Theorizing modernism

Theorizing Modernism is a rereading of the modernist tradition in the visual arts that provides a unique view of the history of modern art and art criticism through a psychoanalytic and poststructuralist stance. Concentrating on canonical critical texts and images, the book examines modern art through a rhetoric of representation rather than through formalist criticism or the history of the avant-garde. Three themes organize the work: attitudes toward the space - social, literal, and metaphorical - of modernism as representation; assumptions about the ontology of the object (from aesthetic…