The Clever Object (Art History Special Issues) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1118710762 ISBN 13: 9781118710760

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013

Synopsis

The Clever Object presents a multidisciplinary exploration of the ways objects materialise, embody, or negotiate various forms of intelligence, revealing its use as an analytic tool of art-historical interpretation.

• Presents an original theory (“the clever object”) that draws on contributions from a variety of fields, including history of art, anthropology, philosophy of science, and design history
• Features interviews with two contemporary artists
• Advances a theoretical conversation by combining historical contributions (from medieval/early modern) with contemporary perspectives
• Represents the results of a project developed from an intensive research seminar in which all contributors participated and developed their work in evolving dialogue

About this title

About the Author

Matthew C. Hunter is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University. He is author of Wicked Intelligence: Visual Art and the Science of Experiment in Restoration London (2013) and co-editor of Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science (2010).

Francesco Lucchini is a Psychoanalytic Training Candidate at the C. G. Jung Institut, Zurich. He is also an art historian and theorist with an interest in the relationship between objects and ideas, thinking and things.

From the Back Cover

Objects, according to the anthropological adage, are good to think with. But just what kind of thinking is it that objects enable―or constrain? Are some objects made “cleverer” than others simply through their manufacture or embodied virtuosity? And how might attention to such inherent cleverness enable one to reconsider the aesthetic objects privileged by historians of art?

The Clever Object presents a multidisciplinary exploration of the ways objects materialise, embody, or negotiate various forms of intelligence. Experts from the fields of anthropology, philosophy of science, design history and artistic practice offer rich insights into objects that frustrate conventional modes of narration while seeming to guide―even entrap―the subjects who make, behold, and interpret them. Original and thought-provoking, The Clever Object defines, explores, and expands the category of “the clever object” as an analytic tool of art-historical interpretation for the twenty-first century.

From the Inside Flap

Objects, according to the anthropological adage, are good to think with. But just what kind of thinking is it that objects enable—or constrain? Are some objects made “cleverer” than others simply through their manufacture or embodied virtuosity? And how might attention to such inherent cleverness enable one to reconsider the aesthetic objects privileged by historians of art?

The Clever Object presents a multidisciplinary exploration of the ways objects materialise, embody, or negotiate various forms of intelligence. Experts from the fields of anthropology, philosophy of science, design history and artistic practice offer rich insights into objects that frustrate conventional modes of narration while seeming to guide—even entrap—the subjects who make, behold, and interpret them. Original and thought-provoking, The Clever Object defines, explores, and expands the category of “the clever object” as an analytic tool of art-historical interpretation for the twenty-first century.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1118710762
• ISBN 13: 9781118710760
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Hunter Matthew C., Lucchini Francesco