Art and the Home Comfort, Alienation and the Everyday

by Racz, Imogen

• ISBN13: 9781780762012
• ISBN10: 1780762011
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-03-25
• Publisher: Atlasbooks Dist Serv

Summary

Our homes contain us, but they are also within us. They can represent places to be ourselves, to recollect childhood memories, or to withdraw into adult spaces of intimacy; they can be sites for developing rituals, family relationships, and acting out cultural expectations. Like the personal, social, and cultural elements out of which they are constructed, homes can be not only comforting, but threatening too. The home is a rich theme running through post-war western art, and it continues to engage contemporary artists today - yet it has been the subject of relatively little critical writing. Art and the Home: Comfort, Alienation and the Everyday is the first single-authored, up-to-date book on the subject. Imogen Racz provides a theme-led discussion about how the physical experience of the dwelling space and the psychological complexities of the domestic are manifested in art, focusing mainly on sculpture, installation and object-based practice; discussing the work and ideas of artists as diverse as Louise Bourgeois, Gordon Matta-Clark, George Segal and Cornelia Parker within their artistic and cultural contexts

Author Biography

Imogen Racz is Senior Lecturer at Coventry University, UK. Her publications include Contemporary Crafts, (2009), as well as many articles related to sculpture and object-based art.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Illustrations List
Introduction
1. Enclosure
Inside/Outside
The Home and Self
Minimalism and Phenomenology
Enclosure, Myths and Phenomenology
Homes, Transitional Spaces
Wallpaper
Michael Landy, Semi-detached
2. Doors and Windows
Boundaries
Post-war Breaks in the Wall – The Creative Everyday
Doors and Windows – Formal Matters
Doors – Document and Memory
Windows and Doors – The Poetic Everyday
Windows – Sight Denied
3. Female Space
Background
Women and Confinement
Women Artists and Their Experiences
Womanhouse
Womanhouse – Decorative Techniques and Critical Debates
Womanhouse – Female Roles
After Womanhouse
4. Alienation
Dada, Surrealism and Freud
Domestic Objects
Louise Bourgeois – Home and Memory
Mona Hatoum – Exile and the Contemporary Uncanny
Gregor Schneider – Unhomely Spaces
5. The Unmade House
The Organic Home and the Ruin
Establishment Power
Art Outside the System
Gordon Matta-Clark – Splitting
Rachel Whiteread – the Personal and Political
Steffi Klenz – Nummianus
6. Withdrawal
Ilya Kabakov – Fantasy Spaces
Childhood Dreams
Adult Withdrawal – The Bed
Shock
7. Objects, Sentiment and Memory
Objects and Identity
The Commonplace
Display
Vessels
Perceived Value
Notes
Bibiography
Index – yet to be done