The next enlightenment: aesthetic reason in modern art and mass culture

Taking as its point of departure the contested claim that Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment conceptualizes a differentiated form of aesthetic reason, this essay explicates key properties of aesthetic rationality as it later was elaborated in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. With these properties in view, it next compares modern artworks and film and discovers that aesthetic reason has taken up residence in mass culture. Adorno's confinement of aesthetic reason to modern art, and his insistence with Horkheimer that modern art and the rationality it entails are emasculated by mass culture, appear premature. As the host for aesthetic rationality, mass culture secures the rational content of modernity against the hegemony of instrumental reason. Through the increasing universalization of mass culture aesthetic reason achieves universality, placing us on the threshold of another enlightenment, an aesthetic enlightenment that would be the completion of modernity's as yet unfinished project.     

The art and craft fair: A new institution in an old art world

This paper focuses on the role of art and craft fairs in the contemporary stained glass profession. Full-time, non-traditional stained glass work could be considered a marginal profession in that it lacks a centralized source of control. The institutionalization of fairs is one solution to problems of decentralization in this profession.Three patterns of participation are noted for stained glass practitioners. First, some artisans participate in art and craft fairs as a stepping stone in their professional development. Second, some practitioners have custom-work studios and continue to participate in the fairs after they have established their studios. Third, for some the art and craft fair is an end, rather than a means. Art and craft fairs serve as a functional equivalent to apprenticeships and other centralized sources of control in the stained glass world. Quantitative and qualitative data are used to support the arguments. The paper concludes by discussing the applicability of these ideas to other contemporary arts/crafts.My thanks to the reviewers and editors for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This paper has been completed, in part, with equipment purchased by NSF Grant # CSI-8551728.     

Gender role stereotypes in fine art: A content analysis of art history books

This paper reports findings from a content analysis of the gender role images in the works of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern art in three major Western art history textbooks. Males were overrepresented as subjects; males and females were presented in stereotypic roles and activities; the Madonna and the idle nude were common female images; males were overrepresented in portraits. Fine art as presented in major art history books was found to embody the gender role stereotypes of the wider society.