Known for his grand public murals; Diego Rivera (1886-1957) is one of Mexicos most revered artists. His paintings are marked by a unique fusion of European sophistication; revolutionary political turmoil; and the heritage and personality of his native country.Based on extensive interviews with the artist; his four wives (including Frida Kahlo); and his friends; colleagues; and opponents; The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera captures Riveras complex personalitymdash;-sometimes delightful; frequently infuriating and always fascinatingmdash;-as well as his development into one of the twentieth centurys greatest artist.
#1834408 in eBooks 2013-08-01 2013-08-01File Name: B00DTWHSUG
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Deconstruction in the FleshBy StreetlightReaderMore than a decade after the death of Jacques Derrida; the insights of deconstruction have now been said to be digested and assimilated. Ubiquitous across the academe; the lsquo;metaphysics of presencersquo; is everywhere decried; while the lsquo;play of diffeacute;rancersquo; is everywhere affirmed. Yet Vicki Kirby is not so convinced of this apparently happy state affairs. Citing Ferdinand de Saussurersquo;s dictum that ldquo;it is often easier to discover a truth than to assign to it its proper placerdquo;; Kirby broaches the question of just where deconstructionrsquo;s lsquo;proper placersquo; resides; especially with respect to the question of the body. According to Kirby; despite the widespread uptake of deconstructive methods across the varied terrain of todayrsquo;s critical theory; many of these appropriations nonetheless surreptitiously and even unthinkingly blunt the full effect of deconstructionrsquo;s ramifications by instituting a divide between nature and culture ndash; and hence between the body and the sign ndash; that doubles down on the very sins they aim to quell.Turning in particular to the work of post-structuralist feminists like Judith Butler; Drucilla Cornell and Jane Gallop ndash; all of whom have in some manner or another attempted to marinate questions of corporeality in the broth of deconstruction ndash; Kirby argues that for each; the body always ultimately remains a site of unintelligibly and exteriority; an lsquo;outsidersquo; of brute; material nature set over and against an lsquo;insidersquo; of articulate nurture. Yet for Kirby; taking seriously Derridarsquo;s adage that lsquo;there is no outside [the] textrsquo; (il nrsquo;y pas de hors-texte); would require nothing less than a reassessment of the very nature of textuality itself; one which canrsquo;t simply be circumscribed within a self-enclosed sphere of lsquo;culturersquo; or lsquo;languagersquo;. Against the pervasive lsquo;linguisticrsquo; reception of Derrida then; Kirby argues that to appreciate the true radicality and strangeness of deconstructive thought; one ought to include the very stuff of matter ndash; the body in all its visceral; substantive; biological dampness ndash; into the ambit of its operations. Kirbys Derrida is thus the Derrida for whom writing extends right down into "the most elementary processes within the living cell".In so pursuing the consequences of a philosophy of diffeacute;rance in the flesh; Kirby charts an anomalous path towards something like a bio-deconstruction; one in which "the differential of language is articulate in/as blood; cells; breathing." Kirbys own preferred term for this is a "corporeography"; a writing of the body in which corporeality and textuality are interwoven and equally subject to the contrivances of diffeacute;rance. Interestingly; its from her magisterial reading of Saussure in particular that Kirby establishes her position; wherein she attempts to demonstrate that his lifelong struggle with the ambiguities and paradoxes inherent in his notion of the sign are less issues to be resolved - as the linguistic heirs of Saussure endeavored to do - so much as they attest to an inability to contain those paradoxes within a horizon of language. Which is once again to say that not only language; but the very substance of matter is shot through with the generative paradoxes whose status Saussure so mightily wrestled with without success.Given the longstanding popular depiction of deconstruction as some sort of linguistic idealism or lsquo;semiological reductionismrsquo;; Kirbyrsquo;s reevaluation of the deconstructive enterprise as bearing without reserve on the very flesh of things is; depending on where one stands; either refreshingly welcome; tantalizingly provocative; searingly obvious; or - more likely - a blend of all three. And indeed; throughout its pages; Telling Flesh exhibits a clear-eyed intellectual courage which unflinchingly works to stir up philosophical dust long since considered settled. On the pervasive; post-structuralist reflex to decry any and all sort of essentialism in favor of an all-too-easy advocacy of anti-essentialism for example; Kirby instead demands that we confront the necessity of a critical essentialism which asks after the way in which essentialisms are engendered; sustained; and reimagined. While Telling Fleshs engagement with biology takes place firmly on the side of philosophy - and perhaps misses the opportunity to engage the scientific literature to shore up its claims - its vision of a naturalized deconstruction is not one to be missed.7 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Substantial reworking of differanceBy A CustomerBrilliant critical poststructuralist feminist text.As a former anthropologist Vicky Kirby is obsessed with materiality and undertakes a incredible task of redefining what that might mean in current postructuralist (western) thought.First chapter surveys the problematic identity of the famous semiotic sign of linguistics. She utilises the writings of Jaques Derrida extensively (his idea of differance and writing in the general sense); but makes crucial; subtle; fundamental differences.She does not entirely conflate the binaries; as many poststructuralist theorist presume to do. Instead she reworks the bar of duality into a hologramatic partitioning - infinite internal devisions which leave neither materiality nor ideality intact.In the 2nd + 3rd chapters she critiques the work of Drucilla Cornell; Judith Butler; Donna Haraway + others. She demonstrate their inadvertant reinscription of the binaries they seek to conflate.Final chapters look at materiality and corporeality in cyberspace. She critisises prevailing logocentric view on technology and the body.Essential reading for students; academics looking for ways out of relativist poststructural positions. Serves as grounding for a cultural materialist perspective(?).Very difficult reading; though perhaps necessarily so. Presumes some knowledge of Ferdinand D. Saussures A Course in General Linguistics and postructuralist readings of this eg. Jaques Derridas Of Gramatology.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Beginning at the BeginningBy helen MciKeeverThis is a valuable and interesting book for anthropology as well as feminist theory as it asks very foundational questions about the boundaries between nature and culture but in a non-linear fashion. Although Merleau-Ponty is not mentioned; Kirby takes up some kinds of issues that M-P would and did find fascinating: differenc/identity; root questions in the nature of gender; the discordance and concordance of the thinking/sensible being; of being human subject and object.