficial—in a sense, ornamental—milieu of the operetta evolved into a critical force during the Second Empire. Reeh argues that Kracauer's novel, essays, and historiography all suggest ways in which the subjective can reappropriate urban life. The book also includes a series of photographs by the author that reflect the ornamental experience of the metropolis in Paris, Frankfurt, and other cities.

Islamic Art and Beyond

Author : Oleg Grabar
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040243223
Total Pages : 357 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis Islamic Art and Beyond by : Oleg Grabar

Download or read book Islamic Art and Beyond written by Oleg Grabar and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islamic Art and Beyond is the third in a set of four volumes of studies on Islamic art by Oleg Grabar. Between them they bring together more than eighty articles, studies and essays, work spanning half a century by a master of the field. Each volume takes a particular section of the topic, the three other volumes being entitled: Early Islamic Art, 650-1100; Islamic Visual Culture, 1100-1800; and Jerusalem. Reflecting the many incidents of a long academic life, they illustrate one scholar's attempt at making order and sense of 1400 years of artistic growth. They deal with architecture, painting, objects, iconography, theories of art, aesthetics and ornament, and they seek to integrate our knowledge of Islamic art with Islamic culture and history as well as with the global concerns of the History of Art. In addition to the articles selected, each volume contains an introduction which describes, often in highly personal ways, the context in which Grabar's scholarship developed and the people who directed and mentored his efforts. The articles in the present volume illustrate how the author's study of Islamic art led him in two directions for a further understanding of the arts. One is how to define Islamic art and what impulses provided it with its own peculiar forms and dynamics of growth. Was it a faith or a combination of social, historical, and cultural events? And how has 'Islamic art' impacted on the contemporary arts of the Islamic world? The other issue is that of the meanings to be given to forms like domes, so characteristic of Islamic art, or to terms like symbol, signs, or aesthetic values in the arts, especially when one considers the contemporary world. The Islamic examples allow for the development of new intellectual positions for the history and criticism of the arts everywhere.

From Ornament to Object

Author : Alina Alexandra Payne
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780300175332
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (753 download)

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Book Synopsis From Ornament to Object by : Alina Alexandra Payne

Download or read book From Ornament to Object written by Alina Alexandra Payne and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 19th century, a centuries-old preference for highly ornamented architecture gave way to a budding Modernism of clean lines and unadorned surfaces. At the same moment, everyday objects--cups, saucers, chairs, and tables--began to receive critical attention. Alina Payne addresses this shift, arguing for a new understanding of the genealogy of architectural modernism: rather than the well-known story in which an absorption of technology and mass production created a radical aesthetic that broke decisively with the past, Payne argues for a more gradual shift, as the eloquence of architectural ornamentation was taken on by objects of daily use. As she demonstrates, the work of Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier should be seen as the culmination of a conversation about ornament dating as far back as the Renaissance. Payne looks beyond the usual suspects of philosophy and science to establish theoretical catalysts for the shift from ornament to object in the varied fields of anthropology and ethnology; art history and the museum; and archaeology and psychology.

Mostly Miniatures

Author : Oleg Grabar
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780691049991
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis Mostly Miniatures by : Oleg Grabar

Download or read book Mostly Miniatures written by Oleg Grabar and published by . This book was released on 2001-12 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mention of Persian painting conjures up images of beautifully illuminated manuscripts filled with tiny, intricate pictures, each a miniature festival of color. Anyone who has seen Persian miniatures up close will attest to their captivating power. In this book, the renowned historian of Islamic art Oleg Grabar introduces Western audiences to Persian painting, which consists primarily of miniatures illustrating works of literature, but also includes murals and small ceramics decorated with pictures. The masterpieces of this painting have a visual richness that requires the use of the intellect as well as the eye for their appreciation, and Grabar seeks to situate the reader within their world, that of Islamic culture in Iran from the Middle Ages to Modern times. Through a series of chapters on various aspects of Persian painting, he helps us understand its history, the characteristics that define it, and the delights to be discovered in it. Grabar argues that this genre of painting offers a remarkable example of how books are illustrated in general and of how an Iranian secular taste emerged during centuries dominated by religious art. He shows that the peculiarities of its historical background gave rise to specific characteristics: striking colors, dematerialization of space, subtle evocations of emotions, simultaneous lyricism and epic. The qualities of Persian painting created a unique aesthetic mood that is related to Persian poetry and Islamic mysticism. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that the Western art world began to discover Persian painting. Inspired by its use of pure geometry and vivid palette, Matisse and Kandinsky were among the first modernists to incorporate attributes of Persian art into their work. And now, a century later, interest among museum-goers continues to increase. The allure of Persian painting lies in its absorbing complexities and in the surprising way it speaks to large questions about the nature of art and the perception of its masterpieces. Grabar has written an incomparable book that both explains and re-creates the pleasures of this art.

