Black Sphinx: On the Comedic in Modern Art: SoCCAS Symposium Vol. IV

by Simon Critchley (Contributor), Jessica Chalmers (Contributor), Janet Whitmore (Contributor)

"Black Sphinx" collects 12 essays on comedy in contemporary art by leading philosophers, art historians and theorists. Philosopher Simon Critchley and art historian Janet Whitmore consider the origins of comedic genres and survey some of the key theoretical articulations of laughter and wit, by Freud, Bergson and others; John C. Welchman focuses on John Baldessari, a touchstone for the revival of humor in art in the 1960s; performer, playwright and former V-Girl Jessica Chalmers and writer and curator Jo Anna Issak, discuss the relation between comedy and gender; finally, artist and writer David Robbins reports on his decade-long investigation into the comedic properties of objects, while video and performance artist Michael Smith reflects on his hilariously awkward and regressive journeys with his alter persona "Mike." "Black Sphinx" is based on the fourth Southern California Consortium of Art Schools symposium, held at the Hammer Museum.

280 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2010

About the author

Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960 in Hertfordshire) is an English philosopher currently teaching at The New School. He works in continental philosophy. Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political. These two axes may be said largely to inform his published work: religious disappointment raises the question of meaning and has to, as he sees it, deal with the problem of nihilism; political disappointment provokes the question of justice and raises the need for a coherent ethics [...]

Reviews

[Bryce Galloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would I have read this book if I wasn’t obliged to do some research on the topic? Maybe. Would I have paid the import costs? Probably not.
Any book of mixed author essays is likely to be a mixed bag. This is a pretty good mix. Love any stories about Martin Kippenberger. Great to finally know about the comedic body art of Skip Arnold, a name that’s been in my orbit (in name only) for some time. Simon Critchley may have some interesting things to say about ethnic humour, but his own attempts at humour within the text fall flat (video of his lectures suffer the same problem). All roads lead to Freud (yawn), but it’s great that various texts within this book and without have taken ownership of Freud’s critique of humour’s 'transcendent narcissism' as something positive rather than something merely pathological.