Isabelle Graw

Theodor W. Adorno—philosopher, cultural critic, sociologist, and music theorist—was one of the most important German intellectuals of the twentieth century. This concise, readable life is the first attempt to look at his philosophical and literary work in its essential political context. Central to Adorno’s intellectual development were his musical training, his father’s Jewish roots, and the rise of National Socialism in Germany, which forced him to emigrate to the United States. While in exile, he and Max Horkheimer wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment, a bold attempt to illuminate the dark side of modernity, and on his own Adorno wrote a series of connected essays on the “culture industry”—his indictment of mass culture. A co-founder of the famous Frankfurt School, Adorno returned to head it after the war, assuming a key role in the intellectual life of postwar West Germany until his untimely death in 1969. Jäger’s biography sheds new light on many aspects of Adorno’s life and writings and on his relationships with such figures as Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht, and Walter Benjamin.

Isa Genzken is one of the most important, multifaceted, always surprising artists working anywhere worldwide. This is evidenced not only by her largescale exhibitions of recent years, but also by her repeated participation in the documenta in Kassel, the Biennale in Venice or Skulptur Projekte in Mu?nster. She is known for her enormous creative energy and the ability, implicit in her work, to repeatedly reposition herself with artistic curiosity. Her realized and unrealized outdoor sculptures and projects for the public space show the artist?s interest in space and the (in this case architectural) environment. Operating in the ?eld of tension between architecture and art, she questions principles of proportions and the relationship between object and viewer, and examines the ways in which perceptions of public space inform and condition our consciousness.00Exhibition: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, Germany (2019).

Many contemporary artworks evoke the human figure: consider the omnipresence of the mannequin in current installations of artists like John Miller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Heimo Zobernig, or David Lieske. Or consider the revival of a minimalist vocabulary, which embraces anthropomorphism as in the works of Isa Genzken and Rachel Harrison. This book brings together contributions from the eponymous conference, all of which seek to speculate on the reasons as to why, since the turn of the millennium, we have encountered so many artworks that tend to reconcile Minimalism with suggestions of the human figure. It proposes that this new artistic convention becomes rather questionable when discussed in the light of Franco Berardi's theory of semiocapitalism-a power technology that aims squarely at our human resources. The participants of this conference were asked to offer possible explanations for this wide acceptance of anthropomorphism could it be that this is a manifestation of the increasingly desperate desire for art to have agency?

"As a youth, Carl Hart didn't realize the value of school; he studied just enough to stay on the basketball team. At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist--Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences--whose landmark, controversial research is redefining our understanding of addiction. In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, he recalls his journey of self-discovery and weaves his past and present. Hart goes beyond the hype of the antidrug movement as he examines the relationship among drugs, pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing. Though Hart escaped neighborhoods that were dominated by entrenched poverty and the knot of problems associated with it, he has not turned his back on his roots. Determined to make a difference, he tirelessly applies his scientific research to help save real lives. But balancing his former street life with his achievements today has not been easy--a struggle he reflects on publicly for the first time. A powerful story of hope and change, of a scientist who has dedicated his life to helping others, High Price will alter the way we think about poverty, race, and addiction--and how we can effect change."--Dust jacket.

This book contains three case studies on very different artists, analyzing their work through their respective historical contexts: the writer Francis Ponge (1899-1988) and his seminal text on Jean Fautrier's "Hostage Paintings" from 1943; visual artist Jack Whitten's (1939-2018) Memorial Paintings and Banksy's notorious auction stunt Love is in the Bin from 2018. Examining all three artistic propositions from a value-theoretical point of view, Graw finds Ponge's text on Fautrier to be "doubly materialist" insofar as it (seemingly) reveals its own material conditions while simultaneously grasping the specific materiality of Fautrier's paintings; suggests that the indications of value in Whitten's painting to be more indirect; and reveals Banksy's value reflections to have a very different generational thrust. Gaw shows that Ponge's text is full of value-reflexive insights but that Ponge himself is an ambivalent figure. She finds that the dedication of Whitten's paintings inscribes them in a system of exchange. And, finally, the deliberate aesthetic meagerness of Banksy's Love Is in the Bin points to an emptiness at the heart of value.