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Refractions

Grey on GreyAt the Threshold of Philosophy and Art

Edited by Kamini Vellodi and Aron Vinegar

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£105.00

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About this book

Explores the spectrum of ideas, theories, and practices raised by the colour grey
  • Addresses the ongoing relevance of Hegel's articulation of philosophy as a painting of 'grey on grey'
  • Provides an interdisciplinary study of philosophical and theoretical issues raised by grey, including the relationships between abstraction and immediacy, determinancy and indeterminancy, colour and colourlessness, indifference and difference, and concepts of neutrality, repetition, tautology, and equivalence

Inspired by Hegel’s invocation of philosophy as a painting of ‘grey on grey’, this collection of essays explores the rich scope of ideas implicated by grey, as a colour and a philosophical concept. The volume attests to the insistent logic of grey´s self-differing at stake in the ontology of artworks and images, revealing their deadlocks and potentials both past and present. Crossing art history, visual studies, philosophy, anthropology, media, literary and decolonial studies, contributions consider the immanence of grey on grey in rethinking the temporalities, techniques and media of art.

Reviews

Who said that grey is boring-the color of sameness or, at least, of non-differentiation? Kamini Vellodi and Aron Vinegar's collection will help you discover the rich conceptual and visual texturing of grey, its subtle brilliance and shadowy intensities.
Table of contents

Introduction, Kamini Vellodi and Aron Vinegar

Part 1. Grey Time　

　

  1. Monochrome aesthetic: On philosophy’s belatedness, Ingvild Torsen

  2. Grey Time: Anachromism and Waiting for Beckett, Laura Salisbury

  3. ‘A Warm Grey Fabric’- Walter Benjamin on Boredom, Thijs Lijster

Part 2. Grey Imaging　

  1. Spectres of Seurat, Eric Alliez

  2. Grey and the Silence of Surfaces, Bente Larsen

  3. On the Impossibility of Luminous Grey, Marcos Silva

Part 3. Grey Intensities　

  1. Barthes' Grisaille and an Aesthetics of Indifference, Aron Vinegar

  2. Grey is (not) Grey: Some Considerations for an Ethics of Attentiveness, Hana Grundler

  3. Klee’s ‘Grey Point:’, Kamini Vellodi

Part 4. Grey Thought　　　

  1. ‘Fade to Grey: Color, Grayness and Utopia in the Work of Art (Adorno)’, Gerhard Richter

  2. Grey Illuminations: Foucault and Warburg in the Kingdom of Shadows, Henrik Gustafsson

  3. Icy Phantasms and the Grey of Glaciology, Amanda Boetzkes

About the contributors

Kamini Vellodi

Kamini Vellodi is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Theory and History of Art at the Royal College of Art, London. She is the author of Tintoretto’s Difference. Deleuze, Diagrammatics and Art History (2019), and co-editor, with Aron Vinegar, of Grey on Grey. At the Threshold of Philosophy and Art (2023). She is Series Editor of Refractions. At the Borders of Art History and Philosophy (Edinburgh University Press) and Editorial Board Member of the journal Art History. Her work has appeared in Parrhesia, Art History, Word & Image, Deleuze Studies and The Journal of Art Historiography.

Aron Vinegar

Aron Vinegar is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas (IFIKK) at the University of Oslo. He works at the intersections of art history, visual studies, philosophy and aesthetics. His most recent book is Subject Matter: The Anaesthetics of Habit and the Logic of Breakdown (Short Circuits Series, The MIT Press, 2023) and his co-edited books include Heidegger and the Work of Art History (Routledge, 2014)

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