<p>Michael Paraskos is one of a new generation of writers, artists and critics associated with the New Aesthetics, an informal group that is challenging the mainstream art world with a fundamental belief that art is a material response to the material world. In this collection of essays, articles and reviews, written for newspapers and magazines including the Epoch Times and Art Review, Paraskos casts a critical eye over the current cultural scene, writing on topics ranging from Duchamp and the Turner Prize to van Dyck and the Victorian obsession with sex.</p>

Is Your Artwork Really Necessary?

Arts & Photography

Paraskos, Michael

History & Criticism

Orage Press

Michael Paraskos is one of the new generation of art critics who are redefining the way we make and see art in the twenty-first century. He is a leading figure in the New Aesthetics movement, an informal grouping of artists and writers who emphasise the physical and material nature of art above its conceptual meaning.  In Regeneration Paraskos puts forward an argument for an aesthetic framework for art which does not look back to the academic aesthetics of previous centuries, but is rooted in the physical and material nature of how artists actually make art. By doing this, he suggests, an art theory based on essential nature of art can come into existence, rather than a repetition of futile attempts to discuss art as if it is music, or poetry, or linguistics, or visual politics. Art is art, he suggests, and it does not need to borrow theories from other human activities to justify its existence.  But Regeneration is not simply a discussion of art theory. It is a record of a highly personal, and sometimes painful, journey into discovering the true nature of art. Originally intended for private distribution only to trusted friends in the art world, Regeneration offers a rare glimpse into the experiences that lead art theorists and critics to think, say and do the things they do.

Regeneration

<p>The Aphorisms of Irsee is a collection of definitive statements on the nature of art by the artist Clive Head and the writer Michael Paraskos. The aphorisms were formulated whilst Head and Paraskos were teaching at a summer art camp in Irsee, southern Germany. Sometimes controversial, often funny, the aphorisms are designed to challenge our understanding of art by defining its essential characteristics. Head and Paraskos do this not only in terms of the question "what is art?" but the equally important question, "what are the conditions in which art can appear?" With a new introduction for the third edition by Michael Paraskos, the Aphorisms of Irsee are radical, challenging and thought provoking, and a joy to read. They set out a new agenda for art in the twenty-first century.</p>

The Aphorisms of Irsee

Head, Clive

As an art critic he had often written that the purpose of art is to soothe the pain of life. But his theory faces a real-life test with a death, that of his father, the celebrated artist Stass.  Overwhelmed by feelings of anger, guilt and loss, Michael finds himself descending into a kind of madness in which the boundaries between fact and fiction break down. In a terrifying alternative reality, where even time seems unstable, he encounters the horrific figure of Pound, a murderous Nazi-sympathiser, determined to get his hands on Stass's diary. There too Michael finds the protean but beautiful femme fatale Miss Waites, and a Chandleresque companion, Geroud. But as art and life collide in this moving, often angry, but also funny book, the question remains whether art can ever really act as a cure for pain.

In Search of Sixpence

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

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Books by Paraskos, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Paraskos, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Is Your Artwork Really Necessary?

Regeneration

The Aphorisms of Irsee

In Search of Sixpence