BIBFRAME Work

Title

Universal prostitution and modernist abstraction

Type

• Monograph
• Text

Contribution

• Mansoor, Jaleh, 1975- (author )

Subject

• Labor theory of value (LCSH)
• Philosophy, Marxist (LCSH)
• Labor in art (LCSH)
• Art, Modern--20th century (LCSH)
• Abstraction (LCSH)
• Work in art (LCSH)
• Communism and art (LCSH)

Language

• English

Classification

• DDC: 709.04/052 (Assigner: dlc)
• LCC: N6494.M64 (Assigner: dlc) (Status: used by assigner)

Content

• text

Supplementary content

• bibliography
• index

Summary

"Universal Prostitution and Modernist Abstraction offers a rethinking of modern art as well as a contribution to Marxist theory, linking abstraction as a characteristic of modern art to what is called 'real abstraction' in Marxist accounts of capitalist production. Jaleh Mansoor argues that modern art makes visible capitalist and biopolitical processes of abstraction as well as moments of emancipatory potential. As Mansoor reminds us, Marx used prostitution as a conceptual device through which to allegorize labor in general, and Mansoor uses this insight to think about the confluences of generalized labor in modern art. Mansoor provides an in-depth study of generalized labor, abstraction, automation, and the worker as subject through the analysis of artworks - such as the manuscript's namesake Universal Prostitution (1924) by Marcel Duchamp - in order to trace the outlines of a counter-praxis and counter-logistics to capital."-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Toward a materialist formalism -- Modernism's aesthetic economy : an art history of labor's subsumption -- George Seurat's muses, abstracted : abstract anonymous labor and the beginnings of aesthetic abstraction -- Francis Picabia's real abstraction and the beginnings of Futurist cyborgs : the prefigurative avant-gardes -- The future of the Futurists : the young-girl: en/gendering real abstraction -- The [young-girl] worker as equipment : Yves Klein's living paintbrushes -- Surplus bodies : Santiago Sierra's exploitive remuneration.

Authorized Access Point

Mansoor, Jaleh, 1975-. Universal prostitution and modernist abstraction

Admin Metadata

• Date: 2026-09-11T20:15:41.854140+00:00
• Agent: cbc
• Status: c
• Derived from: 24000103

Admin Metadata

• Date: 2026-09-11
• Cataloger id: Unknown
• Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
• Description language: eng
• Description authentication: pcc