Premium Members Get 10% Off and Earn Rewards Find Out More
Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art
Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.
1101906093
Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art
Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.
35.95 In Stock
Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art

Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art

by Kieran Cashell
Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art
Add to Wishlist
Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art

Aftershock: The Ethics of Contemporary Transgressive Art

by Kieran Cashell

Overview

Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781845115241
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 09/15/2009
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Kieran Cashell is Lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies at the School of Art and Design, Limerick Institute of Technology.

Table of Contents

* Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• The Incompatibility of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art
• Transgression: the War against Disinterestedness
• The Ethics of Transgressive Art
• Everyone Hates a Tourist
• The Ethical Analysis of Contemporary Art
• Disinterestedness and Cultural Tourism
• The Ethical Evaluation of Art: Autonomism versus Moralism
• A Difficult Case: Marc Quinn and Alison Lapper
• Transgressive Art Meets the Autonomist-Moralist Model
• Quinn and Lapper Revisited: A Contextualist Analysis
• Conclusion
• Carte Blanche
• Marcus Harvey’s Myra
• Preliminary Approaches to the Ethical Analysis of Myra
• ‘Suffer Little Children’: The Facts of the Case
• Myra: Portrait of a Serial Killer
• Postmodernism and the Absence of the Referent Thesis
• Contextualist Ethical Analysis of Myra
• Myra and Merited Response Theory
• Conclusion
• Atrocity Exhibition
• Aesthetic Defences of the Work of Jake & Dinos Chapman
• The Canonic Defence and the Chapmans’ Disasters of War
• The Transgressive Defence of Transgressive Art
• Hans Bellmer, Bataille and Authentic Transgression
• The Trivial Pursuit of Psychoanalysis
• Evaluation of the Aesthetic Defences of Transgressive Art
• Acknowledging the Immorality of the Chapmans’ Work
• Contextual Ethical
• Evaluation of Zygotic Acceleration
• Conclusion
• Fearless Speech
• Tracey Emin’s Ethics of the Self
• ‘With Myself Always Myself Never Forgetting’: The Structure of Ethical Subjectivity
• Exposure without Reserve: Emotional Response and its Moral Significance
• Shame: An Existential Analysis
• Concluding Ethical Evaluation: Tracey Emin’s Fearless Speech
• Horrorshow
• The Transvaluation of Morality in the work of Damien Hirst
• Obscene Objects of Pleasurable Fascination
• Non-Human Animals and Ethical Inclusion
• Attending to the Other of the Animal: Art and the Ethics of Care
• Exquisite Corpse: Death and the Sublime
• Cognitive Immoralism
• The Artistic Transvaluation of Morality
• Aftershock: Tragic Sympathy and Meta-Ethical Significance
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index *

From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Customer Reviews