Mutter's striking images adorn the walls of homes and businesses nationwide. This collection of photomontages is presented in a generously-sized edition that will thrill aficionados and entice those unacquainted with his work. "Mutter's work is extraordinary and categorically unique".--Saul Bass. 35 duotones. (University Of Illinois Press)
'Pataphysics, the pseudoscience imagined by Alfred Jarry, has so far, because of its academic frivolity and hermetic perversity, attracted very little scholarly or critical inquiry, and yet it has inspired a century of experimentation. Tracing the place of 'pataphysics in the relationship between science and poetry, Christian Bök shows it is fundamental to the nature of the postmodern, and considers the work of Alfred Jarry and its influence on others. A long overdue critical look at a significant strain of the twentieth-century avant-garde, 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of Imaginary Science raises important historical, cultural, and theoretical issues germane to the production and reception of poetry, the ways we think about, write, and read it, and the sorts of claims it makes upon our understanding.
A quiet revolution is taking place in avant-garde French poetry and prose. In this collection of twelve interviews with some of France's most important poets and writers, Serge Gavronsky introduces American readers to these exciting new developments. As Gavronsky explains, a neolyricism is now replacing the formalism of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. In his substantial introduction, Gavronsky notes how the ideological definition of writing (écriture) has given way to more open forms of writing. Human experiences of the most ordinary kinds are finding a place in the text. These interviews offer a view of the poets' and writers' creative processes and range over such topics as current literary theory, the impact of American poetry in France, and the place of feminism in contemporary French writing. Each interview is accompanied by samples of the writer's work in French and in Gavronsky's English translations. Toward a New Poetics provides a highly informative cultural and critical perspective on contemporary writing in France, introducing us to works which are now transforming the idea of literature itself.
Drucker skillfully traces the development of this critical position, suggesting a methodology closer to the actual practices of the early avant-garde artists based on a rereading of their critical and theoretical writings. After reviewing theories of signification, the production of meaning, and materiality, she analyzes the work of four poets active in the typographic experimentation of the 1910s and 1920s: Ilia Zdanevich, Filippo Marinetti, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Tristan Tzara. Drucker explores the context for experimental typography in terms of printing, handwriting, and other practices concerned with the visual representation of language. Her book concludes with a brief look at the ways in which experimental techniques of the early avant-garde were transformed in both literary work and in applications to commercial design throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
Studies major works by important sculptors since Rodin in the light of different approaches to general sculptural issues to reveal the logical progressions from nineteenth-century figurative works to the conceptual work of the present.
Few conventions were left unchallenged in the 1970s as Americans witnessed a decade of sweeping social, cultural, economic, and political upheavals. The fresh anguish of the Vietnam War, the disillusionment of Watergate, the recession, and the oil embargo all contributed to an era of social movements, political mistrust, and not surprisingly, rich cultural diversity. It was the Me Decade, a reaction against 60s radicalism reflected in fashion, film, the arts, and music. Songs of the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and Patti Smith brought the aggressive punk-rock music into the mainstream, introducing teenagers to rebellious punk fashions. It was also the decade of disco: Who can forget the image of John Travolta as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever decked out in a three-piece white leisure suit with his shirt collar open, his hand points towards the heavens as the lighted disco floor glares defiantly below him? While the turbulent decade ushered in Ms. magazine, Mood rings, Studio 54, Stephen King horror novels, and granola, it was also the decade in which over 25 million video game systems made their way into our homes, allowing Asteroids and Pac-Man games to be played out on televisions in living rooms throughout the country. Whether it was the boom of environmentalism or the bust of the Nixon administration and public life as we knew it, the era represented a profound shift in American society and culture.
In this volume, the latest addition to the award-winning Pamphlet Architecture series, the authors examine common architectural forms (chairs, doors, and walls) and programs (a cinema, a health club, a skyscraper) in order to dissect and reconfigure them. In the process they create ten new projects that draw their power from an oscillation between the recognizable and the surreal. Cleverly undermining the conventions and norms of contemporary architectural design, the authors pose a direct challenge to the seemingly endless search for new styles, arguing instead that the greatest potential for architecture in the twenty-first century rests on an imaginative examination of what we take for granted. Designed by authors, Situation Normal... weaves together text, photographs, and drawings. An introductory essay establishes the theoretical and historical position of the book.
Houses of God is the first broad survey of American religious architecture, a cultural cross-country expedition that will benefit travelers as much as scholars. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 photographs — some by well-known photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange — this handsome book provides a highly accessible look at how Americans shape their places of worship into multifaceted reflections of their culture, beliefs, and times.