Later in 2015 available as ENGLISH paperback book The Perfect Spectator: The Experience of the Art Work and Reception Aesthetics 320 pp, paperback, 20 × 15,5 cm ENG, September 2015 Design: Sam de Groot NUR 651, ISBN 978-90-808185-0-7, € 25,00
Giovanni Anselmo Entrare nell’Opera, 1971
THE PERFECT SPECTATOR The Experience of the Art Work and Reception Aesthetics Janneke Wesseling
What happens between a spectator and an art work? How do we experience ‘meaning’ in an art work? How can the process of interpretation be understood and articulated? To address these questions, the author explores the field of reception aesthetics, with its central premise that the contemplation of art is a matter of interaction between the art work and the observer. The research is focused on unravelling and problematising the theoretical terminology of the interaction between art work and spectator, deriving from reception aesthetics as well as from hermeneutics and phenomenology, with the aim of building a new theoretical foundation for this terminology. Additionally, different concepts of spectatorship are extensively discussed. ‘I believe it is more productive to research how the art work works or signifies than what it shows or might signify. This ‘how’ reveals itself mainly in the performative act of experiencing the work.’ This book addresses scholars and students in the fields of art history, aesthetics and visual and cultural studies, as well as artists and art students, and all those art spectators who wish to develop a deeper understanding of the experience of art.
Nederlands e-book / DUTCH e-book, November 2014 De volmaakte beschouwer: De ervaring van het kunstwerk en receptie-esthetica Design: Sam de Groot NED, NUR 651, ISBN 978-90-78088-97-4, € 10
Ian Wallace Jazz Street II, 2001
DE VOLMAAKTE BESCHOUWER Janneke Wesseling has worked as an art critic for the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad from 1982 to the present. She has published several studies on contemporary art and artistic research. Wesseling is co-director of PhDArts, at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts of Leiden University, and Professor and head of the Lectorate Art Theory & Practice at the University of the Arts, The Hague.
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De sleutelvraag van dit boek is: hoe werkt het kunstwerk? Het betoog bevindt zich op een snijvlak van receptie-esthetica, kunstbeschouwing en kunstkritiek en wordt ondersteund door veel voorbeelden uit de kunstgeschiedenis en uit de hedendaagse kunst. Het richt zich op een breed geïnteresseerd publiek dat zich nader wil verdiepen in de werking van het kunstwerk, maar het is ook bedoeld voor kunstenaars, critici, andere kunstprofessionals en studenten in kunst, filosofie en geschiedenis. Het wil een handreiking bieden voor het kijken naar kunst, met het doel de ervaring van kunstwerken te verdiepen. (Ned e-book)