Lyotard and the 'figural' in Performance, Art and Writing

Description

This original study offers a timely reconsideration of the work of French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard in relation to art, performance and writing. How can we write about art, whilst acknowledging the transformation that inevitably accompanies translations of both media and temporality? That is the question that persistently dogs Lyotard's own writings on art, and to which this book responds through reference to artists from the recently-formed canon of performance art history, including the myths of seminal figures Marina Abramovic and Vito Acconci, and the controlled documentation of Gina Pane's actions. Through the unstable, untranslatable element that Lyotard calls the figural, his thought is brought to bear on attempts to write a history of performance art and to question the paradoxically prescriptive demand for rules to govern 're-performance'. Kiff Bamford contextualises Lyotard's writings and approach with reference to both his contemporaries, including Deleuze and Kristeva, and the contemporary art about which they wrote, whilst arguing for the pertinence of Lyotard's provocations today.

Kiff Bamford is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.

Bamford's book draws welcome and long overdue attention to Lyotard as the poststructuralist thinker most concerned with art...What he brings specifically to an understanding of performance art is a sensitive consideration of affect and of nonverbal meanings--in Lyotard's technical terms, inarticulate phrases (p. 169). As well as being required reading for any future engagements specifically with Lyotard and art, I would recommend the book to students and scholars researching at the juncture of theory and the arts generally as an illuminating and inspiring example of how such research might proceed. Lyotard and the 'figural' in Performance, Art and Writing is a surprising and quite brilliant book, one which takes its place among the small number of essential books on Lyotard in English. -- Ashley Woodward * H-France Review * Kiff Bamford's long-awaited Lyotard and the 'Figural' in Performance, Art and Writing thus fills a theoretical void and bridges more than one theoretical gap...Rather than superimpose his findings on specific performances that would simply be used as illustrations, the author chooses to interweave the presentation and analysis of selected works of art in separate sections within the various notional conceptual constellations. Art and theory are set on equal footing and in resonance with each other...The book as a whole manages to cross disciplinary boundaries and responds to what Bamford calls Lyotard's 'philosophical nexus', while still preserving a certain chronological progression of the peregrinations of the figural...This extensive study of Lyotard's practical engagement with the art world in relation to his written work answers a still-pressing need and is one of the most original contributions of Bamford's book. By placing it at the very center of his work, Bamford challenges a compartmentalization of concepts that has become established within the Lyotardian corpus...Bamford's book is a necessary addition to the reception of Lyotard and his relation to art history and performance...The primacy devolved to the analysis of artwork in a book whose primary concern remains theoretical bodes very well for the future of a true interdisciplinarity, respectful of Lyotard's vision of the commentary as the receiving and prolonging of the gesture of art, where theory aims at being an echo chamber for the spasm, rather than assimilating the work of art. -- Julie Gaillard * Cultural Politics * Bamford's book is important because most of the critical works on Lyotard were written by philosophers who overlooked his aesthetics, despite the fact that Lyotard maintained a continued and active interest in visual and installation art throughout his career ... [Lyotard and the Figural in Performance, Art and Writing] is important for its claims about performance art and about Lyotard's role in art history, two aspects which have been vastly underexplored in Anglophile criticism. -- Karin Fry, University of Wisconsin * The European Legacy * 'This is the most important book on Lyotard and art (incontournable, as the French say). Bamford accomplishes that most difficult of writerly turns: peerless research, genuine novelty, rewarding reflections, all in elegant and flowing style (a rare and beautiful thing, as we say).' -- James Williams, Professor of European Philosophy at the University of Dundee, UK. 'The significance of Lyotard's writings on art are only gradually becoming apparent, so Bamford's book is a very welcome addition to the literature on this topic, and particularly the implications of the concept of the figural for the field of performance art. Bamford delves further into this aspect of Lyotard's work than any commentator before him, and is to be congratulated for extending Lyotard scholarship in this fascinating and illuminating study.' -- Stuart Sim, Professor in Critical Theory and Long Eighteenth-Century English Literature at Northumbria University, UK. 'At last, an articulate and sensitive study that meshes detailed analyses of significant moments in an emerging history of performance with an informed reading of Lyotard's philosophy. Bamford is impressive on both grounds: when discussing pieces by such artists as Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci and Gina Pane, and when connecting the many seemingly disparate parts of Lyotard's oeuvre, including the overlooked early tome Discourse, Figure and the exhibition Les Immateriaux. Bamford's book demonstrates the deep affinity - long sensed by scholars and artists, but rarely, if ever, performed so adroitly - between creative practice and Lyotard's thought, and firmly establishes the figural as a key term in the vocabulary of contemporary art history, criticism and philosophy.' -- Dr Antony Hudek, University College London Mellon Fellow, UK.