Critical Aesthetics and PostmodernismIn recent times considerable controversy has raged around the question of postmodern culture and its products. Paul Crowther attempts to overcome some of the antagonistic viewpoints involved by expounding and developing key themes from the work of Kant and Merleau-Ponty in the context of contemporary culture. His work analyses topics such as the relation between art and politics, the problematics of poststructuralist and feminist approaches to art, the re-emergence and relevance of theories of the sublime, and the continuing possibilities of artistic creativity. The central theme of the book is that there are constants in human experience around which art and philosophy constellate. At the same time, however, due account must be given of the ways in which such constants are historically mediated. By articulating various aspects of this relation, Crowther shows that the postmodern sensibility can be more than that of an alienated consumerism. Understood in the proper theoretical context, it is grounded on experience and artefacts which humanize. |
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aesthetic experience Anselm Kiefer approach argued argument art's artefacts articulation artist artwork aspects aura avant-garde basis Benjamin broader Burke Burke's capacities chapter claim cognitive complex comprehension conceptual art context course creative Critical Aesthetics Critique of Judgement Cubism culture Danto define Derrida's différance dimension effect embodied subject empathy example existence existential sublime fact function fundamental historical human Ibid ideas imagination Immatériaux innovation invisible involves Julian Schnabel Kant Kant's theory Kantian Sublime kind legitimizing discourse Lyotard Malcolm Morley Maurice Merleau-Ponty means mediated medium Merleau-Ponty mode modern Modernist moral narrative nature Neo-Expressionism Neo-Geo notion object original overwhelming pain painting particular perception phenomenological philosophical pleasure political position possible postmodern art poststructuralists present production question rational relation representation response sense shock significance simply society specific style sublimicist symbolic formations technoscientific theory of art Thérèse Oulton things tradition unpresentable viewer violence visual Walter Benjamin Weiskel whilst words