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An Engaging Treatise on Aesthetics
The philosophy of aesthetics normally does not interest me very much. However, like everything else written by this great thinker, Giorgio Agamben's The Man Without Content overcame my initial resistance to the subject of aesthetics.

For Agamben, aesthetics presents both a great impediment to the fulfillment of human destiny and the only hope of achieving it. He begins his fascinating study by discussing the relatively recent origins of the idea of good taste and aesthetic sensibility. It is not until the mid-XVIIth century, says Agamben, that the distinction between good taste and bad taste appears. It is at that same point in history that a strict boundary between art and non-art begins to be drawn. From that moment, a work of art increasingly transforms for the spectators into an opportunity to practice their good taste and exercise their aesthetic judgement.

The real difference between art and a non-artistic result of our productivity lies in art's central capacity to bring into being something radically new. Art's privileged status, says Agamben, is a result of art's power to create something out of nothing. Today, we have unfortunately forgotten about this crucial ability of art to create something out of nothing. Agamben points out that the tradition of storing art in museums and art collections of private individuals robs art of its role as an act of creation. The moment you attempt to contain art in a museum or a collection, you transform it into an occasion for aesthetic enjoyment or, as happens more and more often, an opportunity for the spectators to practice their aesthetic judgement. Thus, art stops being a subject and becomes an object. It is only valuable as long as we can turn it to our use as a trigger of our critical analysis.

The reason why this new attitude to art was formed lies in the changing attitude towards work. We all know that the Greeks did not hold working in a very high regard (to say the very least). According to the Greeks' way of thinking, one had to deserve the right to be considered a human being. The way to achieve that was by making oneself as different as possible from an animal. While animals are ruled by their biology, human beings can attempt to free themselves from this enslavement to physiological processes. This vision of work vs art is completely transformed in subsequent historic periods. With Locke, Adam Smith and Marx, work and productivity become the measure of human endeavor. The legend of Balzac who asked to be tied to an armchair in order to remain as productive as possible continues today in the perennial efforts of artists to keep producing regularly and always achieving higher quality of their product. According to Agamben, this is a very dangerous thing to happen because what we lose as a result of this approach to art is a place where we can truly come to existence as human beings.

This is a fascinating book but I have to warn potential readers that a significant chunk of it is dedicated to a very painstaking analysis of the Ancient Greek terms central to Agamben's analysis. In my opinion, this analysis of terminology employed by Greek philosophers becomes quite redundant, which I consider to be the main weakness of The Man Without Content.

Genial but a bit too German
This is the first book by Agamben I have read, and it's quite an impressive encounter. Agamben has a lively historical imagination, and seems comfortable in tracing the manner in which art and the aesthetic has shifted in status and situation from the middle ages to the 20th century. When Agamben is using his native Italian intelligence, he's first-rate. However, when the names Hegel or Heidegger are invoked, the discussion tends to become arid, vaporous, and unnecessarily enamoured of Greek etymons. Frankly, I wish Agamben had never read either of the H's - too much teutonic fog dims even his Latin acuity.

Agamben's "aesthetics"
Giorgio Agamben is quite simply one of the most profound living philosophers and essayists, and this is one of his most illuminating texts.In it, Agamben takes up the question of the status of the work of art incapitalist culture.Much of his critique draws upon Heidegger's lateressays on the relationship between technology and art ("The QuestionConcerning Technology", "What are Poets For?"), attemptingto explore the implications of Heidegger's concern that art may havealready become "standing reserve."However, this book owes asmuch to Hannah Arendt's _The Human Condition_, especially her reading ofthe history of political theory through her trichotomy of labor, work, andaction.Throughout his book, however, Agamben takes these ideas instartling new directions, always seeking out new connections betweenconcepts and pushing them to their limits.He also writes in a reasonablyclear style, avoiding much of the word-play of contemporary continentalphilosophy, although it probably won't be very accessible to readerswithout some understanding of recent continental philosophy.All in all,this might be the most significant contribution to the philosophy of artsince Adorno's _Aesthetic Theory_. ... Read more

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Giorgio Agamben: Power, Law and the Uses of Criticism is a thorough engagement with the thought of the influential Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. It explores Agamben’s work on language, ontology, power, law and criticism from the 1970s to his most recent publications.

