Martin Clayton

Frances S. Connelly

Valeriano Bozal

Museo Picasso Málaga

Despite its longevity as a tradition stretching back to at least the eighteenth century, the Grotesque has only recently become a non-pejorative term in art and academia. "The Grotesque Factor" takes a close look at the evolution of the Grotesque, examining early caricature (Hogarth, Goya), abject, scatological and black humor, nineteenth-century French art and literature (Grandville, Baudelaire, Jarry), Jame Ensor, the grotesque in early film and the grotesque turn in recent British art. It includes 175 extraordinary works by more than 76 artists, including Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Otto Dix, James Ensor, Max Ernst, Jose Gutierrez Solana, Victor Hugo, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Franz Xavier Messerschmidt, Juan Munoz, Meret Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Juan Sanchez Cotan, Antonio Saura, Thomas Schutte, Cindy Sherman, Leonardo da Vinci, Bill Viola and Franz West, among others.

Essays

The Grotesque Factor

This book establishes a fresh and expansive view of the grotesque in Western art and culture, from 1500 to the present day. Following the non-linear evolution of the grotesque, Frances S. Connelly analyzes key works, situating them within their immediate social and cultural contexts, as well as their place in the historical tradition. By taking a long historical view, the book reveals the grotesque to be a complex and continuous tradition comprised of several distinct strands: the ornamental, the carnivalesque and caricatural, the traumatic, and the profound. The book articulates a model for understanding the grotesque as a rupture of cultural boundaries that compromises and contradicts accepted realities. Connelly demonstrates that the grotesque is more than a style, genre, or subject; it is a cultural phenomenon engaging the central concerns of the humanistic debate today. Hybrid, ambivalent, and changeful, the grotesque is a shaping force in the modern era.

Frances S. Connelly

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