Social Theories of Art

This elegantly written book explores the tension between the theory and practice of art taking issue with the approaches of the New Art History and its deconstructionist critics. It critically examines influential social theories of art from the viewpoint of the artworlds they target and through a consideration of work by Rorty Bauman Gadamer and others develops a new and fruitful set of connections between ethical social and art theory that gives central importance to reflexivity as a living and problematic as well as a theoretical concept.