The Female Body in the Looking-Glass by Basia Sliwinska

The Female Body in the Looking-Glass by Basia Sliwinska

In his writing on the 'mirror stage', the psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan describes the female body as lacking: a mere symptom of man, an object constructed by male desire. However, what happens if the woman in art follows Jean Baudrillard's advice to 'swallow the mirror', and is made real? What if the beautiful is inverted and becomes ugly; and the ugly becomes beautiful? These are the fundamental questions Basia Sliwinska poses in this important new enquiry into gender identity and the politics of vision in contemporary women's art. Through an innovative discussion of the metaphor of the mirror, or looking-glass, Sliwinska reveals how the post-1989 practices of woman artists from both sides of the former Iron Curtain - such as Marina Abramovic, Joanna Rajkowska, Lora Hristova, Jess Dobkin, Natalia LL, Sedzia Glowny and SZ-ZS - go beyond gender binaries and instead embrace otherness and difference. She makes a refreshing, radical intervention into art theory and cultural studies by offering concepts such as 'the mirror' and 'genderland' (inspired by Alice's 'Wonderland') as critical tools with which we can analyse and explain recent developments in women's art.

Basia Sliwinska is an art historian and art theorist. She holds a full-time post at Loughborough University, UK, and teaches Critical and Historical Studies and is a Visiting Lecturer at Sotheby's Institute of Art in London. She is also an Associate Editor at the academic journal, Third Text and the Chair of Freelance and Independents Group, Association of Art Historians.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781788311014
ISBN 10	1788311019
Title	The Female Body in the Looking-Glass
Author	Basia Sliwinska
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	I.b. Tauris And Co Ltd
Year published	2016-06-29
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.