Sebastian Zeidler presents not only a detailed, rigorous analysis of Einstein’s fragmentary, gnomic writings, but a provocative extrapolation of their potentials.... Among other things, Form as Revolt is an impressive exercise in intellectual history, ranging with ease from Novalis and Hegel to Rosa Luxemburg, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and beyond.... Form as Revolt is a far-reaching, learned, and ambitious volume.... In this book, over and above the vital contribution he makes to the reception of his hero, Carl Einstein, Sebastian Zeidler takes his own place among the leading critical historians of modernist art.
CAA Reviews
Zeidlers Buch führt in Eisteins literarisches und kunsttheoretisches Werk ein, sprengt aber zugleich das Format der Monografie an so gut wie jedem Punkt seines Textes. Form as Revolt handelt entschieden weniger über den historischen Autor als mit ihm. Im skrupulösen, am Poststrukturalismus, an Derrida und Deleuze geschulten Versuch, die spezifische Verschränkung von Formen und Inhalten in Einsteins Denken und Schreiben herauszuarbeiten, um Einstein gewissermaßen neu zu schaffen, entdeckt und entwickelt Zeilder die Elemente einer Kunstgeschichte der Moderne vor dem Hintergrund der offenkundigen Krise wesentlicher Achsen der Disziplin, von der Semiologie bis zur social art history.
Kunstform
Form as Revolt is the inverse of esoteric; it ceaselessly winnows away the abstruse to place difficult art and thought within reach, but not in dumbed-down ways. To say this volume offers a remarkably insightful contribution to scholarship on the history and criticism of early twentieth-century art would certainly be true, but even such an accolade would hardly speak to the significance—and the courage—of Zeidler’s study.
Critical Inquiry