Contemporary art and classical myth
By: edited by Isabelle Loring Wallace and Jennie Hirsh
Publisher: Ashgate Pub. Co.
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 376
ISBN-13: 9780754669746
Description: Contemporary art is deeply engaged with the subject of classical myth. Yet within the literature on contemporary art, little has been said about this provocative relationship. Composed of fourteen original essays, Contemporary Art and Classical Myth addresses this scholarly gap, exploring, and in large part establishing, the multifaceted intersection of contemporary art and classical myth. Moving beyond the notion of art as illustration, the essays assembled here adopt a range of methodological frameworks, from iconography to deconstruction, and do so across an impressive range of artists and objects: Francis Alÿs, Ghada Amer, Wim Delvoye, Luciano Fabro, Joanna Frueh, Felix Gonzales-Torres, Duane Hanson, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Kara Walker, and an iconic photograph by Richard Drew subsequently dubbed "The Falling Man." Arranged so as to highlight both thematic and structural affinities, these essays manifest various aspects of the link between contemporary art and classical myth, while offering novel insights into the artists and myths under consideration. Some essays concentrate on single works as they relate to specific myths, while others take a broader approach, calling on myth as a means of grappling with dominant trends in contemporary art. -- from dust jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue. Faraway, so close: mythic origins, contemporary art / Lisa Saltzman; title: Myth as meaning. A poetics of becoming: the mythography of Cy Twombly / Craig Staff; title: Art is glimpsed / Sharon Hecker; title: Narcissus, narcosis, neurosis: the visions of Yayoi Kusama / Jody B. Cutler; title: The porous space of Bracha Ettinger's Eurydices (1992-2001) / Marisa B. Vigneault; title: Double take: reflections on Felix Gonzalez-Torres / Jennie Hirsh; title: Myth as medium. Lichtenstein's Narcissus / Graham Bader; title: Philomela as metaphor: sexuality, pornography, seduction / Giulia Lamoni; title: Icarus returned: visual testimony and the falling man / Sharon Sliwinski; title: Deep shit / Isabelle Loring Wallace; title: Myth as method. A new Parrhasius: Duane Hanson's uncanny realism / Elizabeth Mansfield; title: Over and over, again and again / Emma Cocker; title: Video art in the House of Hades / Sophie-Isabelle Dufour; title: Epilogue. The sphinx unwinds her own sweet self / Joanna Frueh.