[ePub] Hans Holbein: Revised and Expanded Second Edition by Oscar Batschmann; Pascal Griener at Arts-Photography

Description

Since the 1890s; American artists have employed the arts of the freak show to envision radically different ways of being. The result is a rich avant-garde tradition that critiques and challenges capitalism from within. The Freak-garde traces the arts of the freak show from P. T. Barnum to Matthew Barney and demonstrates how a form of mass culture entertainment became the basis for a distinctly American avant-garde tradition. Exploring a wide range of writers; filmmakers; photographers; and artists who have appropriated the arts of the freak show; Robin Blyn exposes the disturbing power of human curiosities and the desires they unleash. Through a series of incisive and often startling readings; Blyn reveals how such figures as Mark Twain; Djuna Barnes; Tod Browning; Lon Chaney; Nathanael West; and Diane Arbus use these desires to propose alternatives to the autonomous and repressed subject of liberal capitalism. Blyn explains how; rather than grounding revolutionary subjectivities in imaginary realms innocent of capitalism; freak-garde works manufacture new subjectivities by exploiting potentials inherent to capitalism. Defying conventional wisdom; The Freak-garde ultimately argues that postmodernism is not the death of the avant-garde but the inheritor of a vital and generative legacy. In doing so; the book establishes innovative approaches to American avant-garde practices and embodiment and lays the foundation for a more nuanced understanding of the disruptive potential of art under capitalism.