In this first English translation of one of his most important works, Michel Ser
res presents the statue as more than a static entity: for Serres it is the basis
for knowledge, society, the subject and object, the world and experience. Serre
s demonstrates how sacrificial art founded and still persists in society and ref
lects on the centrality of death and the statufied dead body to the human condit
ion.
Each section covers a different time period and statuary topic, ranging fr
om four thousand years ago to 1986; from Baal, the paintings of Carpaccio, and t
he Eiffel Tower, to Rodin's "The Gates of Hell," the Challenger disaster and the
literature of Maupassant, La Fontaine and Jules Verne. Expository, lyrical, fic
tionalized and hallucinatory, Statues plays with time and place, history and sto
ry in order to provoke us into thinking in entirely new ways.
