Signs of Psyche in Modern and Postmodern Art (Contemporary Artists and their Critics)

Signs of Psyche in Modern and Post-Modern Art examines the psychological dimension of visual culture in the twentieth century. Analysing the ways in which psychoanalysis can be used to understand art and culture, Donald Kuspit argues that modern art affirms subjectivity, whereas postmodern art, which is characterised as cynical and glamorous, denies it while, paradoxically, being unable to escape it. Assessing the depth-psychological implications of works by, among others, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, André Breton, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter, this study persuasively demonstrates how the methods of psychoanalysis can be used to probe art works created at critical junctures of this century.