{"title":"Leo Bersani","description":"\u003cp\u003eLeo Bersani's work explores the intersections of art, culture, and identity with profound insight and originality. His writing delves into complex themes such as sexuality, representation, and the subversion of traditional narratives, offering a rich tapestry of thought that challenges and enlightens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can expect a compelling blend of critical theory and cultural analysis, with titles like \u003cem\u003eCaravaggio\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eGay Betrayals\u003c\/em\u003e that illuminate the provocative edges of modern and contemporary arts. Bersani’s distinctive voice invites reflection on how art shapes and is shaped by society.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"gay-betrayals-by-hannah-quinlan-9783753302393","title":"Gay Betrayals","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1997, during a symposium at Centre Pompidou, Leo Bersani presented a prescient critique of the assimilative tendencies that made 'gays melt into the very culture they like to think of themselves as undermining.' Mired in micropolitics, for Bersani, queer activism had relinquished the radical task of reconfiguring the horizon of the possible. Later published as \u003cem\u003eGay Betrayals\u003c\/em\u003e, Bersani's intervention champions a truly disruptive vision of homosexuality, one that betrays the relational, identitarian and communitarian foundations of bourgeois heterosexual respectability through 'antimonogamous promiscuity'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding on extensive artistic research into the politics of queer spaces and culture some 20 years later, artist duo Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings revisit Bersani's polemic with a response in three acts. Through a kaleidoscopic array of drawings, preparatory sketches and egg tempera paintings, a narrative of everyday (homo)sociality comes into view. A series of statuesque figures are caught as they feel the outlines of existing power structures, try out new strategies of inclusivity and, ultimately, wrestle with the blurred lineaments of identity and community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Thames and Hudson (Australia) Pty Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47424185467116,"sku":"9783753302393","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9783753302393.jpg?v=1774768961"},{"product_id":"caravaggio-by-leo-bersani-9781839022562","title":"Caravaggio","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCaravaggio\u003c\/i\u003e (1986), Derek Jarman's portrait of the Italian Baroque artist, shows the painter at work with models drawn from Rome's homeless and prostitutes, and his relationship with two very different lovers: Ranuccio, played by Sean Bean, and Lena, played by Tilda Swinton. It is probably the closest Derek Jarman came to a mainstream film.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd yet the film is a uniquely complex and lucid treatment of Jarman's major concerns: violence, history, homosexuality, and the relation between film and painting. In particular, according to Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit, \u003ci\u003eCaravaggio\u003c\/i\u003e is unlike Jarman's other work in avoiding a sentimentalising of gay relationships and in making no neat distinction between the exercise and the suffering of violence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFilm-making involves a coercive power which, for Bersani and Dutoit, Jarman may, without admitting it to himself, have found deeply seductive. But in \u003ci\u003eCaravaggio\u003c\/i\u003e this power is renounced, and the result is Jarman’s most profound, unsettling and astonishing reflection on sexuality and identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PTY Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47470231912684,"sku":"9781839022562","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781839022562-caravaggio.jpg?v=1775214279"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/leo-bersani.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}