Papers that wrecked me a little

Lena Duarte

@cyanlines

8Items

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not a real bibliography. more like the pdfs i actually finished at 1am in a wynwood coffee shop, gin sweating on the table next to my laptop. some are about art, some are about why we even make art, one is just about color theory and i cried a little (normal). read them in the dark for full effect.

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Papers that wrecked me a little — 8 items
Name	Title	Author	Field	Year	Journal	Length	Why it stuck	Verdict
1The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction	The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction	Walter Benjamin	Art theory	1935	Essay (widely anthologized)	~30 pages	aura. the word AURA. i think about it every time i see a print in a wynwood gallery and wonder if it's lying to me	foundational, slightly haunted, read twice
2Notes on 'Camp'	Notes on 'Camp'	Susan Sontag	Cultural criticism	1964	Partisan Review	~15 pages	numbered notes instead of paragraphs?? unhinged and correct. felt like she was texting me	the og aesthetic manifesto, no notes (pun intended)
3Interaction of Color (theoretical excerpts)	Interaction of Color	Josef Albers	Color theory	1963	Yale University Press	~80 pages	made me question every orange i've ever loved. the squares are DECEIVING you and he knows it	quietly devastating, keep near the paint supplies
4Art as Experience	Art as Experience	John Dewey	Aesthetics/Philosophy	1934	Book (Perigee)	~350 pages	dense. so dense. but the idea that art is just LIVED experience got me through a bad gallery opening once	slow burn, worth the coffee refills
5The Death of the Author	The Death of the Author	Roland Barthes	Literary theory	1967	Aspen (magazine)	~5 pages	short but it REWIRED how i look at every unfinished essay in my drafts folder. maybe they're done? maybe i'm dead (author-wise)	tiny paper, huge aftershock
6Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema	Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema	Laura Mulvey	Film theory	1975	Screen	~12 pages	the gaze thing. can't watch a single miami sunset ad the same way now, they're all doing IT to you	sharp, a little annoying to have in your head forever
7Space, Time and Architecture (intro chapters)	Space, Time and Architecture	Sigfried Giedion	Architecture history	1941	Harvard University Press	~60 pages (intro)	read this walking through the design district and suddenly every building was talking to me, rude honestly	dry title, weirdly emotional read
8The Painted Word (opening essay)	The Painted Word	Tom Wolfe	Art criticism	1975	Harper's Magazine (excerpt)	~20 pages	mean. so mean about the art world. i laughed alone in a bar and got looks	petty in the best academic way

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