Material Thought

Towards a Non-Standard Formalism

Jonathan Fardy (Author)

Material Thought

Towards a Non-Standard Formalism

Jonathan Fardy (Author)

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Description

Material Thought recovers the legacy of 'formalist' art and theory of the mid-20th century, taking as its point of departure François Laruelle's project of 'non-standard aesthetics.'

Carrying out what Laruelle names a 'mutation' of formalism, recovering its radical scientificity whilst dismantling its reified façade, Jonathan Fardy operationalises a radical flattening of the division between making and thinking which he then applies to the work of select artists and critics: Clive Bell, Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, and Rosalind Krauss, as well as artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Giulio Paolini, and Degas. Tending to works that both predate and postdate the high-water mark of formalist art and theory, he recovers and renews a theoretical impetus that proceeded the idealist tendency of 'high formalism' - i.e., the drive to incarnate a materialist aesthetics that took the materiality of art as its critical point of departure.

Through his attention to what he calls this 'materialist-formalism,' Fardy restores to 20th-century formalism a vital theoretical and political significance that has been hitherto overshadowed by 'pure' formalism and its depoliticised abstractions.

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Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. A Non-Standard Arsenal
2. Inhuman Aesthetics (Bell)
3. Scientific Flatness (Greenberg)
4. Philosopher, Historiographer, and Artist in Superposition (Fried)
5. Theory in the Expanded Field (Krauss)
Postscript
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Published	12 Nov 2026
Format	Ebook (PDF)
Edition	1st
Pages	208
ISBN	9781350563308
Imprint	Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations	10 bw illus
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Author

Jonathan Fardy

Jonathan Fardy is Associate Professor of Art Histo…

Fardy's book offers a substantial reengagement with and reinvigoration of the twentieth-century tradition of formalism with art theory. Its non-standard philosophical approach, inspired by the work of François Laruelle, opens up bold new perspective for thinking the relation of aesthetic form and that which is lived in living forms.

Ian James, Professor of Modern French Philosophy and Literature, University of Cambridge, UK
Material Thought breaks deadlocks in contemporary aesthetics by reinvigorating formalist modes of art criticism. By rewiring implicit philosophical assumptions at the heart of modernism via Laruelle's innovative theoretical approach, this book shows constructively what non-standard philosophy can do.

Rocco Gangle, Professor of Philosophy, Endicott College, USA