Embodied meanings

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Danto's philosophically informed art criticism in these 41 reviews and essays bristles with erudition, eclectic taste and keen intellect. He evinces fresh perspectives and generous sympathies whether he is discussing Old Masters like Titian and Velazquez; moderns such as Picasso, Seurat and Kasimir Malevich; contemporary painters Francis Bacon and David Hockney; or sacred Tibetan art. Female artists are well-represented here, with perceptive pieces on Eva Hesse, Jenny Holzer, Helen Frankenthaler (whose paintings Danto compares to ``inspired jazz''), Liubov Popova and Madeline Gins, who collaborates with her husband, Arakawa, on conceptual explorations of thought and writing. Professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia and art critic for the Nation (where most of the selections first appeared), Danto sets forth meditations on contemporary aesthetics, the limits of art as a moral, suasive force and the role of the museum in shaping an image of a culture. (May)

Library Journal

Slightly more than 40 of art critic/philosopher Danto's previously published essays are brought together here with about half a dozen pieces taken from lectures and symposia. The bulk of the work was first published in the pages of the Nation between 1989 and 1991. Danto (Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Columbia) writes with an immediacy and clarity that allows the reader considerable access to the art work, or exhibition, under critical discussion. Contemporary and classical works, as well as those by women and non-Westerners, are considered along with the works of European and American men. Danto's political concerns color the text of many of these pieces, providing the only aspect that will date them. For public as well as academic collections.-- Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.