
Long Suffering
American Endurance Art as Prophetic Witness
Karen Gonzalez Rice(Author)
The University of Michigan Press
Will be published approx. on 29. September 2016
Book
Hardback
206 pages
978-0-472-07324-5 (ISBN)
Description
Long Suffering productively links avant-garde performance practices with religious histories in the United States, setting contemporary performances of endurance art within a broader context of prophetic religious discourse in the United States. Its focus is on the work of Ron Athey, Linda Montano, and John Duncan, American artists whose performances involve extended periods of suffering. These unsettling performances can disturb, shock, or frighten audiences, leaving them unsure how to respond. The book examines how these artists work at the limits of the personal and the interpersonal, inflicting suffering on themselves and others, transforming audiences into witnesses, straining social relations, and challenging definitions of art and of ethics. By performing the death of self at the heart of trauma, strategies of endurance signal artists' attempts to visualize, legitimize, and testify to the persistent experience of being wounded. The artworks discussed find their foundations in artists' early experiences of religion and connections with the work of reformers from Angelina Grimke to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who also used suffering as a strategy to highlight social injustice and call for ethical, social, and political renewal.
Reviews / Votes
"The author's engagement with the actual performances through anintense immersion in archival material, primary sources, interviews withthe artists, and a broad and sustained engagement with the contextand historical circumstances of this work make this book particularlycompelling, and her attempt to counter the academic mistrust offundamentalism and embrace of secularism is laudable. Equallysignificant is her engagement with the relationship between ecstaticreligions, ethical actions, moral imperatives, and the history of religiousrevivalism and reform in the U.S." - Jennie Klein, Ohio UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
15 photographs
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-472-07324-5 (9780472073245)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Karen Gonzalez Rice is the Sue and Eugene Mercy Assistant Professor of Art History, Connecticut College.