The Rhetoric of the Frame
Subtitle: Essays on the Boundaries of the Artwork (Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism)
Edition: New Ed edition
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: October 13, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780521461481
Subjects: Picture framing; Theory of art; Philosophy Of Art; Psychology Of Art; Art & Art Instruction; Art; Picture frames and framing; General; Art / General; Art--Philosophy--Congresses; Congresses; History - General; Philosophy; Psychology
First sentence: SINCE the all-conquering appearance of film, the word "frame" has had two meanings.
Description: The Rhetoric of the Frame addresses the question of the frame in the visual arts and how it influences the way we perceive artworks. Challenging Emmanual Kant's characterization of the frame as merely an external supplement, the fourteen essays in this anthology consider the frame to be an indispensable if volatile complement to the artwork.

Inspired by Jacques Derrida's ideas of parergonality, these essays problematize "inside/outside" polarity, articulating difference without reifying the unstable relationship between the artwork and the frame.

Ranging from a study of the English country-house portrait to a reading of the AIDS quilt, and from a feminist perspective on pornography and performance art to sixteenth-century map making, these essays collectively consider the frame in its material, conceptual, ideological, gendered, and poststructural aspects.