Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective
by Arthur C. Danto
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A ground-breaking contribution to contemporary thinking about aesthetics, Arthur C. Danto's new collection of interconnected essays grapples with the most challenging issues in art today, among them the problems of contemporary pluralism and the dilemmas of censorship and state support for artists. Andy Warhol's Brillo Box of 1964 constituted a radical attack on traditional definitions of the artwork and, in Danto's view, brought the history of Western art to a close. Beyond the Brillo Box show more considers the aftermath and the consequences of Warhol's work on three levels. Danto first discusses what he calls the master narrative of Western art, showing how even the most revolutionary pre-Pop movements were nourished by a common conception of art which lay securely within the Western tradition, and contrasting this tradition to parallel narratives in the East and in Africa. He then takes up the current, post-historical period, which began with Warhol and the collision of "high" and "low" art, and discusses how the pluralism it engendered has changed the way art is made, perceived, and exhibited. Finally, Danto addresses the philosophical idea of the master narrative from Plato to Wittgenstein and beyond by exploring the ways art has a history, the different kinds of history it has in different cultures, and the degree to which narratives are real and not simply intellectual constructs. Arthur C. Danto's criticism, which has been published principally in The Nation, since 1984, has made him one of our leading art critics. Here he discusses the philosophical concerns that underlie his provocative and illuminating engagements with the art of our time. Urgently committed yet always witty and deeply humane, Danto is the most enlightening--and exciting--thinker about the problems of aesthetics today. Beyond the Brillo Box is a work of immediate--and more than immediate--importance. show lessTags
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Uma coleção de ensaios realmente boa de Danto sobre arte no período pós-histórico (isto é, na qual absorvemos as lições da arte conceitual e do pop). Especialmente dois dos quinze impressionaram - o que revisita o mundo da arte, tratando-o como um discurso das razões; o que estabelece uma dialética entre distanciamento artístico e impacto e potência de ser perigosa na arte; como um excesso de atitude estética acaba por ser uma ferramenta para neutralizar os dons retóricos da arte [The art world revisited: comedies of similarity; Dangerous art]. Há outros bastante perspicazes, entretanto, no qual o autor mostra como animais não podem, por falta de sapiência, realmente fazer e gostar de arte, embora possam entreter show more apreciações estéticas outras; de como artes de outras civilizações são arte do mesmo modo, embora não com mesmo conteúdo ou tipo de conteúdo; elocubrações (problemáticas) sobre o papel da metáfora na cognição; uma solução hegeliana para o fato da arte despertar contendas violentas (ela se aparenta com a religião), e ao menos dois ensaios onde o ensaísmo está em seu ápice, criando arcos que se fecham de modo levemente aberto ao final, passando por artistas e obras e vivências: Shapes of Artistic Past, East and West, traça a diferença entre o modernismo europeu onde há influência forte de outras culturas e as formas tradicionais de arte chinesa, onde há um tempo cíclico de repetição variada; The Abstract Expressionist Coca-Cola Bottle, onde finalmente o quadro perdido de Warhol ressurge recarregado de significado. É preciso, entretanto, apontar um demérito, ligado ao formato ensaio, mas que mesmo assim se mostra relevante - muitas posições ficam no ar, ou como que em cima do muro, e problemas interessantes que poderiam ser destrinchados são dispensados com um talvez. Esses maybes de Danto que mostram, por um lado e na verdade, a certeza do autor quanto à posição e por outro, sua relutância em adentrar um debate mais denso acerca. show less
A helpful view of contemporary art.
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Author Information
97+ Works 3,296 Members
Art critic and philosopher Arthur C. Danto was born in 1924. He received a B.A. from Wayne State University in 1948 and a M.A. and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, in 1949 and 1952, respectively. He began teaching at Columbia University in 1951 and has been a professor since 1966. He has received many fellowships and grants including two show more Guggenheims, ACLS, and Fulbright, and has served as Vice-President and President of the American Philosophical Association, as well as President of the American Society for Aesthetics. His book Encounters and Reflections: Art in the Historical Present, a collection of art criticism, won the 1990 National Book Critics Circle Prize for Criticism. He is also the art critic for The Nation and an editor for the Journal of Philosophy. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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