Distributed for Intellect Ltd
Contemporary Absurdities, Existential Crises, and Visual Art
An investigation of the absurd as a condition of, a tactic for, and a subject in the contemporary.
The absurd is a lens on the disturbances of our moment and a challenge to the propositions about and solutions for the world. The absurd shakes off the paralysis that what we know must be the only thing we (re)produce. Those willing to recognize that truth and confront it, rather than flee from it, are thereby introduced to the political writ large.
Critical art allows the absurd a space within which audiences can observe their own tendencies and assumptions. The absurd in art reveals our inculcation into hegemonic belief structures and the necessity to question the systems to which we subscribe. Today we see the absurd in memes, performative politics, and art, expressing the confusion and disorientation wrought by the endless, emerging crises of our 24/7 relations. This edited collection, featuring contributions by well-known artists and scholars, adopts ideas and practices associated with the absurd to explain how the contemporary moment is absurd and how absurdity is a useful, potentially radical tool within the contemporary.
The absurd is a lens on the disturbances of our moment and a challenge to the propositions about and solutions for the world. The absurd shakes off the paralysis that what we know must be the only thing we (re)produce. Those willing to recognize that truth and confront it, rather than flee from it, are thereby introduced to the political writ large.
Critical art allows the absurd a space within which audiences can observe their own tendencies and assumptions. The absurd in art reveals our inculcation into hegemonic belief structures and the necessity to question the systems to which we subscribe. Today we see the absurd in memes, performative politics, and art, expressing the confusion and disorientation wrought by the endless, emerging crises of our 24/7 relations. This edited collection, featuring contributions by well-known artists and scholars, adopts ideas and practices associated with the absurd to explain how the contemporary moment is absurd and how absurdity is a useful, potentially radical tool within the contemporary.
238 pages | 35 halftones | 6.69 x 9.61 | © 2024
Art: Art--General Studies
Philosophy: General Philosophy
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
1. Anatomical Bitransversal Symmetry Axiswerks: Inter-orificial Economics of Evolutionary Body Plan Development
Adam Zaretsky
2. Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape: Revised and Redacted
Andy Holden
3. Landscape Fictions and Future Realities
Aroussiak Gabrielian
4. Why I Should Learn From Our Masters!
Bager Akbay
5. The Absurd Isn’t It Ironic? A Vestigial Tale : ‘Vestigial Tale’ About 6740 Google Results
Carla Gannis
6. The Absurd and an Agonistic Opportunity
Charlotte Kent
7. Eight Variants of Tactical Absurdity in (Post)Conceptual Art: An Overperformance of Typological Exactitude
Dave Ball
8. The Weird and the Absurd
Graham Harman
9. Absurd Temporalities
Grant Bollmer
10. Reflections on Camus’ Absurd
Jennifer Lyn Morone
11. Feeling is Funny
Katherine Guinness
12. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Amy Coney Barrett Cross-Examined Absurdly by the Medusan French Feminist Philosopher Hélène Cixous
Maggie Hennefeld
13. From Planetary Core to the High Seas
Mary Mattingly
14. Exulting in the Ab-surd: Artaud to Arp
Mary Ann Caws
Appendix: The Janks Collective Archives
Introduction
1. Anatomical Bitransversal Symmetry Axiswerks: Inter-orificial Economics of Evolutionary Body Plan Development
Adam Zaretsky
2. Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape: Revised and Redacted
Andy Holden
3. Landscape Fictions and Future Realities
Aroussiak Gabrielian
4. Why I Should Learn From Our Masters!
Bager Akbay
5. The Absurd Isn’t It Ironic? A Vestigial Tale : ‘Vestigial Tale’ About 6740 Google Results
Carla Gannis
6. The Absurd and an Agonistic Opportunity
Charlotte Kent
7. Eight Variants of Tactical Absurdity in (Post)Conceptual Art: An Overperformance of Typological Exactitude
Dave Ball
8. The Weird and the Absurd
Graham Harman
9. Absurd Temporalities
Grant Bollmer
10. Reflections on Camus’ Absurd
Jennifer Lyn Morone
11. Feeling is Funny
Katherine Guinness
12. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Amy Coney Barrett Cross-Examined Absurdly by the Medusan French Feminist Philosopher Hélène Cixous
Maggie Hennefeld
13. From Planetary Core to the High Seas
Mary Mattingly
14. Exulting in the Ab-surd: Artaud to Arp
Mary Ann Caws
Appendix: The Janks Collective Archives