Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.99 (723 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1468307169 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-08-11 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
From Bookforum Stephen Bayley’s Ugly: The Aesthetics of Everything is a terrific history of white people’s thoughts on the beautiful and tacky. Bayley plumbs the shallowest depths of white culture of the last few hundred years, from high kitsch (snow-globe collections, the infamous Madonna Inn), to the compelling ugliness of plants, animals, disfigurement, and racism, to the reactionary pro-ugliness movements of punk and modernist architecture. —Choire Sicha
He has served as Chief Executive of the Design Museum in London and also worked as a consultant for various brands including Ford, Absolut Vodka, The Coca-Cola Company, Volkswagen, BMW, and Harvey Nichols. Stephen Bayley is one of the world's best-known commentators on design and popular culture, a bestselling author, and a columnist, broadcaster, and curator.
Bayley is back and better than ever Zachary Wilson I enjoyed this book as much, if not more than Bayley's original masterpiece, Taste. It's important to note that this book is not an attempt to define ugliness, but to examine our relationship with ugliness throughout history. It's a fantastically well designed book, featuring full page photographic plates illustrating Bayley's witty and insightful points. The epic shade throwing found in Taste is still here, but temp. Shagane Barsegian said cool, new. Each page is a mini dive into a question. Odd, different, cool, new, mind opening. I liked the odd nature and nonconventional style of this book. It's one of my favorites to look at culture and production.. Familiar Penny Thoughtful I rather enjoyed this lively book, not least because it mentions I.H. 35, the highway that runs from Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota--and not entirely in an uncomplimentary fashion. The book has an attention-grabbing blend of old and new, with clever commentary.
What is "ugly"? Sourcing centuries of art, design, and cultural history, and citing examples as wide-ranging as Soviet-era architecture and Frankenstein's monster to the World's Ugliest Dog and the so-called jolie-laide of the human species, Stephen Bayley, one of the world's leading commentators on design and popular culture, probes the fascinating and timeless question: Is there such a thing as ugliness or are aesthetic judgments purely a matter of taste? Is ugliness only skin-deep, or can something that is beautifully engineered--a B52 bomber or a Colt .45--also be ugly, if its function is to kill or to maim? What was "Degenerate Art" and why was it deemed such? Why are mountains seen as sublime expression of nature, when only two hundred years ago they were regarded as loathsome things to be avoided at all costs? Just what is the relation, if any, between tattoos and crime? And lastly, if there were no ugliness in the world, would there be any beauty? Stephen Bayley, in his singular and at times tongue-in-cheek style, questions and explains the aesthetics of everything.