Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late-Twentieth-Century Art [Hardcover]

Christoph Grunenberg (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 1997

As the millennium draws to a close, a Gothic spirit once again penetrates much of today's art and culture. Over the past decade, American and European artists have grown increasingly fascinated with the dark and uncanny side of the human psyche—the theatrical and grotesque, the violent and destructive.

Taking its starting point and title from the Gothic novel, this book investigates the full-blown revival of a Gothic sensibility in contemporary art; in American and British fiction labeled the "New Gothic"; in film with its long tradition of horror; and in video, music, fashion, design, and underground culture. Gothic accompanies an exhibition at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, of twenty-three artists who produce horror as well as amazement through often ugly, fragmented, and contorted forms. Some employ a detached and reductive formal language to transmute images of excessive and gruesome violence, nevertheless achieving an equally disconcerting impact. The old Gothic themes of the fantastic and pathological are infused with new potency as they address concerns about the body, disease, voyeurism, and power.

Essays by John Gianvito, Christoph Grunenberg, James Hannaham, Patrick McGrath, Joyce Carol Oates, Shawn Rosenheim, Csaba Toth, and Anne Williams, and a short story by Dennis Cooper, explore the Gothic in history and in contemporary art and culture.

Artists: Julie Becker, Monica Carocci, Dinos and Jake Chapman, Gregory Crewdson, Keith Edmier, James Elaine, Robert Gober, Douglas Gordon, Wolfgang Amadeus Hansbauer, Jim Hodges, Cameron Jamie, Mike Kelley, Abigail Lane, Zoe Leonard, Tony Oursler, Sheila Pepe, Alexis Rockman, Aura Rosenberg, Pieter Schoolwerth, Cindy Sherman, Jeanne Silverthorne, Gary Simmons.

Copublished with The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late Twentieth Century Art was published to accompany an exhibition in 1997 at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, where editor Christoph Grunenberg is curator. The first essay, by Grunenberg himself--"Unsolved Mysteries: Gothic Tales from Frankenstein to the Hair Eating Doll"--is both a rich, fascinating overview of the ongoing Gothic revival in several media (with a treasure trove of black-and-white illustrations) and an introduction to the exhibition:

As the millennium draws to a close, a Gothic spirit once again penetrates much of today's art and culture. Over the last decade, American and European artists have grown increasingly fascinated with the dark and uncanny side of the human psyche, the theatrical and the grotesque, the violent and destructive.

This handsomely produced book includes numerous color plates of the artwork from the show, such as a carefully crafted crime scene (Abigail Lane), closets evocative of childhood secrets (Robert Gober), soiled and worn-out dolls (Mike Kelley), photos incorporating incongruous body parts and rotting food (Cindy Sherman), an oversized medieval chandelier adorned with real carcasses (James Elaine), miniature recreations of creepy corners in houses (Julie Becker), photographic tableaux juxtaposing peaceful suburban or natural settings with images of crime and disease (Gregory Crewdson), disturbing hyperrealism (Alexis Rockman), and obsessively overwrought chronicles of American popular culture (Pieter Schoolwerth). The eight other essays and prose pieces, by such writers as Patrick McGrath, Dennis Cooper, and Joyce Carol Oates, cover themes of the Gothic and grotesque in rock music, film, literature, and other parts of contemporary culture. --Fiona Webster

From Library Journal

These two erudite catalogs, accompanying summer exhibitions on opposite coasts, look beyond the diverse contemporary works in the shows to examine pop-cultural and social manifestations of their related themes. If, as one writer here suggests, "Freud's case studies stand alongside the best of Poe," then Gothic's ruminations on our romanticized notions of the strange, horrific, and violent are the perfect complement to Rugoff's dissection of our mania for clinical forensics. Gothic is the more systematic in its endeavor to bring in non-art expressions; noted scholars and critics offer very readable chapters on the gothic novel, the gothic spirit in rock music, "Industrial Gothic," early gothic films, and the current cinematic revival. An introductory essay discusses the art in the show, while a short story by Dennis Cooper and "Reflections on the Grotesque" by Joyce Carol Oates round out the text. In addition to film stills and other documentary illustrations, fine color plates of around 50 works by some of the last decade's biggest names?Cindy Sherman, Gary Simmons, and Robert Gober among them?are sprinkled throughout the book. Rugoff takes on a more specialized topic, what he calls the "forensic aesthetic," and though his time frame is greater?encompassing art from the last 30 years?he has limited his study to California-based artists. Intertwining such themes as "forensic photography, deteriorated architecture, and the banalization of melodrama," the three essays here will be more challenging to the lay reader. Again, leading names?Baldessari, Nauman, Ruscha?are among the 36 artists included here. Gothic is highly recommended to both public and academic libraries with an interest in either cultural studies or contemporary art. Scene will make an excellent complement in academic art libraries.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; MIT Press ed edition (May 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262071843
• ISBN-13: 978-0262071840
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,484,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally an intellectual book tor the rest of us, December 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late-Twentieth-Century Art (Hardcover)

this hardback 219-page book (numbered backwards) is a collector's item. It draws on the last 200 years from history, music, psychoanalysis, film, fashion, architecture, literature, all types of art to describe what "gothic" actually is. Discussions on the influence of industrialization, the Holocaust, the millenium, and Freud are included. I am a profesional/academic who is now much better able to articulate why I am drawn to his thing called gothic and to define what it is. This 9-chapter book with color and B & W photos and appendicies would be an appropriate text for a college course in art, popular culture, etc. Gothic is more than a disturbed adolescent dressed in black.