Gothic : Transmutations of Horror in Late-Twentieth-Century Art

As the millennium draws to a close, a Gothic spirit once again penetrates much of today's art and culture. Over the past decade, American and European artists have grown increasingly fascinated with the dark and uncanny side of the human psyche-the theatrical and grotesque, the violent and destructive. Taking its starting point and title from the Gothic novel, this book investigates the full-blown revival of a Gothic sensibility in contemporary art; in American and British fiction labeled the "New Gothic"; in film with its long tradition of horror; and in video, music, fashion, design, and underground culture. Gothicaccompanies an exhibition at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, of twenty-three artists who produce horror as well as amazement through often ugly, fragmented, and contorted forms. Some employ a detached and reductive formal language to transmute images of excessive and gruesome violence, nevertheless achieving an equally disconcerting impact. The old Gothic themes of the fantastic and pathological are infused with new potency as they address concerns about the body, disease, voyeurism, and power. Essays by John Gianvito, Christoph Grunenberg, James Hannaham, Patrick McGrath, Joyce Carol Oates, Shawn Rosenheim, Csaba Toth, and Anne Williams, and a short story by Dennis Cooper, explore the Gothic in history and in contemporary art and culture. Artists: Julie Becker, Monica Carocci, Dinos and Jake Chapman, Gregory Crewdson, Keith Edmier, James Elaine, Robert Gober, Douglas Gordon, Wolfgang Amadeus Hansbauer, Jim Hodges, Cameron Jamie, Mike Kelley, Abigail Lane, Zoe Leonard, Tony Oursler, Sheila Pepe, Alexis Rockman, Aura Rosenberg, Pieter Schoolwerth, Cindy Sherman, Jeanne Silverthorne, Gary Simmons. Copublished with The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.