Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to 'shock', controversial artworks are vigorously defended by art critics, who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. This is the first book to subject contemporary art to a rigorous ethical exploration. It argues that, in favouring conceptual rather than emotional reactions, commentators actually fail to engage with the work they promote. Scrutinising notorious works by artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Richard Billingham, Marc Quinn, Sally Mann, Marcus Harvey, Hans Bellmer, Paul McCarthy, Tierney Gearon, and Tracey Emin, "Aftershock" insists on the importance of visceral, emotional and 'ethical' responses. Far from clouding our judgement, Cashell argues, shame, outrage or revulsion are the very emotions that such works set out to evoke. While also questioning the catch-all notion of 'transgression', this illuminating and controversial book neither jumps indiscriminately to the defence of shocking artworks nor dismisses them out of hand.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Illustrations (p. ix)
• Acknowledgements (p. xi)
• 0 Introduction (p. 1)
• The Incompatibility of Aesthetics and Contemporary Art (p. 1)
• Transgression: The War Against Disinterestedness (p. 5)
• The Ethics of Transgressive Art (p. 12)
• 1 Everybody Hates a Tourist (p. 17)
• The Ethical Analysis of Contemporary Art (p. 17)
• Disinterestedness and Cultural Tourism (p. 18)
• The Ethical Evaluation of Art: Autonomism versus Moralism (p. 27)
• A Difficult Case: Marc Quinn and Alison Lapper (p. 32)
• Transgressive Art Meets the Autonomist-Moralist Model (p. 42)
• Quinn and Lapper Revisited: A Contextualist Analysis (p. 46)
• Conclusion (p. 49)
• 2 Carte Blanche (p. 51)
• Marcus Harvey's Myra (p. 51)
• Preliminary Approaches to the Ethical Analysis of Mym (p. 56)
• 'Suffer Little Children': The Facts of the Case (p. 58)
• Myra: Portrait of a Serial Killer (p. 61)
• Postmodernism and the Absence of the Referent Thesis (p. 66)
• Contextualist Ethical Analysis of Myra (p. 68)
• Myra and Merited Response Theory (p. 79)
• Conclusion (p. 84)
• 3 Atrocity Exhibition (p. 87)
• Aesthetic Defences of the Work of Jake and Dinos Chapman (p. 87)
• The Canonic Defence and the Chapmans' Disasters of War (p. 90)
• The Transgressive Defence of Transgressive Art (p. 97)
• Hans Bellmer, Bataiiie and Authentic Transgression (p. 101)
• The Trivial Pursuit of Psychoanalysis (p. 107)
• Evaluation of Aesthetic Defences of Transgressive Art (p. 109)
• Acknowledging the Immorality of the Chapmans' Work (p. 114)
• Contextuaiist Ethical Evaluation of Zygotic Acceleration (p. 116)
• Conclusion (p. 121)
• 4 Fearless Speech (p. 123)
• Tracey Emin's Ethics of the Self (p. 123)
• 'With Myself Always Myself Never Forgetting': The Structure of Ethical Subjectivity (p. 129)
• Exposure Without Reserve: Emotional Response and its Moral Significance (p. 138)
• Shame: An Existential Analysis (p. 145)
• Concluding Ethical Evaluation: Tracey Emin's Fearless Speech (p. 151)
• 5 Horrorshow (p. 159)
• The Transvaluation of Morality in the Work of Damien Hirst (p. 159)
• Obscene Objects of Pleasurable Fascination (p. 162)
• Non-Human Animals and Ethical Inclusion (p. 167)
• Attending to the Other of the Animal: Art and the Ethics of Care (p. 172)
• Exquisite Corpse: Death and the Sublime (p. 176)
• Cognitive Immoralism (p. 179)
• The Artistic Transvaluation of Morality (p. 182)
• Aftershock: Tragic Sympathy and Meta-Ethical Significance (p. 188)
• Conclusion (p. 196)
• Notes (p. 201)
• Further Blading (p. 241)
• Index (p. 249)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this thought-provoking book, Cashell (Limerick Institute of Technology) repositions the critical response to the British Saatchi "Sensation" artists, including Richard Billingham, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Marcus Harvey, Damien Hirst, and Marc Quinn. Shock value, of course, has played an important role in art since Marcel Duchamp's early 20th-century readymades, and as Cashell points out, the tendency of critics to focus on the conceptual elements of these works--in part to defend their designation as art--has resulted in avoidance of moral and ethical issues that allow the "shock" (or, more precisely, "transgression designed to counter disinterestedness") to occur at all. Each thematic chapter examines key works by (and criticism of) the Saatchi stable, with carefully chosen non-Saatchi artists (Hans Bellmer, Sally Mann, Paul McCarthy, Robert Mapplethorpe, Leni Riefenstahl) and theoretical writings by the likes of Susan Sontag, Laura Mulvey, Georges Bataille, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Paul Sartre, to create what Cashell terms "contextualist" and "contextualist ethical" analyses. The writing style (more opaque than transparent), combined with the art theory jargon typical of this particular type of scholarship (presuming much prior knowledge), provides a challenging but ultimately worthwhile read. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. E. K. Mix Butler University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Kieran Cashell is Lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies at the School of Art and Design, Limerick Institute of Technology.