from: Allworth Press
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 111
EAN num: 9781581151961
ISBN number: 1581151969
Label: Allworth Press
Manufacturer: Allworth Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: October 01, 2001
Publishing house: Allworth Press
Sale Popularity Level: 90950
Studio: Allworth Press
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Product Description:
In 1998, a prestigious group of artists, critics, and literati offered in a single collection their incisive reflections on the question of beauty—past, present, and future. This esteemed collection of essays, entitled Uncontrollable Beauty, provoked debates about beauty in art and culture, arousing widespread curiosity and stimulating passionate discusion that helped to usher in a new era of appreciation for beauty in art. In response to the enduring popularity and acclaim for this anthology, Allworth Press has just published a paperback edition of Uncontrollable Beauty, edited by Bill Beckley and David Shapiro.
Amazon.com Review:
What ever happened to beauty? Since the late 1960s she seems to have been in exile. Postmodern artists traded her in for flirtations with truth, strength, and purity of form. It was then that women started stripping off their heavy makeup and Barbie doll clothing in an effort to gain equal footing with men. And men, anxious too to break some of society's molds, shed their business suits and leisurewear--then the paragons of male beauty. But as art critic Dave Hickey unwittingly predicted during the '80s, that quality--which Plato believed to be eternal and absolute--is the 'issue of the '90s.'
After three decades of playing wallflower because she was thought by many artists to be frivolous, easy, tired, and even shallow, beauty is dancing again. Uncontrollable Beauty is filled with exciting essays by artists, critics, curators, and philosophers whose definitions of this elusive quality are often at odds with the Platonic ideal. When beauty besets critic Peter Schjeldahl, his mind is 'hyperalert,' his body eases, and he is often aware of his 'shoulders coming down as unconscious muscular tension lets go.' Renowned sculptor Louise Bourgeois also experiences beauty as opposed to encountering it: 'Beauty is a series of experiences. It is not a noun ... beauty in and of itself does not exist.' Artist and coeditor Bill Beckley blames beauty's banishment on Wittgenstein--who, in a 1938 lecture at Cambridge, said that beauty is most often meant as an interjection 'similar to Wow! or rubbing one's stomach'--and his undue influence on conceptual artists of the '60s and '70s. Each essay collected here is rigorous in its definition of this elusive yet powerful force in art and aesthetics. Taken together, the writings are an invigorating read for artists and viewers alike.
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Rated by buyers -
The role of beauty in contemporary art has become a hot topic and this compilation of writings and interviews presents a group of well written and well considered perspectives. I've just finished it and am re-reading many of the essays, as I consider them cogent and inspirational.
Rated by buyers -
UNCONTROLLABLE BEAUTY: Toward a New Aesthetic is easily some of the most beautiful writing I've ever encountered. Editor Beckley ( who also writes well) has selected poets, critics, painters, sculptors, philosophers to write about where we place Beauty on the scale of art importance in the past thirty years. The very fact that this issue is being addressed bodes well for those of us who have been concerned about recent past trends in art of all forms. Being ugly, controversial, in your face, violent, frivolous, mocking, sadistic has been the criteria for what gets press and thus what the public is spoon-fed as what is "in". So many of us tire of these stale and selfish agendas which don't seem to have a life much past the opening of the show that features them. But why did we get that way? Is there a possibility that we have become so overinformed as to how to see that that most sacred aspect of creativity - beauty - has become a dinosaur? Accordingly to lyrically beautiful essays the answer is a decided "No!". Almost every way of describing beauty, feeling beauty, thinking beauty, seeking beauty is given in this eloquent book. This is not always easy reading.....but there is beauty in making the effort, too. Bravo and welcome back to the age of hope!
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