A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life - Paperback

by Mira Schor (Author)

A Decade of Negative Thinking brings together writings on contemporary art and culture by the painter and feminist art theorist Mira Schor. Mixing theory and practice, the personal and the political, she tackles questions about the place of feminism in art and political discourse, the aesthetics and values of contemporary painting, and the influence of the market on the creation of art. Schor writes across disciplines and is committed to the fluid interrelationship between a formalist aesthetic, a literary sensibility, and a strongly political viewpoint. Her critical views are expressed with poetry and humor in the accessible language that has been her hallmark, and her perspective is informed by her dual practice as a painter and writer and by her experience as a teacher of art.

In essays such as "The ism that dare not speak its name," "Generation 2.5," "Like a Veneer," "Modest Painting," "Blurring Richter," and "Trite Tropes, Clichés, or the Persistence of Styles," Schor considers how artists relate to and represent the past and how the art market influences their choices: whether or not to disavow a social movement, to explicitly compare their work to that of a canonical artist, or to take up an exhausted style. She places her writings in the rich transitory space between the near past and the "nextmodern." Witty, brave, rigorous, and heartfelt, Schor's essays are impassioned reflections on art, politics, and criticism.

Back Jacket

Mira Schor reminds us that some of the best, and most eye-opening, writing on art has always been made by artists themselves. The essays in A Decade of Negative Thinking" demolish countless widely held assumptions about contemporary art, and do so with a compelling blend of skepticism and passion."--Raphael Rubinstein, author of "Polychrome Profusion: Selected Art Criticism, 1990-2002"

Author Biography

Mira Schor is a painter, writer, and teacher living in New York. She is the author of Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture and an editor of The Extreme of the Middle: The Writings of Jack Tworkov (forthcoming) and M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists' Writings, Theory, and Criticism, also published by Duke University Press. Schor is a recipient of the College Art Association's Frank Jewett Mather Award in Art Criticism.