“The Problem of Social Beauty”

Walter Benn Michaels’s book “The Beauty of a Social Problem” (orig. 2015) is a controversial book that examines, using the example of several contemporary photo artists, how aesthetic autonomy and the return to the form of an artwork relate to the issues of today’s cultural model and political economy. His criticism is directed against the so-called American postmodern art practice and interpretation, and he is interested in contemporary artists who diverge from this practice in their work, although their work is also unthinkable without its theoretical contribution. He investigates practices that try to get rid of the questions of the social point of view (the ethical influence model of art) in order to reach its beauty through the form of a work of art, which does not reduce the social confrontations that surround us, but, on the contrary, actually emerges in the structure of this confrontation (letting us get an idea of this structure) . In doing so, he connects the issues of postmodern art practice with the issues of the neoliberal economic model.

Subtitle Photography, Autonomy and Economy
Publisher: Estonian Academy of Arts Publishing House
Year of publication: 2020
Author: Walter Benn Michaels
Editor: Sirje Nilbe
Designer: Maria Muuk
Translators: Neeme Lopp and Hanno Soans
Language: Estonian
Format: paperback
Pages: 224
Dimensions: 22 x 15 cm
ISBN: 9789916619018

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