Materials, Practices, and Politics of Shine in Modern Art and Popular Culture

Shine allures and awakens desire. As a phenomenon of perception shiny things and materials fascinate and tantalize. They are a formative element of material culture, promising luxury, social distinction and the hope of limitless experience and excess. Since the early twentieth century the mass production, dissemination and popularization of synthetic materials that produce heretofore-unknown effects of shine have increased. At the same time, shine is subjectified as “glamor” and made into a token of performative self-empowerment.

The volume illuminates genealogical as well as systematic relationships between material phenomena of shine and cultural-philosophical concepts of appearance, illusion, distraction and glare in bringing together renowned scholars from various disciplines.

Antje Krause-Wahl is Professor for Contemporary Art at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. Her research focuses on Art and visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially in the US; artist's identity and education; painting and painting theory after 1945; gender studies (queer studies); interaction between art and digital culture; (artist) magazines, fashion and fashion photography.

Petra Löffler is Professor for Theory & History of Contemporary Media at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany. Her research focuses on material culture, film and photography, affect theory and media ecology.

Änne Söll is Professor for Modern Art History at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Her areas of research include: art of the Weimar Republic, gender studies (masculinities), portraiture, fashion photography, video installations, artists magazines, museum architecture and period rooms.