Abstraction & Economy: Myths of Growth (Edition Angewandte)

Opposing a regime of accumulation and abstraction This anthology explores the tension between abstraction and economics from the perspectives of art, art theory, art history, as well as law, sociology, philosophy, and economics. It poses questions about the current challenges of a global capitalist economy with claims to expansive growth in relation to aesthetics, technology, and democracy. The relationship between abstraction and economics is discussed in a series of theoretical and artistic contributions. The main focus is on the role of art in mediating between the concrete and the abstract, on formalist approaches to art theory, and on the social and economic cues that help us trace the aesthetic regime of capitalism. Ultimately, this book asks, “how can artistic-aesthetic practices counteract the regime of accumulation and abstraction?” The visual arts in a socioeconomic context Reflecting on the relationship between abstraction and economics from capitalist-critical, decolonial, ecological, and queer-feminist perspectives Contributions by Brenna Bhandar, Christina von Braun, Sabeth Buchmann, Nikita Dhawan, Sven Lütticken, R. H. Quaytman, Marina Vishmidt, and others Contents Glossary in Quotes Exhibition on Sixteen Pages: Introduction Exhibition on Sixteen Pages MONEY Setting of Values Introduction Abstraction as Critique of Abstraction Digitizing Art, Money, and Man Sell Everything, Buy Everything, Kill Everything There Is No More Abstraction What’s the Matter with Money? On the Relation between Abstraction and Economic Value 17,000 Iron Bolts Don’t Lie: On Economy, Abstraction, and Truth in Otto Wagner’s Postsparkasse “Who Paints Abstractly?” A Socioeconomic History of Art after Alexandre Kojève PROPERTY and DEBT Questions of Rededications Introduction Legal Abstractions: Violence and Vulnerability Concrete Abstraction – Our Common World From “Second-Order Formalism” toward “Political Geometry”: The Work of Florian Pumhösl Blacklight GRID A Symbolic Form Introduction Off the Grid: Skipping Rope in between the Abstract and the Concrete, Touching Its Material (Pre)Conditions, (Pre)Attitudes, and Anticipations Again(st) the Progression Rule: Reflections on the Nexus of Abstraction and Economy in Brazilian Art of the 1960s and 70s and Its Reception Abstract Painter Grids, Interfering: Queer Relationality in Works by Lorna Simpson, Andy Warhol, and Sol LeWitt Always Be Filtering NATURAL CAPITAL The Fiction of Post-Season Introduction Core Absence Systemic Externalities: On the Socioecological Costs of the Capitalist Mode of Production Absolut Konkret: Technical and Material Aspects of Early Abstract Film Image Credits Acknowledgments Imprint Opposing a regime of accumulation and abstraction This anthology explores the tension between abstraction and economics from the perspectives of art, art theory, art history, as well as law, sociology, philosophy, and economics. It poses questions about the current challenges of a global capitalist economy with claims to expansive growth in relation to aesthetics, technology, and democracy. The relationship between abstraction and economics is discussed in a series of theoretical and artistic contributions. The main focus is on the role of art in mediating between the concrete and the abstract, on formalist approaches to art theory, and on the social and economic cues that help us trace the aesthetic regime of capitalism. Ultimately, this book asks, “how can artistic-aesthetic practices counteract the regime of accumulation and abstraction?” The visual arts in a socioeconomic context Reflecting on the relationship between abstraction and economics from capitalist-critical, decolonial, ecological, and queer-feminist perspectives Contributions by Brenna Bhandar, Christina von Braun, Sabeth Buchmann, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Sven Lütticken, R. H. Quaytman, Marina Vishmidt, and others Look inside