Material Thought
Towards a Non-Standard Formalism
Material Thought
Towards a Non-Standard Formalism
Buying pre-order items
Ebooks and Audiobook
You will receive an email with a download link for the ebook or audiobook on the publication date.
Payment
You will not be charged for pre-ordered books until they are available to be shipped. Pre-ordered ebooks will not be charged for until they are available for download.
Amending or cancelling your order
For orders that have not been shipped you can usually make changes to pre-orders up to 72 hours before the publishing date.
Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available
- Delivery and returns info
-
Free UK delivery on orders £30 or over
Description
Material Thought recovers the legacy of 'formalist' art and theory of the mid-20th century, taking as its point of departure François Laruelle's project of 'non-standard aesthetics.'
Carrying out what Laruelle names a 'mutation' of formalism, recovering its radical scientificity whilst dismantling its reified façade, Jonathan Fardy operationalises a radical flattening of the division between making and thinking which he then applies to the work of select artists and critics: Clive Bell, Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, and Rosalind Krauss, as well as artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Giulio Paolini, and Degas. Tending to works that both predate and postdate the high-water mark of formalist art and theory, he recovers and renews a theoretical impetus that proceeded the idealist tendency of 'high formalism' - i.e., the drive to incarnate a materialist aesthetics that took the materiality of art as its critical point of departure.
Through his attention to what he calls this 'materialist-formalism,' Fardy restores to 20th-century formalism a vital theoretical and political significance that has been hitherto overshadowed by 'pure' formalism and its depoliticised abstractions.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. A Non-Standard Arsenal
2. Inhuman Aesthetics (Bell)
3. Scientific Flatness (Greenberg)
4. Philosopher, Historiographer, and Artist in Superposition (Fried)
5. Theory in the Expanded Field (Krauss)
Postscript
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 10 Dec 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 208 |
| ISBN | 9781350563292 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 10 bw illus |
| Dimensions | 216 x 138 mm |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Reviews
Related Titles
