{"title":"That Monster Over There: Silvia Kolbowski, Trump, and Allegory","authors":"Ivan Knapp","doi":"10.1111/1467-8365.12744","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This essay considers the ways in which Silvia Kolbowski's 2018 video <i>That Monster: An Allegory</i> addresses the psychical and political basis of Donald J. Trump's appeal in the 2016 US election. The video is crafted out of a collection of fragments from James Whale's 1935 <i>The Bride of Frankenstein</i>, which Kolbowski plays first with a score by Philip Glass and then in silence. This article asks how such a format might illuminate resonances between certain psychoanalytic concepts and the postmodernist discourse of allegory as exemplified in the work of Paul de Man and Craig Owens. I argue that these theoretical frameworks help us to retain an open reading of Kolbowski's allegory which shifts an interpretive focus from questions of identity to problems of repetition, refusal, and erasure.</p>","PeriodicalId":8456,"journal":{"name":"Art History","volume":"46 4","pages":"698-713"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Art History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8365.12744","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ART","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This essay considers the ways in which Silvia Kolbowski's 2018 video That Monster: An Allegory addresses the psychical and political basis of Donald J. Trump's appeal in the 2016 US election. The video is crafted out of a collection of fragments from James Whale's 1935 The Bride of Frankenstein, which Kolbowski plays first with a score by Philip Glass and then in silence. This article asks how such a format might illuminate resonances between certain psychoanalytic concepts and the postmodernist discourse of allegory as exemplified in the work of Paul de Man and Craig Owens. I argue that these theoretical frameworks help us to retain an open reading of Kolbowski's allegory which shifts an interpretive focus from questions of identity to problems of repetition, refusal, and erasure.
期刊介绍:
Art History is a refereed journal that publishes essays and reviews on all aspects, areas and periods of the history of art, from a diversity of perspectives. Founded in 1978, it has established an international reputation for publishing innovative essays at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship, whether on earlier or more recent periods. At the forefront of scholarly enquiry, Art History is opening up the discipline to new developments and to interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches.