Book Review: The Abu Ghraib Effect
Stephen Eisenman's The Abu Ghraib Effect was reviewed last week on the Art Blog By Bob blog. It was also reviewed last month in CAA Reviews:
There is much in this book to commend. It provides, for instance, a model of engaged, critical scholarship, one that makes art history relevant to today's political concerns. Eisenman's political commitments, moreover, are evident without ever feeling preachy or overly didactic. Dedicated to holding art history accountable for its racist representations, he debunks, in easy flowing prose, the myth that high culture somehow exists outside the desublimatory impulses that guide much of popular culture—video games, movies, pornography, etc. And in demonstrating that art's history is not as humanist or angelic as it is often presented, he effectively shows how throughout history artists and art historians have been more than willing to service the powerful. Yet the book is not all pessimism and finger-pointing. It appears that Eisenman's true concern is to construct a history that counters the celebration of violence as conquest and that refuses to make suffering beautiful. This counterhistory, I think rightly, is presented as the antidote to the Abu Ghraib effect. Thus, artists such as William Hogarth, Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, Leon Golub (Käthe Kollwitz might also have been mentioned) model instances of resistance and play significant roles as examples of artists whose political commitments guide their production, situating their work for Eisenman outside of the pathos formula.
Read the review at CAA Reviews
Read the review on Art Blog By Bob
Learn more about The Abu Ghraib Effect