The Rhetoric of the Frame - Essays on the Boundaries of the Artwork (Paperback)

This work addresses the question of the frame in the visual arts and how it influences the way we perceive artworks. Challenging Kant's characterization of the frame as merely an external supplement, the 14 essays in this anthology consider the frame to be an indispensible, if volatile complement to the artwork. Inspired by Jacques Derrida's ideas on parergonality, these essays problematise inside/outside polarity, articulating difference without reifying the unstable relationship between the artwork and the frame. Ranging from a study of the English country house portrait to a reading of the AIDS quilt, and from a feminist perspective on pornography and performance art to 16th century map-making, these essays collectively consider the frame in its material, conceptual, ideological, gendered and post-structural aspects.