Art in a State of Siege

An art historical epic for dangerous times What do artworks look like in extreme cases of collective experience? What signals do artists send when enemies are at the city walls and the rule of law breaks down, or when a tyrant suspends the law to attack from inside? Art in a State of Siege tells the story of three compelling images created in dangerous moments and the people who experienced them-from Philip II of Spain to Carl Schmitt-whose panicked gaze turned artworks into omens. Acclaimed art historian Joseph Koerner reaches back to the eve of iconoclasm and religious warfare to explore the most elusive painting ever painted. In Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Delights, enemies are everywhere: Jews and Ottomans at the gates, witches and heretics at home, sins overtaking the mind. Following a paper trail leading from Bosch's time to World War II, Koerner considers a monumental self-portrait painted by Max Beckmann in 1927. Created when Germany was often governed by emergency decree, this image brazenly claimed to decide Europe's future-until the Nazis deemed it to be a threat to the German people. For South African artist William Kentridge, Beckmann exemplified "art in a state of siege." Koerner shows how his work served as beacon during South Africa's racialist apartheid rule and inspired Kentridge's breakthrough animations of drawings being made, erased, and remade. Spanning half a millennium but urgent today, Art in a State of Siege reveals how, in dire straits, art becomes the currency of last resort.

About the Author :
Joseph Leo Koerner is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture and Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, and Senior Fellow of Harvard's Society of Fellows. The author of Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life (Princeton) and Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape, he has written and presented documentaries for the BBC and wrote, produced, and directed The Burning Child, a feature film on Viennese homemaking in the shadow of the Holocaust.

Review :
"Captivating . . . Art in a State of Siege [is] leisurely, expansive and stunningly erudite."---Christoph Irmscher, The Art Newspaper "Art in a State of Siege is a compulsive expression of unease, delivered magisterially and at an opportune moment. . . . Ever-stimulating and often provoking."---Julian Bell, New York Review of Books "Art in a State of Siege is destined to become one of the great classics of art history. Combining deep insights into the way artists work, patrons patronize, viewers respond, critics evaluate, and art historians investigate and theorize their own methods, it will be a model for generations to come.... One of the many wonders in this book is the sense that we are in the presence of a master teacher for whom all this is personal"---W.J.T. Mitchell, Berlin Journal "Wise and inform­ative, it is indeed a book for and about our times."---Gabriel Josipovici, Times Literary Supplement "[Art in a State of Siege is ] an engrossing ride. . . . [A] rewarding read." "Especially timely."---Natalie Haddad, Hyperallergic "Koerner ranges across centuries of artistic creation, provenance (the sequence of ownership) and interpretation. While paying particular attention to the troubled decades of modernism, ultimately he has his eye on the politically charged present. . . . This ambitious and provocative book is a good choice for readers with a taste for tangled cultural webs who are looking to engage with a brilliant mind."---Richard Selden, The Georgetowner "Powerful in explaining why such creations exert such a hold on viewers everywhere, and through time." "[A] brilliant book. . . . [with] ekphrastic tours de force. . . . [Koerner’s] investment delivers great insight."---Hal Foster, London Review of Books "An engrossing read. . . . Highly recommended." "Deeply rewarding...[Art in a State of Siege] takes three artworks made in a time of social distress and political crisis—Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Delights (1500), Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in Tuxedo (1927) and William Kentridge’s Art in a State of Siege (1986)—to examine how artistic dissent is fomented under such conditions...With lively prose and rich references to aid his exegesis, Koerner shows how artists working in turbulent times often produce remarkable visual “omens.”"