Full Description
Directing unprecedented attention to how the idea of 'excess' has been used by both producers and consumers of visual and material culture, this collection examines the discursive construction of excess in relation to art, material goods and people in various global contexts. The contributors illuminate how excess has been perceived, quantified and constructed, revealing in the process how beliefs about excess have changed over time and how they have remained consistent. The collection as a whole underscores the fact that the concept of excess must always be considered critically, whether in scholarship or in lived experience. Although the idea of excess has often been used to shame and degrade, many of the essays in this collection demonstrate how it has also been used as a strategy for self-fashioning, transgression and empowerment, particularly by women and queer subjects. This volume examines a range of material, including diamonds, ceramics, paintings, dollhouses, caricatures, interior design and theatrical performances. Each case study sheds new light on how excess was used in a specific cultural context, including canonical sites of study such as the Netherlands in the eighteenth century, Victorian Britain and Paris in the 1920s, and under-studied contexts such as Canada and Sweden.
Contents
Contents: Introduction: the uses of excess, Julia Skelly; All that glitters: diamonds and constructions of nabobery in British portraits, 1600-1800, Romita Ray; 'Every other place it could be placed with advantage': ladies-in-waiting at the British court and the 'excessive' display of ceramics as art objects, 1689-1740, Eric Weichel; Consuming excess: pronk poppenhuisen and the dollhouses of Sara Rothé, Michelle Moseley-Christian; Exotic, fetish, virtual: visual excess in Victorian painting, Julie Codell; Excess on the walls: Victorian exhibition culture and anxieties of art and commerce, Anne Helmreich; The paradox of excess: Oscar Wilde, caricature, and consumption, Julia Skelly; Toronto's Casa Loma: from nostalgia to glamour and back again, Alla Myzelev; Homosexuality/modernism/nationalism: between excess and exile in 1920s Europe, John Potvin; Excesses of the bawdy body: John Wentworth Russell and his modern girls, 1927-1935, Karen Stanworth; For the love of God: excess, ambivalence, and Damien Hirst's diamond skull, Jeremy Biles; 'Your asshole is hanging outside of your body?': excess, AIDS, and shame in the theatre of Sky Gilbert, Dirk Gindt; Index.
