James Elkins

Sunil Manghani

Gustav Frank

Each of the five volumes in the Stone Art Theory Institutes series brings together a range of scholars who are not always directly familiar with one another’s work. The outcome of each of these convergences is an extensive and “unpredictable conversation” on knotty and provocative issues about art. This fifth and final volume in the series focuses on the identity, nature, and future of visual studies, discussing critical questions about its history, objects, and methods. The contributors question the canon of literature of visual studies and the place of visual studies with relation to theories of vision, visuality, epistemology, politics, and art history, giving voice to a variety of inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives. Rather than dismissing visual studies, as its provocative title might suggest, this volume aims to engage a critical discussion of the state of visual studies today, how it might move forward, and what it might leave behind to evolve in productive ways. The contributors are Emmanuel Alloa, Nell Andrew, Linda Báez Rubí, Martin A. Berger, Hans Dam Christensen, Isabelle Decobecq, Bernhard J. Dotzler, Johanna Drucker, James Elkins, Michele Emmer, Yolaine Escande, Gustav Frank, Theodore Gracyk, Asbjørn Grønstad, Stephan Günzel, Charles W. Haxthausen, Miguel Á. Hernández-Navarro, Tom Holert, Kıvanç Kılınç, Charlotte Klonk, Tirza True Latimer, Mark Linder, Sunil Manghani, Anna Notaro, Julia Orell, Mark Reinhardt, Vanessa R. Schwartz, Bernd Stiegler, Øyvind Vågnes, Sjoukje van der Meulen, Terri Weissman, Lisa Zaher, and Marta Zarzycka.

Farewell to Visual Studies

Taking the fall of the Berlin Wall as a key marker in recent history – a period in which increasingly we find ourselves watching ‘instant history’ unfold live on air – the book presents a new critical concept of image critique: a double procedure of both a critique of images and the use of images as a means to engage with our contemporary mediated culture for new critical purposes. A rich array of primary sources are woven together to provide a thorough critique of the recent and lively theoretical debates about visual culture. Topics range from Francis Fukuyama’s End of History thesis to metapictures, contemporary East German film and the notion of the public sphere/screen. In staking out a new critical visual theory, the book does not seek to present any straightforward analysis of visual representations of the fall of the Wall, but instead inhabits its historical and ongoing resonance as a means to situate a complex interactive account of history, politics, human action, freedom, the media and visual culture.

Image Critique and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Images: Critical and Primary Sources is a major multi-volume work of reference that brings together seminal writings on the image. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the essays range across the domains of philosophy, history, art, aesthetics, literature, science, anthropology, critical theory and cultural studies. The essays reveal a wide set of perspectives, problematics and approaches, helping to frame a rich, encompassing view of what we can broadly term 'image studies'. The four volumes are arranged thematically, each separately introduced and with the essays structured into specific sections for easy reference. Volume 1: Understanding Images establishes conceptual, historical, ideological and philosophical framings for understanding and defining the image; followed in Volume 2: The Pictorial Turn with a focus on the most enduring and constitutive question of the image: its relationship to, with and against text and textuality. Volume 3: Image Theory offers representative materials covering key theoretical approaches for analyzing, interpreting and critiquing the image. Finally, Volume 4: Image Cultures examines a wide range of social and cultural contexts of the image, which covers aspects of visual evidence, image and memory, visual methodologies, scientific imaging and the practical engagement of image-makers. Images: Critical and Primary Sources offers a major scholarly resource for any researchers involved in the study of the image and visual culture.

Critical and Primary Sources

Images

Robert E. D'Souza

India’s Kochi-Muziris Biennale has been described as one of the most significant newly emergent biennales, alongside Shanghai, Sharjah and Dakar. However, there have been few sustained and critical studies of these events as specific sites of production and reception of contemporary art. This book, engaging with the Kochi Biennale, provides detailed examination of what the editors term as the ‘biennale effect’ — a layered contestation of place, economics, art and politics. It presents a close reading of the unique context of the biennale as well as sets out a broader critical framework for understanding global contemporary art and its effects. Replete with illustrations, this book will serve as an important and rare resource for scholars and researchers of contemporary art, art history, visual cultures, and media studies.

A Politics of Contemporary Art

India’s Biennale Effect

Sunil Manghani's "Image Critique and the Fall of the Berlin Wall" examines the use of visual image, using the event of the fall of the Berlin Wall as a contemporary case study. The book presents a new critical visual theory: image critique - a dual procedure combining a focus on both analysing and interpreting images, with a consideration of how images can be used to critically examine and engage with our contemporary culture. Manghani's interdisciplinary approach is complimented by a vast array of sources, including illustrative visual images, creating an accessible and lively debate. Manghani examines current debates surrounding visual culture, ranging from such topics as Francis Fukuyama's end of history thesis to metapictures and East German film. The result is an exhilarating interweaving of history, politics, and visual culture. It presents an image-based approach to critical theory. It provides a rich interplay of text and image. It offers a large number of images and stills. Whilst much has been written about Berlin and the Berlin Wall (mostly in the context of WWII or German reunification), this publication is the first to focus specifically on the media angle of the event, and its significance and influence in the development of political debate.

"Image Studies provides an engaging introduction to visual studies analysis and an account of existing and emergent visual culture debates, along with chapters on a range of topics, including: consumer culture and identity; photography and digital imaging; painting and drawing; the moving image; the relationship between image and text (including reference to text in art, comics and animation); and scientific imaging.Written in an engaging and accessible way, the text will also include extracts of existing critical materials. Each chapter will include key set readings, including short extracts from existing literatures with accompanying study notes and questions. The chapters will also include a range of critical and creative tasks, designed to bring the academic study of visual culture into direct contact with practical aspects of visual culture and image-making.Image Studies is a new text aimed predominantly at undergraduate students in visual culture, but which will also be useful for media studies students and arts students more generally"--

Theory and Practice

Image Studies

Jon Simons

Arthur Piper

Images: A Reader provides a key resource for students, academics, practitioners and other readers engaged in the critical, theoretical, and practical study of images. The Reader is concerned with the notion of the ‘image’ in all its theoretical, critical and practical contexts, uses and history. It provides a map of the differences and similarities between the various disciplinary approaches to images, breaking the ground for a new interdisciplinary study of images, in the arts and humanities and beyond. The selection of over 80 key readings, across the domains of philosophy, art, literature, science, critical theory and cultural studies tells the story of images through intellectual history from the Bible to the present. By including both well-established writings and more recent, innovative research, the Reader outlines crucial developments in contemporary discourses about images.

Sunil Manghani

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