Synopses & Reviews
Named one of The Art Book's Best Books of the Decade (March 2003).
Some critics view the postwar avant-garde as the empty recycling of forms and strategies from the first two decades of the twentieth century. Others view it, more positively, as a new articulation of the specific conditions of cultural production in the postwar period. Benjamin Buchloh, one of the most insightful art critics and theoreticians of recent decades, argues for a dialectical approach to these positions.
This collection contains eighteen essays written by Buchloh over the last twenty years. Each looks at a single artist within the framework of specific theoretical and historical questions. The art movements covered include Nouveau Realisme in France (Arman, Yves Klein, Jacques de la Villegle) art in postwar Germany (Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter), American Fluxus and pop art (Robert Watts and Andy Warhol), minimalism and postminimal art (Michael Asher and Richard Serra), and European and American conceptual art (Daniel Buren, Dan Graham). Buchloh addresses some artists in terms of their oppositional approaches to language and painting, for example, Nancy Spero and Lawrence Weiner. About others, he asks more general questions concerning the development of models of institutional critique (Hans Haacke) and the theorization of the museum (Marcel Broodthaers); or he addresses the formation of historical memory in postconceptual art (James Coleman).
One of the book's strengths is its systematic, interconnected account of the key issues of American and European artistic practice during two decades of postwar art. Another is Buchloh's method, which integrates formalist and socio-historical approaches specific to each subject.
Review
"This is a terrific collection of essays...."
— Blake Stimson, CAA.reviews
Review
"This is a terrific collection of essays...."
— Blake Stimson, CAA.reviews
Synopsis
One of the book's strengths is its systematic, interconnected account of the key issues of American and European artistic practice during two decades of postwar art. Another is Buchloh's method, which integrates formalist and socio-historical approaches specific to each subject.
Synopsis
Eighteen essays written by Buchloh over the last twenty years, each looking at a single artist within the framework of specific theoretical and historical questions.
About the Author
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh is Professor of Art History at Barnard College/Columbia University.
Table of Contents
Michael Asher and the conclusion of modernist sculpture (1980) -- Beuys : the twilight of the idol, preliminary notes for a critique (1980) -- Marcel Broodthaers : open letters, industrial poems (1987) -- The museum and the monument : Daniel Buren's Les Couleurs / Les Formes (1981) -- Memory lessons and history tableaux : James Coleman's archaeology of spectacle (1995) -- Monuments of history in the work of Dan Graham (1978) -- Hans Haacke : memory and instrumental reason (1988) -- Hantaèi/Villeglâe and the dialectics of painting's dispersal (1999) -- Plenty or nothing : from Yves Klein's Le Vide to Arman's Le Plein (1998) -- Knight's moves : situating the art/object (1986) -- Structure, sign, and reference in the work of David Lamelas (1997) -- Parody and appropriation in Francis Picabia, Pop, and Sigmar Polke (1982) -- Readymade, photography, and painting in the painting of Gerhard Richter (1977) -- Process sculpture and film in Richard Serra's work (1978) -- Spero's other traditions (1996) -- Villeglâe : from fragment to detail (1991) -- Andy Warhol's one-dimensional art, 1956-1966 (1989) -- Robert Watts : animate objects, inanimate subjects (2000) -- The posters of Lawrence Weiner (1986).