Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde

by John Roberts

Why the avant-garde of art needs to be rehabilitated today

Since the decidedly bleak beginning of the twenty-first century, art practice has become increasingly politicized. Yet few have put forward a sustained defence of this development. Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde is the first book to look at the legacy of the avant-garde in relation to the deepening crisis of contemporary capitalism.

An invigorating revitalization of the Frankfurt School legacy, Roberts’s book defines and validates the avant-garde idea with an erudite acuity, providing a refined conceptual set of tools to engage critically with the most advanced art theorists of our day, such as Hal Foster, Andrew Benjamin, Alain Badiou, Jacques Rancière, Paolo Virno, Claire Bishop, Michael Hardt, and Toni Negri.

Genres: Art, Politics, Theory, Academic

336 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2015

About the author

John Roberts is a former Senior Research Fellow in Fine Art and now Professor of Art & Aethetics at the University of Wolverhampton. He is the author of The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday (Manchester University Press, 1997) and The Philistine Controversy (Verso, with Dave Beech, 2002), plus other books and numerous articles, in Radical Philosophy and elsewhere.

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a 3.5. Some interesting ideas, but largely speaks to internal theoretical debates.

[Zoya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good if you care about the politics of contemporary art/aesthetics, though a tad abstruse for me.

[Jonathan]

Refreshing and complicated like an ice cold table of cheeses left out by a stranger.