Art and the Form of Life
Description
Art and the Form of Life takes a classic theme-philosophy as the art of living-and gives it a contemporary twist. The book examines a series of watershed moments in artistic practice alongside philosophers' most enduring questions about the way we live. Coupling Tino Sehgal with Wittgenstein, cave art with Foucault, Stanley Kubrick with Nietzsche, and the Bauhaus with Walter Benjamin, the book animates the idea that life is literally ours to make. It reflects on universal themes that connect the long histories of art and philosophy, and it does so using a contemporary approach. Drawing on great philosophical works, it argues that life practiced as an art form affords an experience of meaning, in the sense that it is engaging, creative, and participatory. It thus effects a fundamental renewal of experience.
Reviews / Votes
"Fresh, lively and informative-a great read. Brand is at once an expert in philosophy and a sensitive interpreter of the arts. His writing shares affinities with that of Benjamin, Adorno, and Arendt." (Richard J. Bernstein, Vera List Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York, USA)
"Ambitious without being foreboding, Roy Brand asks how we can live 'fully and deeply' in a world devoid of divine knowledge. Brand's range, large and vivacious, moves from aerial and artistic views of changing conditions of existence to a history of philosophy that urges a commitment to the noble values of living a good life without naïve or hypocritical blinders." (Avital Ronell, University Professor of German and Comparative Literature, New York University, New York, USA)
"Roy Brand shows in suggestive, subtle reflections, which weave together experience and theory, narrative and thought, how we can become aware of the forms ourlives take-and how art and philosophy can help us, indeed guide us, to recognize and perhaps even change these forms." (Christoph Menke, Professor of Philosophy, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany)
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Person
Roy Brand is a philosopher and curator working at the intersection of contemporary philosophy and art. He is a senior lecturer in the Master's programs of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem. He founded and directed Yaffo 23, a center for contemporary art, and he is editor and curator of numerous art exhibits, among them, The Urburb: Patterns of Contemporary Living (Israeli Pavilion of The Venice Biennial, 2014) and Bare Life (Museum on the Seam, 2007). His book LoveKnowledge: The Life of Philosophy from Socrates to Derrida was published in 2013.
