Research Catalog

What art is like, in constant reference to the Alice books

Title
What art is like, in constant reference to the Alice books / Miguel Tamen.
Author
Tamen, Miguel.
Publication
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2012.

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TextUse in library JFE 14-8468Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
117 pages; 24 cm
Summary
"What art is like, in constant reference to the Alice books is a comic, serious inquiry into the nature of art. It provides welcome relief from prevailing modes of explaining art that involve definitions, philosophical claims, and critical judgments put forth by third parties. Scrapping all such chatter, Miguel Tamen's aphoristic lark with aesthetic questions proceeds by taking its technical vocabulary only from Lewis Carroll's Alice's adventures in Wonderland and Through the looking-glass. According to Tamen, it would be ridiculous to think of poems or paintings or films or any variety of artistic production as distinct from other things in the world, including people. Talking about art should be contiguous with talking about many other relevant and important matters. Tamen offers a series of analogies and similes to help us imagine these connected experiences. One, taken from the analytical table of contents where the book is writ small, suggests that 'understanding a poem is like understanding a cat; neither ever says anything back and you can't keep a conversation with them. All art is like this, but not only art is like this; nature, the past, numbers are also like this.' Tamen takes up many central issues in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, including the connection between art and having fuzzy ideas about art, the mistake of imagining that art-decisions are put forth by art-courts where you are both judge and jury, and the notion that what happens with art also happens to you."--Jacket.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Ideas -- Furniture -- A mistake -- What happens.
Call Number
JFE 14-8468
ISBN
  • 9780674067066 (alk. paper)
  • 0674067061 (alk. paper)
LCCN
2012010777
OCLC
781077825
Author
Tamen, Miguel.
Title
What art is like, in constant reference to the Alice books / Miguel Tamen.
Imprint
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2012.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 14-8468
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