Bøker i Columbia Themes in Philosophy, Social Criticism, and the Arts-serien

The Italian philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato reveals the underpinnings of contemporary subjectivity in the aesthetics and politics of mass media. This book discloses the conceptual groundwork of Lazzarato's thought as a whole for a time when his writings have become increasingly influential.

In 1996 Jacques Derrida gave a lecture at the Museum of Modern Art on Antonin Artaud. Artaud the Moma reveals the challenge that Artaud posed to Derrida-and to art and its institutional history. It is a powerful interjection into the museum halls, a crucial moment in Derrida's thought, and an insightful reading of a challenging writer and artist.

Marcel Duchamp is often viewed as an "e;artist-engineer-scientist,"e; a kind of rationalist who relied heavily on the ideas of the French mathematician and philosopher Henri Poincare. Yet a complete portrait of Duchamp and his multiple influences draws a different picture. In his 3 Standard Stoppages (1913-1914), a work that uses chance as an artistic medium, we see how far Duchamp subverted scientism in favor of a radical individualistic aesthetic and experimental vision.Unlike the Dadaists, Duchamp did more than dismiss or negate the authority of science. He pushed scientific rationalism to the point where its claims broke down and alternative truths were allowed to emerge. With humor and irony, Duchamp undertook a method of artistic research, reflection, and visual thought that focused less on beauty than on the notion of the "e;possible."e; He became a passionate advocate of the power of invention and thinking things that had never been thought before. The 3 Standard Stoppages is the ultimate realization of the play between chance and dimension, visibility and invisibility, high and low art, and art and anti-art. Situating Duchamp firmly within the literature and philosophy of his time, Herbert Molderings recaptures the spirit of a frequently misread artist-and his thrilling aesthetic of chance.

Drawing on examples from literature, politics, philosophy, and additional pieces of art, this book reveals surprising parallels between the people's political representation and their aesthetic representation.

Paolo D'Angelo traces the history of concealing art-which Italian calls sprezzatura-from ancient rhetoric to our own times. Finding the precept that art must be hidden from cosmetics to interior design, politics to poetry, the English garden to shabby chic, Sprezzatura is an erudite and surprising tour of aesthetics, philosophy, and art history.