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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: David Shafer, “Antonin Artaud” (Reaktion/U Chicago Press, 2016)
Description: “Artaud lived with his neck placed firmly in the noose.”
-Bauhaus*
David Shafer’s new biography, Antonin Artaud (Reaktion Books and the University of Chicago Press, 2016), situates the life of this enigmatic and fascinating figure in historical context. From his bourgeois family background, through a life that included a variety of physical and mental health challenges, drug use, and institutionalization, Shafer traces the ways that Artaud’s intellectual and artistic development was shaped by broader historical and political events and forces. An actor of stage and screen, a poet, and theatre director, Artaud emerges in these ch...