Painting seems to have lost its dominant position in the field of the arts. However, looking more closely at exhibited photographs, assemblages, installations or performances, it is evident how the rhetorics of painting remain omnipresent.
Following the tradition of classical theories of painting based on exchanges with artists, The Love of Painting considers the art form not as something fixed, but as a visual and discursive material formation with the potential to fascinate owing to its ability to produce the fantasy of liveliness. Thus, painting possesses a specific potential that is located in its material and physical signs. Its value is grounded in its capacity to both reveal and mystify its conditions of production.
Alongside in-depth analyses of the work of artists like Édouard Manet, Jutta Koether, Martin Kippenberger, Jana Euler and Marcel Broodthaers, the book includes conversations with artists in which Graw’s insights are further discussed and put to the test.
About the Author
Isabelle Graw is Professor of Art Theory and Art History at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste–Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. In 1990 Graw and Stefan Germer founded the quarterly magazine Texte zur Kunst, and in 2003, Graw and Daniel Birnbaum founded the Institut für Kunstkritik at the Städelschule.
About the Publisher
Sternberg Press is a Berlin-based publishing house of art, cultural criticism, creative nonfiction and literary and experimental fiction. Founded by Caroline Schneider in New York in 1999, it aims to support both new and established writers and nourish lasting editorial relationships. The press is committed to publishing books with an interdisciplinary focus on contemporary visual culture and related critical discourse.
