Lyotard and the 'figural' in Performance, Art and Writing

Kiff Bamford is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.

• Acknowledgements \Introduction \ 1. The figural \ 2. The Libidinal \ 3. Les Immatériaux: Whatis Lyotard's Attitude to the Body? \ 4. The Sublime \ 5. Temporality and thefigural \ In Conclusion \ Notes \ Bibliography \ Index

Bamford’s book draws welcome and long overdue attention to Lyotard as the poststructuralist thinker most concerned with art...What he brings specifically to an understanding of performance art is a sensitive consideration of affect and of nonverbal meanings--in Lyotard’s technical terms, inarticulate phrases (p. 169). As well as being required reading for any future engagements specifically with Lyotard and art, I would recommend the book to students and scholars researching at the juncture of theory and the arts generally as an illuminating and inspiring example of how such research might proceed. Lyotard and the ’figural’ in Performance, Art and Writing is a surprising and quite brilliant book, one which takes its place among the small number of essential books on Lyotard in English.