Forms of Enchantment: Writings on Art & Artists

Product Description Art-writing at its most useful should share the dynamism, fluidity and passions of the objects of its enquiry, argues Marina Warner. In this new anthology of some of her most compelling work, she captures the visual experience of the work of several artists – with a notable focus on the inner lives of women – through an exploration of the range of stories and symbols to which they allude. Metamorphosis features vividly in the imagery, stories and media of the art that Warner has chosen to write about: in connection with animals in the work of Louise Bourgeois, for instance; with the Catholicism of Damien Hirst; and with performance as a medium of memory and resistance in the installations of Joan Jonas. Rather than drawing on connoisseurship, the author’s approach grows principally out of anthropology and mythology. She argues that art and aesthetics increasingly fulfil a magical social function – a principle that runs through these writings to give the collection a quality that is polemical as well as coherent. With an introductory essay and illustrations throughout, Marina Warner investigates how artists noted for their treatment of disturbing, uncanny material have reached beyond the visible, to express interior states. Truly inspiring, her writing unites the imagination of artist, writer and reader, creating a reading experience parallel to the intrinsic pleasure of looking at art. Table of Contents Foreword • I. Playing in the Dark • Paula Rego: Giving Fear a Face • Henry Fuseli: In the Passionate Playground • Janine Antoni: Hide & Seek • Richard Wentworth: Things That Talk • Kiki Smith: Wolf-Girl, Soul-Bird • II. Bodies of Sense • Hans Baldung Grien: A Fatal Bite • Louise Bourgeois: Cut and Stitch • Zarina Bhimji: Customs of the Country • Helen Chadwick: The Wound of Difference • Tacita Dean: Footage • III. Spectral Technologies • Joan Jonas: Future Ghosts • Sigmar Polke: Stone Alchemy • Al & Al: Visions of the Honeycomb • Jumana Emil Abboud: Dreaming the Territory • Christian Thompson: Magical Aesthetics • IV. Iconoclashes • Hieronymus Bosch: Trumpery, or The Followers of the Haywain • Damien Hirst: Once a Catholic… • Felicity Powell: Marks of Shame, Signs of Grace • Frans Masereel: Naked in the City • Cristina Iglesias: Where Three Waters Meet • Julie Mehretu: The Third Space Review Warner brings her capacious knowledge of myth, fairy tale, aesthetics, religion, and literature to these erudite and luminous essays on art and artists... Warner sees art criticism as an aesthetic project in its own right, not merely 'an accompaniment, as a pianist plays for a singer...' She succeeds impressively... Fertile, probing responses to the transformative power of art. --. What stands out in this work is the depth of [Warner s] engagement: she does not simply look hard at each artist s work but interrogates hard too. Her approach is more philosophical and psychological than art historical, and what draws her to her subjects is their storytelling --RA Magazine Heady, thought-provoking stuff here: the author has a knack of taking initially complex subjects and making them accessible and reachable --Actual Size