Bloomsbury Academic Art, Fashion, Popular Culture, and the Up-Ending of Tradition (Aesthetics and Contemporary Art)

In contemporary art of the 21st century, the term Gaga Aesthetics characterizes the condition of popular culture being extensively imbricated in high culture, and vice-versa. Taking Adorno and Horkheimers ""The Culture Industry"" as a crucial departure point, this book explores the dialectic of high and low that forms the foundation of Adornian aesthetics as well as those in his wake, such as Arthur Danto, and Donald Kuspit. The bookconsiders the tradition of philosophical aesthetics, and the extent to which Adornos aesthetics may still have valency at a time when high culture has become deeply enmeshed with popular culture. This is Gaga Aesthetics, aesthetics that no longer follows clear fields of activity, where fine art is but one area of critical activity. Indeed, Adornos concepts of alienation and the tragic, which inform his reading of the modernist experiment, are now no longer confined to art. Rather, stirring examples can be found in phenomena such as fashion and music video. In addition to dealing with Lady Gaga herself, this book traverses examples renaging from Madonnas Madam X to Moschino and Vetements, to deliberate on the strategies of subversion of the culture industry from within. Review "Starting from the question of culture and the up-ending of tradition, passing through Hegel, Adorno, the culture industry, light music, jazz and fashion, examining closely the aesthetics of alienation, ugliness and kitsch, and finally arriving to Madonna and Lady Gaga, Gaga Aesthetics offers a convincing and fascinating interpretation of leading trends and fundamental aspects of both contemporary art and everyday life, which can be of the greatest concern not only for academic scholars but also, in general, for all readers genuinely interested in understanding our time." --Stefano Marino, Associate Professor of Aesthetics, University of Bologna, Italy"A sharp and polished new theory book by two mature, well-published and highly respected scholars. It represents a major contribution to not just culture studies but to art theory, visual culture, philosophy, fashion theory and communication studies, and it will be of general interest to anyone interested in today's global intersectional and intertextual world." --Joy Sperling, Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, Denison University, USA About the Author Adam Geczy is an artist and writer who teaches at Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney, Australia.Vicki Karaminas is Professor of Fashion and Director of Doctoral Studies in the School of Design, Massey University, New Zealand, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre of Visual Arts, University of Melbourne, Australia.