Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art

Abstract

This book, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Centre for New Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, invoked three disparate realms in which images have assumed the role of cultural weapons. Monotheistic religions, scientific theories and contemporary arts have struggled with the contradictory urge to produce and also destroy images and emblems. Moving beyond the image wars Iconoclash shows that image destruction has always coexisted with a cascade of image production, visible in traditional Christian images as well as in scientific laboratories and the various experiments of contemporary art, music, cinema and architecture. While iconoclasts have struggled against icon worshippers, another history of iconophily has always been at work. Investigating this alternative to the Western obsession with image worship and destruction allows useful comparisons with other cultures, in which images play a very different role. Iconoclash offers a variety of experiments on how to suspend the iconoclastic gesture and to renew the movements of images against any freeze-framing. The book includes major works by Art & Language, Will Baumeister, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Buren, Lucas Cranach, Max Dean, Marcel Duchamp, Albrecht Durer, Lucio Fontana, Francisco Goya, Hans Haacke, Richard Hamilton, Young Hay, Arata Isozaki, Asger Jorn, Martin Kippenberger, Imi Knoebel, Komar & Melamid, Joseph Kosuth, Gordon Matta-Clark, Tracey Moffa, Nam June Paik, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Prina, Man Ray, Sophie Ristelhueber, Hiroshi Sugimoto and many others.

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