Introducing Agamben's work to a readership in legal theory, as well as in the humanities and social sciences more generally, Thanos Zartaloudis argues that an adequate understanding of Agamben's Homo Sacer project requires an attention to his earlier philosophical writings on language, ontology, power and time. It is through this attentive and creative analysis of Agamben's work that Zartaloudis here presents a rethinking of the ideas of justice and criticism.

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Negative grounding
In this book, early, but not that much so, in Agamben's carreer and work, he explores what metaphysics has proposed as the grounds for being and language. As he notes through a close reading of Hegel's concept of the Absolute and Heiddeger's Ereignis, the place of the ground has been a negativity. It is this negativity what remains to be thought in western philosophy, and what relates language and death as ungrounded grounds of being. Divided in daily conferences, with intermitent excursus, a concise and very profound work on both metaphysics and continental philosophy of language.Recommended to anyone who is interested in such subjects.

The Poverty of Speech
Giorgio Agamben's Language and Death goes beyond certain limits - in philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology - while concurrently speaking of the limit, that which is undefinable, lacking, absent. It is a significant work that questions not only self-presence, through discussions of the fractured 'Voice' of the human, but also, in leaving behind poststructuralism, draws out the possibility of a life that has, in some sense, 'abandoned' speech, and accepts something of a constitutive emptiness found in the awareness of death.
What Agamben proposes is thus a truly radical redefinition of the linguistic basis of the human, a linguistic basis, it must be added, which has explicitly political effects. Instead of enclosing humans ever more within the 'prison-house' of language, historically taking the form of the polis or political community, Agamben considers the importance of absence and lack in defining the proper dwelling place of the human. To live in poverty, without a proper home or 'mother tongue' is that which is most human. Emptiness must be taken as the starting-point of all definitions of the human.
The breadth of themes this book covers makes it an important work for any who seek to question the now hegemonic theories of language proffered by postmodernism, as well as those who seek to effect a radical opposition to those institutions and systems whose existence are premised on the fullness and consistency of their speech.

"Voice" - the instance of discourse
Agamben analyses the space of negativity in the thought of Hegel and Heidegger. Since Derrida,continential philosophies of language have critiqued traditional philosophy for privleging presence and treating signsas transparent conveyors of meaning. But Agamben, through exacting studiesof Patristic and Medieval thought, demonstrates the tradition's awarenessof the constitutive moment of absence in discourse. He contends that thedeconstructionist critique of metaphysical thinking merely repeats an oldproblematic and fails to escape the difficulties it reveals. His correctiveaccount of language and the place of negativity within it open a space forthe human apart from reductive theories of the self as merely a social andlinguistic construct. ... Read more

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Giorgio Agamben has emerged, in the past five years, as one of the most important continental philosophers. This burgeoning popularity of his work has largely been confined to a study of the homo sacer series. Yet these later 'political' works have their foundation in Agamben's earlier works on the philosophy of language, aesthetics and literature. From a philosophy of language and linguistics that leads to a broader theory of representation, Agamben develops a critical theory that attempts to explore the hiatuses and paradoxes that govern discursive practice across a broad range of disciplines. Gathering some of the most important established and emerging scholars to examine his body of work, this collection of essays seeks to explore Agamben's thought from these broader philosophical and literary concerns, underpinning its place within larger debates in continental philosophy. This volume will be a valuable addition to the understanding and reception of this major thinker.Including a contribution by Agamben himself makes it essential reading for anyone interested in his work.Features: * the first volume to focus on Agamben's early work on language and literature * includes established as well as up-and-coming scholars working in a variety of disciplines * includes a contribution by Agamben himself ... Read more

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How and why did experience and knowledge become separated? Is it possible to talk of an infancy of experience, a "dumb" experience? For Walter Benjamin, the "poverty of experience" was a characteristic of modernity, originating in the catastrophe of the First World War. For Giorgio Agamben, the Italian editor of Benjamin's complete works, the destruction of experience no longer needs catastrophes: daily life in any modern city will suffice. Agamben's profound and radical exploration of language, infancy, and everyday life traces concepts of experience through Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Benveniste. In doing so he elaborates a theory of infancy that throws new light on a number of major themes in contemporary thought: the anthropological opposition between nature and culture; the linguistic opposition between speech and language; the birth of the subject and the appearance of the unconscious. Agamben goes on to consider time and history; the Marxist notion of base and superstructure (via a careful reading of the famous Adorno-Benjamin correspondence on Baudelaire's Paris); and the difference between rituals and games.Beautifully written, erudite and provocative, these essays will be of great interest to students of philosophy, linguistics, anthropology and politics. ... Read more

