Dismissed as a miserable elitist who condemned popular culture in the name of lsquo;high artrsquo;; Theodore W. Adorno (1903-1969) is one of the most provocative and important yet least understood of contemporary thinkers. This book draws on new translations into English to challenge this popular image and re-examines Adorno as a utopian philosopher who believed authentic art could save the world.Adorno Reframed is not only a comprehensive introduction to the reader coming to Adorno for the first time through detailed discussion of artworks; novels; films and music; but an important re-evaluation of this founder of the Frankfurt School. Influenced by Kant; Hegel; Freud; Marx; Nietzche and Kierkegaard; Adorno was a searing critic of the formal; reductive rationality of the Enlightenment and of modernity. Unafraid to talk about human nature; undaunted by dogmas regarding cultural construction; Adorno loved art that hurts; that challenged the prevailing culture of the day and resisted the managed; commodified pseudo-happiness of lsquo;administered societyrsquo;. Defending the independence of the natural world and the particularity of the human individual; for Adorno real authentic art was a defiant refusal to subordinate the materiality of the world and the lived reality of human activity to the imperatives of social totality.Making his theory accessible through a wealth of concrete illustrations; many drawn from Adorno himself; Geoffrey Boucher recasts Adorno as a revolutionary whose anthropological vision of the human condition; sense of subversive irony and profoundly historical aesthetics defended the integrity of the individual against the commodified culture industries that supply unsatisfying consumer lsquo;happinessrsquo;. Grounding Adornorsquo;s social philosophy and aesthetic theory in contextualised analysis of artists ranging from Stockhausen and Kafka to David Lynch and Brett Easton-Ellis; Adorno Reframed takes its subject from interwar modernity into the postmodern and feminist present to examine the legacy and influence of Adornorsquo;s radical modernism and his belief that art was in the final analysis a way to cope with; not escape; reality.
#1020180 in eBooks 2014-10-06 2014-10-06File Name: B00OA0YTIK
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A bit artsy fartsyBy HaraganoWell I was hoping to find more information in this book as to how to do some of the things illustrated but it was not there. Clever ideas; good pictures but obviously the author was following the old adage about a picture was worth a thousand words..... because for the most part they left step by step instructions o-u-t. And that was what I was looking for. Good for ideas if you already know how to do it.....0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Kruela EdisonIt is not all about computers. There are many places to find imagery and play with it.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. My favorite altered art book EVERBy TracyMy favorite altered art book EVER!!! Inspiring Ideas with techniques; tips; and material lists. Prior knowledge of photography; materials; and computers helpful; NOT for a beginner.