Ornament

Author : Antoine Picon
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 111858824X
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (185 download)

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Book Synopsis Ornament by : Antoine Picon

Download or read book Ornament written by Antoine Picon and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once condemned by Modernism and compared to a ‘crime’ by Adolf Loos, ornament has made a spectacular return in contemporary architecture. This is typified by the works of well-known architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Sauerbruch Hutton, Farshid Moussavi Architecture and OMA. There is no doubt that these new ornamental tendencies are inseparable from innovations in computer technology. The proliferation of developments in design software has enabled architects to experiment afresh with texture, colour, pattern and topology. Though inextricably linked with digital tools and culture, Antoine Picon argues that some significant traits in ornament persist from earlier Western architectural traditions. These he defines as the ‘subjective’ – the human interaction that ornament requires in both its production and its reception – and the political. Contrary to the message conveyed by the founding fathers of modern architecture, traditional ornament was not meant only for pleasure. It conveyed vital information about the designation of buildings as well as about the rank of their owners. As such, it participated in the expression of social values, hierarchies and order. By bringing previous traditions in ornament under scrutiny, Picon makes us question the political issues at stake in today’s ornamental revival. What does it tell us about present-day culture? Why are we presently so fearful of meaning in architecture? Could it be that by steering so vehemently away from symbolism, contemporary architecture is evading any explicit contribution to collective values?

The Understanding of Ornament in the Italian Renaissance

Author : Clare Lapraik Guest
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004302085
Total Pages : 708 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis The Understanding of Ornament in the Italian Renaissance by : Clare Lapraik Guest

Download or read book The Understanding of Ornament in the Italian Renaissance written by Clare Lapraik Guest and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-11-16 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paradigm shifting study, developed through close textual readings and sensitive analysis of artworks, Clare Lapraik Guest re-evaluates the central role of ornament in pre-modern art and literature. Moving from art and thought in antiquity to the Italian Renaissance, she examines the understandings of ornament arising from the Platonic, Aristotelian and Sophistic traditions, and the tensions which emerged from these varied meanings. The book views the Renaissance as a decisive point in the story of ornament, when its subsequent identification with style and historicism are established. It asserts ornament as a fundamental, not an accessory element in art and presents its restoration to theoretical dignity as essential to historical scholarship and aesthetic reflection.

Surface

Author : Giuliana Bruno
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022611483X
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Surface by : Giuliana Bruno

Download or read book Surface written by Giuliana Bruno and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-06-09 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the place of materiality—the expression or condition of physical substance—in our visual age of rapidly changing materials and media? How is it fashioned in the arts or manifested in virtual forms? In Surface, cultural critic and theorist Giuliana Bruno deftly explores these questions, seeking to understand materiality in the contemporary world. Arguing that materiality is not a question of the materials themselves but rather the substance of material relations, Bruno investigates the space of those relations, examining how they appear on the surface of different media—on film and video screens, in gallery installations, or on the skins of buildings and people. The object of visual studies, she contends, goes well beyond the image and engages the surface as a place of contact between people and art objects. As Bruno threads through these surface encounters, she unveils the fabrics of the visual—the textural qualities of works of art, whether manifested on canvas, wall, or screen. Illuminating the modern surface condition, she notes how façades are becoming virtual screens and the art of projection is reinvented on gallery walls. She traverses the light spaces of artists Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Tacita Dean, and Anthony McCall; touches on the textured surfaces of Isaac Julien’s and Wong Kar-wai’s filmic screens; and travels across the surface materiality in the architectural practices of Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Herzog & de Meuron to the art of Doris Salcedo and Rachel Whiteread, where the surface tension of media becomes concrete. In performing these critical operations on the surface, she articulates it as a site in which different forms of mediation, memory, and transformation can take place. Surveying object relations across art, architecture, fashion, design, film, and new media, Surface is a magisterial account of contemporary visual culture.