{"product_id":"universal-prostitution-and-modernist-abstraction-a-counterhistory-paperback-softback-9781478031758","title":"Universal Prostitution and Modernist Abstraction; A Counterhistory (Paperback \/ softback) 9781478031758","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eUniversal Prostitution and Modernist Abstraction\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eA Counterhistory\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJaleh Mansoor (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781478031758\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 23 May 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e256 pages, 35 illustrations, including 8 in color\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.445 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e“Featuring brilliant ideas and sharp theoretical insights, \u003ci\u003eUniversal Prostitution and Modernist Abstraction\u003c\/i\u003e makes a very important contribution to the understanding of key forms and genres in twentieth-century art in general as well as to the more pointed discussion of art’s relationship to the subsumption of life under capital. I know of no other book that traces painterly abstraction and other artistic approaches to abstraction in the broader sense of the term across the longer arc of modern and contemporary art.” - Ina Blom, author of (Houses to Die In and Other Essays on Art) “Drawing on Marx’s passage on ‘universal prostitution,’ Jaleh Mansoor develops an astute analysis of the economic unconscious of modern and contemporary art. Focusing on the dialectics between aesthetic and social abstractions, Mansoor spans an arc from Seurat’s \u003ci\u003eModels \u003c\/i\u003eto Picabia’s and Tiqqun’s \u003ci\u003eYoung-Girl\u003c\/i\u003es, referring to labor-reflective works by Hito Steyerl, Santiago Sierra, Hannah Black, and others. She guides us through the manifold ways art mediates the imperceptible totality of human life.” - Sabeth Buchmann, Professor of the History of Modern and Postmodern Art, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eUniversal Prostitution and Modernist Abstraction\u003c\/i\u003e, Jaleh Mansoor provides a counternarrative of modernism and abstraction and a reexamination of Marxist aesthetics. Mansoor draws on Marx’s concept of prostitution-a conceptual device through which Marx allegorized modern labor-to think about the confluences of generalized and gendered labor in modern art. Analyzing works ranging from \u0026amp;Eacute;douard Manet’s \u003ci\u003eOlympia\u003c\/i\u003e and Georges Seurat’s \u003ci\u003eThe Models\u003c\/i\u003e to contemporary work by Hito Steyerl and Hannah Black, she shows how avant-garde artists can detect changing modes of production and capitalist and biopolitical processes of abstraction that assign identities to subjects in the interest of value’s impersonal circulation. She demonstrates that art and abstraction resist modes of production and subjugation at the level of process and form rather than through referential representation. By studying gendered and generalized labor, abstraction, automation, and the worker, Mansoor shifts focus away from ideology, superstructure, and culture toward the ways art indexes crisis and transformation in the political economic base. Ultimately, she traces the outlines of a counterpraxis to capital while demonstrating how artworks give us a way to see through the abstractions of everyday life.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePreface \u003cbr\u003e ix\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments \u003cbr\u003e xv\u003cbr\u003e Introduction 1. Toward a Materialist Formalism \u003cbr\u003e 1\u003cbr\u003e Introduction 2. Modernism’\u003cbr\u003es Aesthetic Economy: An \u003ci\u003eArt\u003c\/i\u003e History of Labor’\u003cbr\u003es Subsumption \u003cbr\u003e 25\u003cbr\u003e 1. Georges Seurat’\u003cbr\u003es Muses, Abstracted: Abstract Anonymous Labor and the Beginnings of Aesthetic Abstraction \u003cbr\u003e 51\u003cbr\u003e 2. Francis Picabia’\u003cbr\u003es Real Abstraction and the Beginnings of Futurist Cyborgs: The Prefigurative Avant-Gardes \u003cbr\u003e 78\u003cbr\u003e 3. The Future of the Futurists: The Young-Girl\u003cbr\u003e En\/gendering Real Abstraction \u003cbr\u003e 104\u003cbr\u003e 4. The [Young-Girl] Worker as Equipment: Yves Klein’\u003cbr\u003es Living Paintbrushes \u003cbr\u003e 133\u003cbr\u003e 5. Surplus Bodies: Santiago Sierra’\u003cbr\u003es Exploitive Remuneration \u003cbr\u003e 157\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion \u003cbr\u003e 177\u003cbr\u003e Notes \u003cbr\u003e 197\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography \u003cbr\u003e 213\u003cbr\u003e Index \u003cbr\u003e 225\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52656046080280,"sku":"9781478031758","price":21.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/universal-prostitution-and-modernist-abstraction-a-counterhistory-paperback-softback-9781478031758","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}