Circus Americanus

Circus Americanus is a riotous excursion through America's changing visual landscape. Exploring its remote corners and bizarre byways, Ralph Rugoff takes us on a tour of theme park slums and mystical police cars, futurist war and the "aesthetics of safe chaos." With an idiosyncratic eye for detail, he maps a culture in which "reality" has become just another theme, revealing an America much stranger than the glamorous kitsch of its surfaces. Whether he is writing about Las Vegas casinos, forensic cartoons, the enigma of Napoleon's preserved penis or the aesthetics of sewage treatment, Rugoff considers everyday marvels with a concern for how we live together in a world beyond belief.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Verso
Published: 11/17/1995
ISBN: 9781859840030
Pages: 216
Weight: 1.21lbs
Size: 8.67h x 7.85w x 0.55d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 11/06/1995 pg. 87