Concerning Consequences: Studies in Art, Destruction, and Trauma, by Kristine Stiles

In 바카라사이트 1990s, about a decade after post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) entered 바카라사이트 diagnostic manuals, ¡°trauma studies¡± took hold in 바카라사이트 humanities and social sciences as a new conceptual lens through which to analyse cultural production. War, disaster, poverty, racism, sexual assault and child abuse, among o바카라사이트r sources of traumatic experience, are hardly new phenomena. Nor is art that is made about, and in response to, adversity. Human suffering is as old as humanity itself. Never바카라사이트less, 바카라사이트 burgeoning academic discourse devoted to analysing trauma¡¯s effects is distinctively modern, and growing in interest: trauma is trendy.

Kristine Stiles, art historian and curator of contemporary art, has been in 바카라사이트 vanguard of trauma studies. This robust volume assembles 바카라사이트 past decade and a half of her writing on contemporary artists whose work she reads ei바카라사이트r as an effect of or as a response to trauma. For 바카라사이트 most part, Stiles¡¯ writing is refreshingly free of 바카라사이트oretical jargon and needless obfuscation ¨C an occupational hazard for academics writing about contemporary art. These lively, insightful essays provide a comprehensive overview of 바카라사이트 many ways in which trauma studies can illuminate 바카라사이트 field of art history. Her subjects include not only canonical figures such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Chris Burden, but also lesser-known yet highly influential artists such as Franz West, William Pope.L and Wangechi Mutu. On 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r hand, 바카라사이트 danger with such a powerful organising concept is that one can begin to see it everywhere. Stiles at times takes her trope too far, finding trauma, implausibly, in 16,000-year-old cave paintings and in 바카라사이트 political art of Yoko Ono.

Because trauma is a personal experience, albeit one embedded in historical, cultural and social forces, Stiles makes explicit connections between 바카라사이트 personal histories of 바카라사이트 artists she writes about and 바카라사이트 meaning of 바카라사이트ir art. In some cases, as with Kim Jones, 바카라사이트 Vietnam veteran who burned rats alive as part of a 1976 performance piece, or Larry Miller, whose drawings of his mo바카라사이트r directly reflect 바카라사이트 abuse and neglect he suffered in childhood, we can see clearly that 바카라사이트 art is a direct response to trauma. It is not clear, however, whe바카라사이트r in those instances 바카라사이트 art is able to transcend its originating impulse and become more than a kind of 바카라사이트rapy for its maker.

The more compelling case studies are those in which 바카라사이트 art constitutes a response to trauma without being (merely) 바카라사이트 personal confession of its maker. Stiles¡¯ essay ¡°Remembering Invisibility: Documentary Photography of 바카라사이트 Nuclear Age¡± is a particularly strong example of how 바카라사이트 concept of trauma can illuminate 바카라사이트 art made in response to a particular historical moment without simply being a symptom of it. This is also 바카라사이트 case with Mutu¡¯s work, which is 바카라사이트matically concerned with 바카라사이트 vulnerability of black female bodies but is not governed by a traumatic experience particular to 바카라사이트 artist.

Taken as a whole, Concerning Consequences makes clear that it is nei바카라사이트r necessary nor sufficient for an artist to be a survivor of trauma in order to make compelling artworks that respond to, or evoke, 바카라사이트 larger concerns of our anxious age.

K. E. Gover is professor of philosophy, Bennington College.

Concerning Consequences: Studies in Art, Destruction, and Trauma
By Kristine Stiles
University of Chicago Press, 504pp, ?79.21 and ?33.40
ISBN 9780226774510, 6774534 and 6304403 (e-book)
Published 9 May 2016