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This is the first complete account of all Giorgio Agamben's philosophical work on literature. While Giorgio Agamben is most widely known for his political philosophy, at least a third of his output is dedicated to unique, technical and revelatory readings of literature. Indeed, it is impossible to fully understand Agamben's overall movement towards a Messianic philosophy to come without knowledge of the role of poetry in his ontology. The Literary Agamben considers the totality of Agamben's detailed and varied work on literature and poiesis. Organised around three areas, language, poiesis and modernity, the book explains Agamben's theory of literary singularity in all its complexity. William Watkin details Agamben's particular 'ontological' take on linguistics, works through Agamben's definition of poetry as the tension between semantic and semiotic, and engages with Agamben's aggressive yet insightful critique of modern art as productively nihilistic.The book presents Agamben's overall conception of poiesis and its relevancy to future readings in literature, as well as an understanding of how poiesis forms the crucial third part of Agamben's overall philosophical system alongside the more widely disseminated terms 'exception' and 'potentiality'. "The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory series" examines the encounter between contemporary Continental philosophy and aesthetic and cultural theory. Each book in the series explores an exciting new direction in philosophical aesthetics or cultural theory, identifying the most important and pressing issues in Continental philosophy today. ... Read more

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Cy Twombly: New Sculptures 1998–2005

Primarily known for his paintings and drawings, Cy Twombly has been creating sculpture during his entire career. His characteristic use of poetic and mythic elements is also evident in this field. Out of "mundane" objects such as crates, broomsticks, paper napkins, mashers, stools, string and paper he composes white-painted sculptures. Retaining their everyday identity and materiality the constituent objects take on a condition oblivious to time and change and a life of their own. Fanciful, witty, and at times sarcastic, Twombly transforms his objects, lending them a mythic meaningfulness and a whole new beauty.This publication is the catalog to an exhibition at Munich’s Alte Pinakothek in spring 2006 presenting 33 new sculptures created between 1998 and 2005.

Edited by Reinhold Baumstark and Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Texts by Edward Albee, Giorgio Agamben, Carla Schulz-Hoffmann and others ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Twombly's continues to make poetry from almost nothing.
Cy Twombly continues to make lyrical poem art pieces from paint and found or discarded objects. The lyrical and poetical qualities that first attracted me to Twombly's painting and sculpture are still as robust today as when I first saw and studied a Twombly painting as an art student back in the early 70's.This over-sized monograph is filled with gorgeoous colored photos of his more recent work. Most of the work is reproduced on a full-page scale. This monograph is a must have for serious Twombly fans.

Cy Twombly- New Sculptures1992 - 2005

This is an execallent publication with good essays and images , giving an in depth view of these poignant works and the pulse behind them, and of the Artist Cy Twombly who has captured the human spirit in the most eloquent way possible .
I am thrilled to have this book, another to my collection from Amazon.
Great service and prompt delivery.

An unusual Twombly
A beautiful book on an interesting recent development in Cy Twombly's career, this is a high-quality publication as far as the illustrations of the works are concerned and it was published by the same German publisher who oversaw the magnificent 5-volume catalogue raisonné of the paintings and the single-volume catalogue raisonné of the sculptures. Even though his earliest known sculptures date back to the late fifties, he really concentrated on the medium after 1990, producing a serene body of works marked by a thick white impasto covering common objects, found here and there, mounted together to form elegant and sometimes majestic sculptures. A good supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné of the sculptures (which stops in 1995). My only criticism would be on the text, which sometimes tends to be a bit too hagiographic; the admiration professed by the authors towards the artist seems almost religious, however,like any great artist, Twombly has produced masterpieces, but also some minor works... ... Read more

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"Is it meaningful, as far as you are concerned, to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?" In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy and its critical weaknesses. They also reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, while Jacques Ranciere highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj eiuek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who hope to do without it. ... Read more