After Modern Art, 1945-2000 (Oxford History of Art)

Modern and contemporary art can be both baffling and beautiful; it can also be innovative, political, and disturbing. This book sets out to provide the first concise interpretation of the period as a whole, clarifying the artists and their works along the way. Closely informed by new critical approaches, it concentrates on the relationship between American and European art from the end of the Second World War to the eve of the new millennium.

Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst are among many artists discussed, with careful attention being given to the political and cultural worlds they inhabited. Moving along a clear timeline, the author highlights key movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Postmodernism, and performance art to explain the theoretical and issue-based debates that have provided the engine for the art of this period.

Following a clear timeline, the author highlights key movements of modern art, giving careful attention to the artists' political and cultural worlds. Styles include Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Postmodernism, and performance art. 65 color illustrations. 65 halftones.

David Hopkins is Lecturer in Art History at the University of St. Andrews. He has published extensively on Dada and Surrealism and related topics in postwar art, with books includeing Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst: the Bride Shared (Oxford, 1989) and Marcel Duchamp (London, 1989), co-authored with Dawn Ades and Neil Cox.

Introduction

1. The Politics of Modernism: Abstract Expressionism and the European Informel

2. Duchamp's Legacy: The Rauschenberg--John Axis

3. The Artist in Crisis: From Bacon to Beuys

4.Blurring Boundaries: Pop Art, Fluxus, and their Effects

5. Modernism in Retreat: Minimalist Aesthetics and Beyond

6. The Death of the Object: The Move to Conceptualism

7. Postmodernism: Theory and Practice in the 1980s

8. Into the 1990s

Notes

Further Reading

Timeline

Galleries and Websites

Picture Credits

Index

Introduction; 1 The Politics of Modernism: Abstract Expressionism and the European Informel; 2 Duchamp's Legacy: The Rauschenberg-Johns Axis; 3 The Artist in Crisis: From Bacon to Beuys; 4 Blurring Boundaries: Pop Art, Fluxus and their Effects; 5 Modernism in Retreat: Minimalist Aesthetics and Beyond; 6 The Death of the Object: The Move to Conceptualism; 7 Postmodernism: Theory and Practice in the 1980s; 8 Into the 1990s; Notes; Bibliographic Essay; Timeline; Index.