The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Paperback)

The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning By Maggie Nelson Cover Image
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Description


"This is criticism at its best." —Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times


Writing in the tradition of Susan Sontag and Elaine Scarry, Maggie Nelson has emerged as one of our foremost cultural critics with this landmark work about representations of cruelty and violence in art. From Sylvia Plath’s poetry to Francis Bacon’s paintings, from the Saw franchise to Yoko Ono’s performance art, Nelson’s nuanced exploration across the artistic landscape ultimately offers a model of how one might balance strong ethical convictions with an equally strong appreciation for work that tests the limits of taste, taboo, and permissibility.



About the Author


Maggie Nelson, a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, is the author of several books of poetry, autobiography, and criticism. She teaches at CalArts and lives in Los Angeles, California.

Praise For…


An important and frequently surprising book… could be read as the foundation for a post-avant-garde aesthetics… Nelson, who is also a poet, is such a graceful writer that I…just sat back and enjoyed the show.
— Laura Kipnis - New York Times Book Review

[Nelson’s] critiques of individual artists are delightfully fierce without being mean spirited… Fascinating and bracingly intelligent…The Art of Cruelty’s prose is often gorgeous.

— Troy Jollimore - Boston Globe

A lean-forward experience, and in its most transcendent moments, reading it can feel like having the best conversation of your life.
— Rachel Syme - NPR Books

I hope that critics, and aspiring critics, and those who are interested in the relationship between art and ethics, read [The Art of Cruelty].

— Susie Linfield - New Republic

[Nelson] dexterously, and creatively, manages to hold a mirror to our culture’s fascination with cruelty and invites us to reflect on our personal reasons for indulging it.
— Eleni Theodoropoulos - Literary Hub
Product Details
ISBN: 9780393343144
ISBN-10: 0393343146
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: August 13th, 2012
Pages: 304
Language: English