Abstractionist aesthetics : artistic form and social critique in African American culture / Phillip Brian Harper.

By:

Harper, Phillip Brian [author.]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: NYU series in social and cultural analysisPublisher: New York : New York University Press, 2015Description: 1 online resourceContent type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9781479808878
1479808873

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Abstractionist aestheticsDDC classification:

305.896/073 23

LOC classification:

BH221.U53 H37 2015eb

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

Introduction: Against positive images -- Black personhood in the maw of abstraction -- Historical cadence and the nitty-gritty effect -- Telling it slant -- Coda: The literary advantage.

Summary: In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the 'proper' depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism - a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation.

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Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Introduction: Against positive images -- Black personhood in the maw of abstraction -- Historical cadence and the nitty-gritty effect -- Telling it slant -- Coda: The literary advantage.

In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the 'proper' depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism - a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation.

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