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Book Cover
E-book
Author Harper, Phillip Brian, author.

Title Abstractionist aesthetics : artistic form and social critique in African American culture / Phillip Brian Harper
Published New York : New York University Press, 2015

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Description 1 online resource
Series NYU series in social and cultural anaylsis
NYU series in social and cultural analysis.
Contents Introduction: Against positive images -- Black personhood in the maw of abstraction -- Historical cadence and the nitty-gritty effect -- Telling it slant -- Coda: The literary advantage
Summary In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the 'proper' depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism - a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Credits Book design and composition by Nicole Hayward
Notes Print version record
Subject African American aesthetics.
Abstraction.
African American arts -- Themes, motives
abstraction.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies.
Abstraction
African American aesthetics
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781479808878
1479808873
9781479867981
1479867985