Talking Bodies Cover

Bettina Richter, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich (eds.)

Talking Bodies
Image, Power, Impact

Bodies act as powerful signs, as cultural settings: How are bodies represented and how are they looked at? Which types of bodies are never shown or only shown in a particular way or context? Normative ideas of beauty and the body shape our perception of ourselves and the world – and the bodies shown manifest inequalities and reflect the prevailing relations of power and violence.

Talking Bodies questions the body images propagated by our visual culture through the medium of the poster. Masterpieces of art history, contemporary self-dramatizations in social media, gender stereotypes, images of black bodies, and the representation of disabled and non-normative bodies are juxtaposed and critically analyzed. With its focus on the construction and impact of body images, but also on possible strategies of resistance, the publication sees itself as a critical contribution to current debates.

Bodies act as powerful signs, as cultural settings: How are bodies represented and how are they looked at? Which types of bodies are never shown or only shown in a particular way or context? Normative ideas of beauty and the body shape our perception of ourselves and the world – and the bodies shown manifest inequalities and reflect the prevailing relations of power and violence.

Talking Bodies questions the body images propagated by our visual culture through the medium of the poster. Masterpieces of art history, contemporary self-dramatizations in social media, gender stereotypes, images of black bodies, and the representation of disabled and non-normative bodies are juxtaposed and critically analyzed. With its focus on the construction and impact of body images, but also on possible strategies of resistance, the publication sees itself as a critical contribution to current debates.

Edited by Bettina Richter, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

With essays by Markus Dederich, Florian Diener, Hans Fässler, Bettina Richter, Maria Schreiber, Marilyn Umurungi, Paula-Irene Villa

Design: Studio Krispin Heé

15 × 22 cm, 6 × 8 ½ in

ca 208 pages, ca 130 illustrations

paperback

2024, 978-3-03778-734-2, English
CHF 35.00
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