Carnivalesque explores the history of humor and the grotesque imagination in Western art from the Middle Ages to the present day. It is structured around four the Tumultuous Crowd, the World Turned Upside-down, the Comic Mask, and the Grotesque Body. Illustrations range from medieval woodcuts and misericords to drawings, paintings, and prints by Brueghel, Jacques Callot, the Tiepolos, James Gillray, and Francisco Goya. Popular imagery from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is set alongside satirical prints by Daumier, James Ensor, and Max Beckmann. Recent and contemporary works include sculpture by Louise Bourgeois and Paul McCarthy, paintings by Paula Rego and Red Grooms, and video installations by Marisa Carnesky and Leigh Bowery.
The book includes approximately seventy illustrations, with essays by co-curators Timothy Hyman and Roger Malbert.
