Popularisation and Populism in the Visual Arts

This book investigates the pictorial figurations, aesthetic styles and visual tactics through which visual art and popular culture attempt to appeal to "all of us". One key figure these practices bring into playthe "everybody" (which stands for "all of us" and is sometimes a "new man" or a "new woman")is discussed in an interdisciplinary way involving scholars from several European countries. A key aspect is how popularisation and communication practiceswhich can assume populist formsoperate in contemporary democracies and where their genealogies lie. A second focus is on the ambivalences of attraction, i.e. on the ways in which visual creations can evoke desire as well as hatred.