The Second Diasporist Manifesto [Hardcover]

R.B. Kitaj (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 2007

This book, a follow-up to Kitaj's influential "First Diasporist Manifesto" (1989), is a personal reflection on the Jewish Question in contemporary art as it is lived and painted and imagined by one of today's most innovative and controversial artists. In 615 distinct propositions that deliberately echo the Commandments of Jewish Law, Kitaj here channels his ideas for a new Diasporist art in a daring stream of consciousness. Including 41 images of the artist's work chosen by him to accompany the text, this beautifully crafted volume is a unique and fascinating look into an artist's unusual life and work. From "The Second Diasporist Manifesto" is: 'But I swore to become myself - the new Jewish painter of a skeptical Diasporist art, born in Modernism, which cleaves to my own uncanny Jewish life of study, painting, unthinkable thoughts and near death...I admit that my Manifesto-poem is very personal, as a poem can be. But one would have to also unpack the cultural secrets of a book on Islamic Art, or Chinese or Egyptian or African Art. My Jewish Art lives a more Modernist Secret life. The Jewish Diaspora is not the only one. It's just mine.'

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Second Diasporist Manifesto comes straight out of the artist''s workroom. It''s a crucial document of our postmodern period, a book that reimagines modernism in a very personal way. Kitaj has written  a searching artistic confession that''s also a dazzling literary achievement."—Jed Perl

(Jed Perl )

"A quick read, but a must read. There is more raw energy, more ideas per page, more connections drawn between alternative worlds, more ''art,'' and more God talk in this exploration of possibilities than one typically finds in more deliberative explorations of Jewish identity and thought."--Zachary Braiterman, Religious Studies Review

(Zachary Braiterman Religious Studies Review )

About the Author

R. B. Kitaj, described by John Russell as 'the most inventive of living representational painters', won the Grand Prize for Painting (Gold Lion) at the Venice Biennale in 1995. Kitaj is one of only a handful of American painters who has been given a retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art during his own lifetime. His work is in museum collections worldwide.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300124562
• ISBN-13: 978-0300124569
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,960,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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