Denise Green's 'Metonymy in Contemporary Art: a new paradigm'

(Denise Green is showing at Venice Biennale).

Definitely on my 'to read' list:

'Metonymy in Contemporary Art: a new paradigm'

In this book Denise Green develops an original approach to art criticism and modes of creativity which is inspired by aspects of Australian Aboriginal and Indian thought that are relevant to contemporary painting and current aesthetic sensibilities. The book interweaves her own evolution as an artist, a critique of Clement Greenberg and Walter Benjamin, and commentary on other artists.

Denise Green introduces the concept of metonymic thinking, as developed by the late poet and linguist, A. K. Ramanujan, one that is often different from what is present in Western art critical writing. In Ramanujan's formulation of metonymic thinking, the human and natural worlds are intrinsically related to one another as are the transcendent and mundane worlds. Metonymic thinking in contemporary art implies that one must take into account the inner world of the artist. When artists create metonymically there is a fusion between an inner state of mind and outer material world.

Denise Green had first discovered this mode of thinking in her own work and shows how it has been present in the evolution of her work. It is also applicable to the work of other contemporary artists, such as Agnes Martin, Joseph Beuys, and Brice Marden, among others. This different aesthetic and cognitive mode is often missing in the critical discourse on contemporary art. Denise Green's argument allows contemporary art to be interpreted from a broader, more global and pluralist perspective. (www.denisegreen.net/pages/writings01.html)

Image: Denise Green 2014, 'Appease'
watercolour and charcoal on paper
44.75 x 36.25 inches