Les Grands Spectacles: 120 Years Of Art And Mass Culture

by Magrit Brehm, Klaus Theweleit (Contributor), Roberto Ohrt (Editor)

The arts have changed since 1885, and Les Grands Spectacles sets out to document this evolution in three phases. Starting with the invention of film and the standardisation of the bourgeois theatre-house in the late 19th century, the book then focuses on the modernisation and dissemination of the mass media after World War Two, and finally arrives at the situation of art at the beginning of the new millennium, where events cultivate a theatrical quality, and the individual's every intimate impulse can become entertainment for the masses. Les Grands Spectacles also shows what effects these changes have had on art or have been spurred by art, and how the social significance of the sensational, the tragic or the deceptive has been understood in art and the material of the spectacle explored, extended, hijacked, altered or destroyed in artworks. Artists in the exhibition include Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Sylvie Fleury, Nan Goldin, Dan Graham, Richard Hamilton, Damien Hirst, Candida H fer, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Gustav Kluge, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, El Lissitzky, Robert Longo, Paul McCarthy + Jason Rhoades, Jonathan Meese, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Otto Mhl, Takashi Murakami, Dennis Oppenheim, Raymond Pettibon, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Mimmo Rotella, Dieter Roth, Ed Ruscha, Jean Tinguely, Cindy Sherman, Joel Sternfeld, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Nicola Tyson, Dziga Vertov, Catherine Wagner, Andy Warhol, Franz West, and many, many others.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2005

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael light, stokes 19

Pomp, marvels, commotion and incredible news, sensations, explosions and uproar, or artifice, distasteful magic and swindle, possibly even downfall--the very world >>spectacle<< still has a touch of the dubious about it.


Martha rossler, bringing the war home

Today, celebrities have become a genre in their own right, living images, attractions, exotic animals, public bodies, fantasies, patterns, names--they are the ghost patrolling in the mirror of the everyday world...

Andy warhol, Liz as cleoptra

There is much more.


George melies, livre magique

Melies and Maholy-Nagy, Hans Richter and Candida Hofer and Jonathan Meese, Nan Golden, Matthew Barney, Eadweard Muybridge and Ed Ruscha


Etienne-Jules Marey

Duchamp and Ernst and Ensor, Munch, Artaud, and Asger Jorn. Walter Benjamin. Vogue Covers.


Jean tinguely, la vittoria

Too many artists and ideologues to list. Certainly too many to discuss in depth.


Picasso, Athlete

What there is not, is a sense of coherence, an overarching rubric that would connect all these pieces, ideas, and phenomenon. Some of the examples don't even seem to fall into the category of "spectacle," unless the word is being used to encompass everything one looks at, which would be to dilute the concept so extremely that it became meaningless.

For instance, this painting by Rene Magritte is included in the section on Melies.



I am certainly willing to accept that Magritte may have been influenced by Melies (I have never looked into the question so I cannot say if he was familiar with him) but that doesn't seem like a sufficient reason for him to be included in this already over-crowded gathering.


Ford beckman, Big nose

There are passels as well of postcards and sketches and pamphlets. A bit of pornography. (Honestly, once you've seen one of Export's "Genital Panic" photos you've seen them all, imo.)

My overall feeling was that anything that could possibly be included had been crammed in, to the detriment of the whole.