I was just wondering if anyone else remembers the 1995 art exhibition,
Going for Baroque. It seems to me this exhibition could be considered
world historic (as an invert version of Hegel's history of art.)
Anyways, the book I am currently reading on the historic baroque and
modern baroque by Mieke Bal is partly hinged on this exhibition. This is
a book Judy would love, being very heavy academic abstract going.
Bakhtin, Deleuze, Derrida, Grosz, et al. (I am tempted to jump the fence
to Judy's side, but not being an academic this may land me in academia
instead... there is no escape)
But it is also a book about doubling. Mieke Bal is a literary theorist
writing on visual arts to start with. So you get this image and text
thing happening again. For my reading, how does image escape being
semiotically indexed by text and how does text escape being indexed by
image? As I say, the book is heavy going, despite the nice full colour
reproductions on thick matte art and high production values. A
publishing grant helped to lower the cost of the book to buyers such as
myself. It also discusses Rorty who I have not read and hopefully will
escape from reading. (Deleuze is enough metaphysics for one life time.)
Anyways, again, if there is some interest and feedback, I perhaps should
send some reading notes. But do not hold your breath, this is heavy
theory. best wishes, Chris Jones
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