Broken myths: Charles Sheeler's industrial landscapes

Abstract

"Precisionism is considered an artistic style that is committed to aestheticism and does not indulge in social or political themes. In addressing the role of the human being under increased automation and mechanization, Andrea Diederichs incorporates the social dimension of the machine age into her investigations. In Broken Myths, she grapples with the degradation of the worker into a faceless and at the same time disenfranchised subject, thus undertaking a fundamental revision of this prevailing, one-dimensional reading of Precisionsim: Its images are not envisioned as homages to corporate capitalism and the machine, but are in fact critical representations that point to and enact the power of corporate capitalism and go beyond the level of mere representation."--from back of cover.