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.
- ISBN10 1859840035
- ISBN13 9781859840030
- Publish Date 17 November 1995
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Verso
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 216
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781859840030