Aesthetics of Self-Invention: Oscar Wilde to David Bowie (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780816634187)

Traces the influence of Oscar Wilde as the precursor of twentieth-century artists of self-performance

By printing the title "Professor of Aesthetics" on his visiting cards, Oscar Wilde announced yet another transformation--and perhaps the most significant of his career, proclaiming his belief that he could redesign not just his image but his very self. Shelton Waldrep explores the cultural influences at play in Wilde's life and work and his influence on the writing and performance of the twentieth century, particularly on the lives and careers of some of its most aestheticized performers: Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and David Bowie. As Waldrep reveals, Wilde's fusing of art with commerce foresaw the coming century's cultural producers who would blend works of both "high art" and mass-market appeal.

Whether as a gay man or as a postmodern performance artist ahead of his time, Wilde ultimately emerges here as the embodiment of the twentieth-century media-savvy artist who is both subject and object of the aesthetic and economic systems in which he is enmeshed.

Author: Shelton Waldrep
ISBN-10: 0816634181
ISBN-13: 9780816634187
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Language: English
Published: 08/23/2004
Pages: 232
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.68lbs
Size: 8.98h x 5.88w x 0.49d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2005 pg. 1212