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Gothic: Transmutations of Horror in Late Twentieth-Century Art
As the 20th century draws to a close, there is a Gothic theme penetrating much of contemporary art and culture. In the 1990s, American and European artists have moved increasingly towards the dark and uncanny side of the human psyche—the theatrical and grotesque, the violent and destructive.
Taking its starting point and title from the Gothic novel, this book investigates the full-blown revival of a Gothic sensibility in contemporary art: in American and British fiction labeled the "New Gothic"; in film with its long tradition of horror; and in video, music, fashion, design, and underground culture. Gothic accompanied an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, of twenty-three artists who produce horror as well as amazement through often ugly, fragmented, and contorted forms. The old Gothic themes of the fantastic and pathological are infused with new potency as they address concerns about the body, disease, voyeurism, and power.
Essays by John Gianvito, Christoph Grunenberg, James Hannaham, Patrick McGrath, Joyce Carol Oates, Shawn Rosenheim, Csaba Toth, and Anne Williams, and a short story by Dennis Cooper, explore the Gothic in history and in contemporary art and culture.
Taking its starting point and title from the Gothic novel, this book investigates the full-blown revival of a Gothic sensibility in contemporary art: in American and British fiction labeled the "New Gothic"; in film with its long tradition of horror; and in video, music, fashion, design, and underground culture. Gothic accompanied an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, of twenty-three artists who produce horror as well as amazement through often ugly, fragmented, and contorted forms. The old Gothic themes of the fantastic and pathological are infused with new potency as they address concerns about the body, disease, voyeurism, and power.
Essays by John Gianvito, Christoph Grunenberg, James Hannaham, Patrick McGrath, Joyce Carol Oates, Shawn Rosenheim, Csaba Toth, and Anne Williams, and a short story by Dennis Cooper, explore the Gothic in history and in contemporary art and culture.
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 16, 2014
On the whole this is a very good collections of essays, with one short story. Grunenberg and McGrath's essays are probably the most useful, offering great introductory insights into late 20th-century horror, Gothic, and grotesque art. The most disappointing essay was Toth's examination of industrial music, whereas Hannaham's assessment of goth rock offered some useful and rather unsettling thoughts regarding Ian Curtis, Joy Division, and goth fans. To deeply invested students and scholars of horror, this collection might not offer many new insights. These essays are meant more as introductions to a specific period of horror and Gothic art rather than deep, close analyses of specific texts. Any anthology of this kind is restricted to general trends rather than complex nuances and minutia. It remains a very useful contribution to horror studies, with several of its insights remaining quite relevant today, while morphing slightly to 21st-century sensibilities.
The post-apocalyptic has since become more interesting to our culture, as if the election of George W. Bush in 2000, 9/11 in 2001, climate change, economic instability, and the rise of reality tv really did mark some kind of apocalyptic destruction, leaving us wandering through a blighted post-apocalyptic landscape of social, political, economical and spiritual disillusionment. Grunenberg's anthology shows our anxious anticipation for annihilation, which never fully and satisfyingly came. We neither survived or died, but became, "the walking dead in a horror film," to quote Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Part of this zombification perhaps stems from Joyce Carol Oates' compelling insight into the grotesque's power: "the subjectivity that is the essence of the human is also the mystery that divides us irrevocably from one another." The world and everyone in it remains perpetually strange and unknowable, despite centuries of so-called development and progress. Even identifiable progress doesn't vanquish horror--it changes it. New beliefs shape new fears. New answers generate new questions. The grotesque lives on.
The post-apocalyptic has since become more interesting to our culture, as if the election of George W. Bush in 2000, 9/11 in 2001, climate change, economic instability, and the rise of reality tv really did mark some kind of apocalyptic destruction, leaving us wandering through a blighted post-apocalyptic landscape of social, political, economical and spiritual disillusionment. Grunenberg's anthology shows our anxious anticipation for annihilation, which never fully and satisfyingly came. We neither survived or died, but became, "the walking dead in a horror film," to quote Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Part of this zombification perhaps stems from Joyce Carol Oates' compelling insight into the grotesque's power: "the subjectivity that is the essence of the human is also the mystery that divides us irrevocably from one another." The world and everyone in it remains perpetually strange and unknowable, despite centuries of so-called development and progress. Even identifiable progress doesn't vanquish horror--it changes it. New beliefs shape new fears. New answers generate new questions. The grotesque lives on.
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June 19, 2008Nicely illustrated.
June 3, 2012
Only a few good essays. Good art. Kind of pompous
July 16, 2013
Interesting assessment of the 90's gothic atmosphere in the states. I definitely feel as if it was written today about the same things that we as a society are being tested with.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews