Reviews for The total work of art

The average rating for The total work of art based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-11-09 00:00:00 Mario Espinoza Postrel writes mainly about economics, but in this volume, she is talking about aesthetics--more specifically, aesthetic value. Taking on centuries' worth of critics who denigrate aesthetics on economic and moral grounds, she claims that we are living in an age of high aesthetic value: "We expect the most mundane products to provide not only function but aesthetic pleasure and meaning." Today, we eat in restaurants that provide immersion in a programmed environment and buy toilet brushes with a design concept,--in contrast to the mid-twentieth century, when consumers delighted in the convenience and standardization provided by mass-produced products. One hotel ad proclaimed that "The best surprise is no surprise," suggesting that "Americans were more concerned with avoiding below-par experiences than achieving unique or extraordinary ones." Postrel discusses two age-old critiques of aesthetics and decoration in general. One is that it is decadent and superfluous. People who would pay more for a beautiful object that is the functional equal of a less beautiful one are either stupid or brainwashed by advertising, this view would say. To counter this idea, Postrel gives a brief history of beauty's manifestation in non-affluent cultures, arguing that beauty has its own intrinsic value, invoking again the pleasure that people take in ornamentation. The other critique is that decoration is about status and recognition, and therefore causes us to betray our natural inclinations in favor of what impresses others. Here, though, Postrel shows how people manipulate their own appearance, for example, to deviate from the norm in carefully planned ways that are intended to communicate something about the person's image of themselves. They choose their aesthetics as much to project something to others as to absorb others' taste. In this way, then, aesthetics are not a challenge to authenticity but rather an embodiment of it, and a form of expression that is increasingly important in American society. People spend money on, and derive pleasure from, aesthetic value, and this has increased the pleasure in Americans' daily lives and their standard of living--but economists cannot measure it; or, if they do, it appears to be non-productive spending on ephemera. This book seemed much less mind-blowing than I remembered, and I'm not sure whether that's because Postrel's points have become more obvious with time or perhaps because I internalized her argument. In any case, this reread made me focus on one theme of the book and wonder whether anyone has ever written a broad, popular study of conformity. A major theme of this book is the way that people carefully calibrate how much they appear to be like the people around them; some are comfortable being quite different, others want to be quite similar. Many prefer to conform rigidly to the norms of an outsider group (e.g. goths). How do they accomplish this and what benefits do they derive from their efforts?

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-09 00:00:00 Ciara Moore I agree with some of the other reviews of this book: Postrel's premise seems to lose steam midway through the book. Yes, style and substance matter. But the author seems to lack a definitive viewpoint. Sometimes it matters to people who live in upscale communities, but it doesn't matter to others who choose to move out because they become annoyed with overly restrictive home owner associations. So, style and substance matter sometimes...and may matter more in the future. I would have preferred a more decisive stance. Also, the anecdotes are certainly interesting and varied, but they don't seem to advance a central premise. Unless I read the book wrong, they just serve to illustrate that we are seeing more interest in style over the past 20 years as technological advances have made so many things ubiquitous and cheaper. Great, but what should we do with this information? I would like to have seen that question answered. I don't mean checklists (which I despise), but how will this help the average reader? If this were a sociology book, then I probably wouldn't have bought it. Instead, the book doesn't really seem to answer the question inferred by its subtitle "How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness." I figured that it was a business book and it really isn't, in my humble view. This isn't a bad book and Postrel is a gifted writer. I just had some different expectations when buying the book.