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James Elkins, Master Narratives and Their Discontents.
- Article from:
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Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine
- Article date:
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October 1, 2006
- Author:
- Hamilton, Emily
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2006 Parachute Contemporary Art. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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James Elkins, Master Narratives and Their Discontents, New York and London: Routledge, 2005, 192 pp., ill. b. & w.
James Elkins's Master Narratives and Their Discontents, the first book in the series "Theories of Modernism and Post-Modernism in the Visual Arts," is a historiographical study which argues that the plethora of writing on twentieth-century painting can be neatly classified within four narrative models: modernism, post-modernism, politics and the importance of skill.
Elkins chooses narratives which, in his view, have built the foundation for the century. Theorists such as Lacan, Foucault, Derrida and Barthes are not included, and Elkins convincingly argues ...