Autonomy
The Social Ontology of Art Under Capitalism
Nicholas Brown (Author)
9781478001591
Paperback / softback, published 30 April 2019
232 pages, 30 illustrations, incl. 21 in color
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.386 kg
"In Autonomy, Brown revitalizes a modernist commitment to form and offers a compelling vision of the work of art in the age of its commodification."
- Adam Theron-Lee Rensch (Los Angeles Review of Books) "Brown's argument feels, in the end, surprisingly liberating.… No doubt, there are questions prompted by the book that we still might want to have answered.… But these queries are obviously presented less as a critique of Autonomy than a plea to scholars to take up related questions in future volumes. Autonomy inspires such questions because this is a book that unabashedly and provocatively makes demands of us, in the way the very best scholarship, like the very best manifestos and all art, does too."
- Lisa Siraganian (Modernism/modernity) "A thorough and valuable commentary on the contemporary position of art within capitalism. Autonomy is essential reading for researchers and students with an interest in contemporary art in relation to the market, and for those interested in Marxist approaches to contemporary aesthetic form."
- Oliver Haslam (New Formations)
In Autonomy Nicholas Brown theorizes the historical and theoretical argument for art's autonomy from its acknowledged character as a commodity. Refusing the position that the distinction between art and the commodity has collapsed, Brown demonstrates how art can, in confronting its material determinations, suspend the logic of capital by demanding interpretive attention. He applies his readings of Marx, Hegel, Adorno, and Jameson to a range of literature, photography, music, television, and sculpture, from Cindy Sherman's photography and the novels of Ben Lerner and Jennifer Egan to The Wire and the music of the White Stripes. He demonstrates that through their attention and commitment to form, such artists turn aside the determination posed by the demand of the market, thereby defeating the foreclosure of meaning entailed in commodification. In so doing, he offers a new theory of art that prompts a rethinking of the relationship between art, critical theory, and capitalism.
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. On Art and the Commodity Form 1
1. Photography as Film and Film as Photography 41
2. The Novel and the Ruse of the Work 79
3. Citation and Affect in Music 115
4. Modernism on TV 152
Epilogue. Taking Sides 178
Notes 183
Bibliography 207
Index 215
