The innovative project conceived and curated by Achille Bonito Oliva reaches its second phase. This encyclopedia of the present starts from the concept of 'time' in its diverse nuances and analyzes all the forms of depiction adopted by the different artistic forms of expression throughout the 20th century.
In this case, the common thread is Inner time, the nucleus illuminating Freud’s work. In fact, the arrival of psychoanalysis creates the need for a subjective representation of time in the different artistic forms of expression: time is understood as a dimension of personal, not only rational, experience. Kirchner’s Expressionism, Kandinsky and Klee’s Abstractism, Breton, Dalì and Ernst’s Surrealism and Joyce’s inner monologue are a few examples.
Like the first, this volume, with an introductory essay by Franco Rella, is divided into thematic sections written by well-known intellectual specialists about music, theater, cinema, the visual arts, the new media, photography and literature. It ends with an essay by the editor that summarizes and links together the various contributions. Each essay is accompanied by ‘medallions’, anthology of texts who focus on an author, a work of art or an aspect of contemporary life related to the thematic sections in the book.
The essays are illustrated with works by Kirchner, Klee, Kandinsky, Dalì, Ernst, Boetti, Penone, Kabakov, Eva Hesse, Gary Hill, Sophie Calle, Mapplethorpe, Rebecca Horn, Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Geneviève Cadieux and Bill Viola.