An Alternative History of Twentieth-Century Comedy
by David Robbins
- Author(s)
- David Robbins
- Publication
- Copenhagen : Pork Salad Press, 2011
- Scope
- 352 Pages, illustrated, 24 cm.
- ISBN
- 9788791409585
Traditionally, histories of comedy have concerned the verbal, narrative, illusionistic comedy presented on stage or screen, or in broadcast media. During the twentieth century, however, there emerged in Europe and America another, alternative form of comedy, a comedy of doing rather than saying, a nonfiction comedy which yielded prop-like conceptual objects and gestures of public theater. Termed “concrete comedy” by David Robbins, its origins date from around 1915, with the work of Karl Valentin, a German comedian of stage and screen who also made comic objects, and Marcel Duchamp, who used the art context as a site for comedy. The materialist comedy of which they were early representatives eventually comprised not only objects and gestures but, as well, anti-illusionist manifestations of comic persona within performance media such as film and television. Concrete Comedy offers at once an alternative to conventional comedic practice and an alternative reading of recurrent art-making strategies.
- Keywords
- humour , art movements
- Location
- Cabinet 9 - 5: Kunst stromingen en thema's
- Remarks
- Incl. bibliograhical references
based on keyword
