Deep Design / Nine Little Art Histories / Libby Lumpkin

In nine observant, quirky, and irreverently spirited essays, Libby Lumpkin suggests that what appear to be deep theoretical problems of art are merely simple problems of design. Highlights include a history of the Smiley Face, in which Lumpkin illuminates the iconography of the smile from the art of archaic Greece and first-century India to Leonardo da Vinci and Andy Warhol. In a history of the Prohibition Symbol, she traces the transgressive connotations of the diagonal slash back to Pythagorean mathematics; and in another essay she locates the sources of the conceptual bent in contemporary art in the Antique opposition of liberal and vulgar practices. In a biting critique of prevailing feminist art theories, Lumpkin develops the central argument of Deep Design. Beginning with a playful look at ancient Assyrian goddess figures and Las Vegas Showgirls, and ending with reviews of feminist art exhibitions of the nineteen nineties, she proposes a feminist theory based upon power rather than virtue.

Published in 1998

152 pages, 39 color plates, softcover

ISBN 9780963726469