Overview

This collection of philosophical essays addresses important issues in the arts, encompassing painting, sculpture, photography, film and architecture. The author’s point of departure is the conviction that art in all its manifestations is an extremely significant cultural practice because it embodies a creative, reflective appropriation of social, political, economic, religious, historical and ecological developments, and as such merits close philosophical scrutiny, reflection and interpretation. The question of whether painting is still a viable artistic practice in our technocratic society is considered here, and it is no accident that both this issue and that of artificial intelligence are approached from the perspective of the phenomenological thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, among other thinkers. Equally important is the consideration of the relationship between art and the ethical, as highlighted by significant recent artistic events, as well as discussion of the transformational influence of ecological art and the culturally symptomatic meaning of kitsch. Other themes discussed include play and artistic tradition, formulating a suitable model for art ‘beyond’ Kierkegaard’s aesthetic and ethical models, the meaning of 9/11 for architecture, and Lyotard’s claim that today only an aesthetic of the sublime, instead of the beautiful, can help us make sense of art.

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9783039119035

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The Author: Bert Olivier is Professor of Philosophy at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He holds an M.A. and D.Phil. in philosophy, and has held Postdoctoral Fellowships in philosophy at Yale University and a Research Fellowship at the University of Wales, Cardiff. He has published widely in the philosophy of culture, of art and architecture, of cinema, music and literature, as well as the philosophy of science, epistemology, and psychoanalytic, social, media and discourse theory. In 2004 he was awarded the Stals Prize for Philosophy by the South African Academy for Arts and Sciences.

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