The Intangibilities of Form: Skill and Deskilling in Art after the Readymade (2007)

« In this intellectually wide-ranging book John Roberts develops a labor theory of culture as a model for explaining the dynamics of avant-garde art and the expansion of artistic authority in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From Duchamp to Warhol, conceptual art, and the "post-visual" practices of the moment, Roberts explores the relationship between artistic labor and productive labor, and the limits and possibilities of authorship. In doing so, he confronts a recurring theme of both conservative and radical detractors of modern art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: how is skill, and the seeming absence of skill in modern art, to be theorized and evaluated? Drawing on cognitive psychology, labor process theory, social anthropology, and debates in contemporary political philosophy, Roberts' book establishes a new critical topography for examining the cultural form of art today. »-- Résumé de l'éditeur « In this intellectually wide-ranging book John Roberts develops a labor theory of culture as a model for explaining the dynamics of avant-garde art and the expansion of artistic authority in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From Duchamp to Warhol, conceptual art, and the "post-visual" practices of the moment, Roberts explores the relationship between artistic labor and productive labor, and the limits and possibilities of authorship. In doing so, he confronts a recurring theme of both conservative and radical detractors of modern art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: how is skill, and the seeming absence of skill in modern art, to be theorized and evaluated? Drawing on cognitive psychology, labor process theory, social anthropology, and debates in contemporary political philosophy, Roberts' book establishes a new critical topography for examining the cultural form of art today. »-- Résumé de l'éditeur This Book Elaborates A Labor Theory Of Culture As A Model For Explaining The Dynamics Of Avant-garde Art And The Modern Expansion Of The Circuits Of Artitstic Authorship. It Involves Less A Discussion Of Specific Artworks Than An Analysis Of The Kinds Of Labor Contained In Artworks As A Reflection On A Wider Debate About Artistic Labor And Productive And Non-productive Labor And The Limits And Possibilites Of Authorship ... From Preface. Introduction : Replicants And Cartesians -- The Commodity, The Readymade And The Value-form -- Modernism, Repetition And The Readymade -- Deskilling, Reskilling And Artistic Labour -- The Post-cartesian Artist -- Surrogates, Prosthetes And Amateurs -- Situational Authorship, Diffuse Aesthetics And Network Theory -- Art, Immaterial Labour And The Critique Of Value -- Afterword : Reproducibility And The Hand. John Roberts. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [229]-237) And Index. Contents 3 Preface 4 Introduction: replicants and Cartesians 12 1 The commodity, the readymade and the value-form 24 2 Modernism, repetition and the readymade 52 3 Deskilling, reskilling and artistic labour 84 4 The post-Cartesian artist 104 5 Surrogates, prosthetes and amateurs 142 6 Situational authorship, diffuse aesthetics and network theory 168 7 Art, immaterial labour and the critique of value 204 Reproducibility and the hand 230 Bibliography 232 Index 242