To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation
Annie Pfeifer, "To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation"
English | ISBN: 1501767798 | 2023 | 366 pages | PDF | 20 MB
English | ISBN: 1501767798 | 2023 | 366 pages | PDF | 20 MB
To the Collector Belong the Spoils rethinks collecting as an artistic, revolutionary, and appropriative modernist practice, which flourishes beyond institutions like museums or archives. Through a constellation of three author-collectors―Henry James, Walter Benjamin, and Carl Einstein―Annie Pfeifer examines the relationship between literary modernism and twentieth-century practices of collecting objects. From James's paper hoarding to Einstein's mania for African art and Benjamin's obsession with old Russian toys, she shows how these authors' literary techniques of compiling, gleaning, and reassembling constitute a modernist style of collecting that reimagines the relationship between author and text, source and medium. Placing Benjamin and Einstein in surprising conversation with James sharpens the contours of collecting as aesthetic and political praxis underpinned by dangerous passions. An apt figure for modernity, the collector is caught between preservation and transformation, order and chaos, the past and the future.
Read more