Book Review - Art and the Artist in Society

Finishing my series, here's another scholarly volume for which I've served as a contributing author. Details below! I hope to have more publications to share someday soon.

Art and the Artist in Society

Edited by José Jiménez-Justiniano, Elsa Luciano Feal, and Jane Elizabeth Alberdeston

Genres: Academic, Nonfiction, Art, History, Literary Scholarship
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Press
Length: 325 pages
Published: August 1, 2013
Purchase Links: Amazon, Cambridge Scholars

My Goodreads Rating: 5 out of 5 stars (how can you not give your own book 5 stars?)

Official Book Summary:

"Art and Artist in Society is a compilation of essays that examine the nexus between artists, the art they create and society. These essays consider how art has changed its form and role both to accommodate newer trends and to fully participate in society. Divided into six thematic sections, the book examines the works of a diverse group of artists working in a range of art forms, such as writers Milan Kundera and Judith Ortiz Cofer, filmmakers Humberto Solás and Walter Salles, performers/photographer Daniel Joseph Martínez and feminist-activists Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz. The analyses of the work of these artists and other artists offer readers an opportunity to explore a number of important issues in art today, such as the representation of the Other, the exploration of alternative sources of knowledge and the construction of the self. For the array of works it analyzes, this book offers fascinating insights into the art and the artists of the 20th and 21st centuries." 

Others' Reviews:
"Whether the issues revolve around ‘art for art’s sake’ in the writings of Baudelaire and Wilde, the ‘disgusting’ use of corporeal presences and excretions in body, action, installation, and performance art, or the trash, used or recycled materials of Richard Tuttle’s graphic creations, . . . [Art and the Artist in Society] lends itself to a recasting of multidisciplinary studies." – Dr. Lowell Fiet, University of Puerto Rico

“The collection immediately brings to mind . . . what it means to create seditious writings that trouble national governments as well artistic canons. Art and the Artist in Society covers similar ground – especially in the section that deals with art that meets uncomfortable and unfavorable public reception.” – Dr. Donette Francis, University of Miami 

My Contribution and Endorsement:
For this volume, I contributed the chapter titled "Rewriting Female Representations in Girl with a Pearl Earring & Girl in Hyacinth Blue: Historical Female Portraiture, Human Subjectivity, and Johannes Vermeer's Work." In the chapter, I examine these two novels which utilize Vermeer paintings in order to recast fictional women of the past in order to empower them with greater subjectivity than might be rendered in the original artwork. The volume is a great resource for scholars, art historians, or readers who are interested in how both art and artists have influenced literature during the last 120 years.