Material Thought recovers the legacy of mid-twentieth century “formalist” art and theory, taking François Laruelle's project of “non-standard aesthetics” as its point of departure.

Carrying out what Laruelle describes as a “mutation” of formalism by recovering its radical scientificity, whilst dismantling its reified façade, Jonathan Fardy radically flattens the division between making and thinking. He then applies this innovation to the work of artists and critics including Clive Bell, Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss, Helen Frankenthaler, Giulio Paolini, and Edgar Degas. Tending to works from both before and after the high-water mark of formalist art and theory, he recovers and renews a theoretical impetus that proceeded the idealist tendency of “high formalism” – i.e., the drive to incarnate a materialist aesthetics that took the materiality of art as its critical point of departure.

Through his attention to what Laruelle calls “material formalism,” Fardy restores a vital theoretical and political significance to twentieth century formalist art theory – one which has been hitherto overshadowed by “pure” formalism and its depoliticised abstractions.