Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism | Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, ... |...

Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism | Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, ... | Some Troubling Facts...

books:

Midsomer Murders: ... BodyGlide Sun Scre... Difficult Art Since 1900: Mo...

	Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, ... Thames & Hudson, 2005 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

important but narrow

Face it, for better or worse, this is a crew we have to deal with. They've got their October power, and look at the author listings, all of them big-deal academics with a name after their name. Now they've tried to come down off the mountaintop to write for a less in-crowd than they usually bother with, and the book they've put together has all the blindness and insight everyone might expect. There's some great stuff on mainstream avant-garde movements (irony intended). But it's mostly European and American, and the readings are kind of limited: nothing political seems to have happened in 1968, and so on. However, the biggest downside is the weak section on contemporary art. Foster wrote most of the entries on the 90's, and they look like he was just going through the motions. He doesn't seem to connect with the new stuff the way he did in his prime in the 80's. Maybe they should have gotten some of those younger October editors onto the job (unless the farm team is too full of clones). And considering their attempt for a general audience, the glossary is hilarious. Even so, the entries through the 80's make this an important, although narrow, take on our dearly departed 20th century.

for more information click here

Some Troubling Facts...

I was thrilled to receive a copy of ART SINCE 1900 when it first arrived. While exceeding my expectations with regards to many heretofore undervalued art movements (e.g., Happenings, Fluxus, feminism, identity politics--those that the writers have actively repressed on their pages of OCTOBER in the past)--I was still deeply troubled to see that not one of these important art historians could write an original piece for the Harlem Renaissance chapter.

They opted, instead, to depend upon a Thames & Hudson assistant to carry out this task, and then (perhaps equally insidiously) relegate her name to a tiny line in the acknowledgements section---where she is vaguely thanked for her contribution by the publishers themselves, but not the authors.

A book about the importance of art's critique, its questioning of authority, its pivotal role in the cultural sphere and this is what we get at the end of the 20th century? Four authors who can't bring themselves to intelligently engage with a crucial moment in American art history? Since HF takes a psychoanalytic approach, tell us, what forms of repression are happening here?

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5

products you might be interested in