Abstraction

"This collection proposes a reassessment of abstraction in terms of opacity, resistance and withdrawal, retrieving a narrative of artistic, philosophical and political complexity in a term once consigned to the dead end of modernism. Linking writing on formal, economic and social abstraction through the work of artists and curators, Lind has produced an important book that suggests an alternative to muted aesthetic politics." - Andrea Phillips, Director of Research Programmes, Department of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London "Maria Lind's rich study shows how abstraction - that which cannot be directly accessed by the senses - is a problematic that far exceeds the canon of modern art. Whether understood as an artistic blueprint for a better world or as life under the disembodied forces of late capital, the abstract is ineradicably mixed up with reality. This book reassesses and repoliticizes one of the fundamentals of art history and takes it up to the urgencies of the present." - Lars Bang Larsen, Art historian and curator 'Anthologized by critic and curator Lind, this engrossing compendium offers a banquet of insight into the theoretical underpinnings of abstraction in contemporary art. Lind broadly frames abstraction as the employment of varying degrees of extrapolation or withdrawal from concrete representation ... Lind deals admirably with this bounty of material, and her attentive curation makes for a remarkably cohesive collection in which specific themes or artists receive treatment across multiple essays. This volume's array generates a multidisciplinary appeal, making it an excellent introduction for anyone intrigued by the theoretical and socio-historical concerns that imbue some of the modern art world's less transparent creations.' Publishers Weekly