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Shiny Things

Reflective Surfaces and Their Mixed Meanings
By Timothy van Laar and Leonard Diepeveen
0.0 (0 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Shiny Things explores the allure and significance of shininess in modern culture, shifting from rarity to its omnipresence in consumerism. Authors Timothy van Laar and Leonard Diepeveen investigate how shininess influences visual art, architecture, body image, and spectacle, analysing works by artists such as Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, and Fra Angelico. The book intertwines diverse topics from automobiles to politics, offering fresh perspectives through accessible and thoughtful scholarship.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$5599
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book will appeal to readers interested in arts and culture, students and scholars of visual art, material culture, and contemporary theory, as well as progressive thinkers seeking new conceptual approaches.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Discusses meanings of shininess in art and in culture generally. Shininess is physically and metaphorically present in the construction of concepts such as utopia, the sublime, and camp; and the way its affects, rooted in excess produce irony, anxiety, pleasure and kitsch. A compelling subject that instantly attracts and fascinates. 54 b/w illus.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Shiny objects attract and fascinate us. While they used to derive their power from their rarity, today shininess is pervasive: its attraction is a foundation of consumer culture and it has attendant effects on our architecture, our conceptions of the body, and our production of spectacle.

In Shiny Things, Leonard Diepeveen and Timothy van Laar examine the meanings and functions of shininess in visual art and material culture.

Exploring the works of a diverse range of artists—including Anish Kapoor, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Carolee Schneemann, Audrey Flack, Fra Angelico, and Gerard ter Borch—the authors open the discourse to topics as disparate as automobiles, Richard Nixon, and Liberace.

With accessible writing and a careful application of contemporary theory, this is scholarship that challenges stale thought and will appeal to any progressive thinker looking for new ways to present ideas.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

David Klamen, Dean of the School of the Arts at Indiana University Northwest, praises Shiny Things as a smart, accessible, and often humorous examination of shininess across culture. He calls it an exemplary study of a pervasive but overlooked facet of material culture, blending art and theory effectively.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781789383782

Publisher: Intellect

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 30 July 2021

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Intellect Books

Illustration: 54 Halftones, color

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 150.0mm

Height: 210.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 168

Collections

Arts & Culture Education & Reference Leonard Diepeveen Non-Fiction Philosophy & Psychology Philosophy & Stoicism Timothy van Laar

About the Author

Leonard Diepeveen, Emeritus George Munro Professor of Literature and Rhetoric at Dalhousie University, is the author of Modernist Fraud: Hoax, Parody, Deception (Oxford, 2019), The Difficulties of Modernism (Routledge, 2003) and Mock Modernism: An Anthology of Parodies, Travesties, Frauds, 1910-1935 (Toronto 2014). As well, he is co-author, with Timothy van Laar, of Artworld Prestige: Arguing Cultural Value (Oxford, 2013).

Timothy van Laar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor of Art Emeritus and former Professor and Chair of Fine Arts at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, is an artist and writer. His artwork is included in numerous public and private collections, including, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Illinois State Museum. He has co-authored three books and writes reviews and essays on contemporary art.

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