Synopses & Reviews
We commonly think of the psychedelic sixties as an explosion of creative energy and freedom that arose in direct revolt against the social restraint and authoritarian hierarchy of the early Cold War years. Yet, as Fred Turner reveals in
The Democratic Surround, the decades that brought us the Korean War and communist witch hunts also witnessed an extraordinary turn toward explicitly democratic, open, and inclusive ideas of communication and with them new, flexible models of social order. Surprisingly, he shows that it was this turn that brought us the revolutionary multimedia and wild-eyed individualism of the 1960s counterculture.
In this prequel to his celebrated book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Turner rewrites the history of postwar America, showing how in the 1940s and andrsquo;50s American liberalism offered a far more radical social vision than we now remember. Turner tracks the influential mid-century entwining of Bauhaus aesthetics with American social science and psychology. From the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the New Bauhaus in Chicago and Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Turner shows how some of the most well-known artists and intellectuals of the forties developed new models of media, new theories of interpersonal and international collaboration, and new visions of an open, tolerant, and democratic self in direct contrast to the repression and conformity associated with the fascist and communist movements. He then shows how their work shaped some of the most significant media events of the Cold War, including Edward Steichenandrsquo;s Family of Man exhibition, the multimedia performances of John Cage, and, ultimately, the psychedelic Be-Ins of the sixties. Turner demonstrates that by the end of the 1950s this vision of the democratic self and the media built to promote it would actually become part of the mainstream, even shaping American propaganda efforts in Europe.
Overturning common misconceptions of these transformational years, The Democratic Surround shows just how much the artistic and social radicalism of the sixties owed to the liberal ideals of Cold War America, a democratic vision that still underlies our hopes for digital media today.
Review
"Pivoting on Tony Conrad's seminal role as artist and theorist, this groundbreaking book reexamines the post-Cagean milieu of early sixties New York where visual art, music, film, and performance increasingly overlapped and hybridized. Richly detailed, scrupulously researched, Joseph's brilliant analysis deploys a Foucauldian model to reformulate crucial questions of artistic authorship, tease out the political and social implications of Conrad's prescient production and interactions with his peers, and reconfigure a broad swathe of American vanguard culture so that the imbrication of these artists' practices in structures of power stands newly revealed."-- Lynne Cooke, curator, Dia Art Foundation Zone Books
Review
"A superb book." Daniel Birnbaum Artforum Zone Books
Review
"[A] meticulous and imaginative study.... a vital argument for recasting in unlikely, counterintuitive or even absurd ways the cultural histories we think we know best.... a compelling and exemplary history." Art Review Zone Books
Review
"Branden Joseph has emerged as one of our most accomplished and significant cultural historians. Ranging across film, music, and art, his new book focuses on the myriad accomplishments of Tony Conrad. The combination of its detailed scholarship across a very wide cultural field, the incisiveness of its analyses, and its ease in moving dialectically from the most precise formal details of works of art to their general social and political implications is remarkable. Overall his demonstration of the interrelatedness of different cultural spheres presents a radical challenge to the hermeticism of orthodox art history and to the simple-minded high/low binaries of affirmative cultural studies. It's hard to imagine, let alone find, a work in sixties' cultural historiography of comparably broad insight and originality." David E. James , author of The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles Zone Books
Review
"Branden W. Joseph has emerged as one of our most accomplished and significant cultural historians. Ranging across film, music, and art, his new book focuses on the myriad accomplishments of Tony Conrad. It's hard to imagine, let alone find, a work in 1960s cultural historiography of comparably broad insight and originality." David E. James , author of The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles Zone Books
Review
"Branden W. Joseph's new book Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage is a necessary and timely one. In sum, Joseph has succeeded in substantially altering our notion of the so-called expanded field of art and film. With its meticulous research and precise mode of argumentation, Beyond the Dream Syndicate sets an important standard for future scholars..." Texte zur Kunst Zone Books
Review
"Branden W. Joseph"s new book, Beyond the Dream Syndicate, is a major contribution to our thinking about this period.... an immensely engaging -- and important -- book." Modern Painters Zone Books
Review
" Beyond the Dream Syndicate is Branden W. Joseph"s admirable step outside the art historian"s typically crisp disciplinary boundaries. Joseph"s gambit is to use the brilliant, improbable Tony Conrad as his guide through one generation"s challenge to make art after John Cage. In the course of this expedition, we encounter rigorous meditations on minimalist music and visual art, Henry Flynt"s Concept Art, daily life with Jack Smith, the hilarious head-on collisions that resulted in the Primitives and the Velvet Underground, and the stroboscopic consequences of Conrad"s 1966 film The Flicker. This is a highly original, rewarding book, and one that will catch people by surprise. I imagine that this is a book for which many people have unconsciously been waiting." David Grubbs , Drag City recording artist Zone Books
Review
"In the avant-garde, Conrad knows no peers. He is so fundamentalist that his only rival in the whole of the Universal music scene could be Sky Saxon of the Seeds." Julian Cope , Krautrocksampler Zone Books
Review
"Joseph writes powerfully... and with a brio most academic writers can only dream about.... a major book" The Wire Zone Books
Review
"This is a highly original, rewarding book, and one that will catch people by surprise. I imagine that this is a book for which many people have unconsciously been waiting." David Grubbs , Drag City recording artist Zone Books
Review
"Pivoting on Tony Conrad's seminal role as artist and theorist, this groundbreaking book reexamines the post-Cagean milieu of early sixties New York where visual art, music, film, and performance increasingly overlapped and hybridized. Richly detailed, scrupulously researched, Joseph's brilliant analysis deploys a Foucauldian model to reformulate crucial questions of artistic authorship, tease out the political and social implications of Conrad's prescient production and interactions with his peers, and reconfigure a broad swathe of American vanguard culture so that the imbrication of these artists' practices in structures of power stands newly revealed."-- Lynne Cooke, curator, Dia Art Foundation Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;andquot;Pivoting on Tony Conrad's seminal role as artist and theorist, this groundbreaking book reexamines the post-Cagean milieu of early sixties New York where visual art, music, film, and performance increasingly overlapped and hybridized. Richly detailed, scrupulously researched, Joseph's brilliant analysis deploys a Foucauldian model to reformulate crucial questions of artistic authorship, tease out the political and social implications of Conrad's prescient production and interactions with his peers, and reconfigure a broad swathe of American vanguard culture so that the imbrication of these artists' practices in structures of power stands newly revealed.andquot;-- Lynne Cooke, curator, Dia Art Foundationandlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"A superb book." Daniel Birnbaum Artforumandlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books Zone Books Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"[A] meticulous and imaginative study.... a vital argument for recasting in unlikely, counterintuitive or even absurd ways the cultural histories we think we know best.... a compelling and exemplary history." andlt;Iandgt;Art Reviewandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Branden Joseph has emerged as one of our most accomplished and significant cultural historians. Ranging across film, music, and art, his new book focuses on the myriad accomplishments of Tony Conrad. The combination of its detailed scholarship across a very wide cultural field, the incisiveness of its analyses, and its ease in moving dialectically from the most precise formal details of works of art to their general social and political implications is remarkable. Overall his demonstration of the interrelatedness of different cultural spheres presents a radical challenge to the hermeticism of orthodox art history and to the simple-minded high/low binaries of affirmative cultural studies. It's hard to imagine, let alone find, a work in sixties' cultural historiography of comparably broad insight and originality." andlt;Bandgt;David E. James andlt;/Bandgt;, author of andlt;Iandgt;The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angelesandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Branden W. Joseph has emerged as one of our most accomplished and significant cultural historians. Ranging across film, music, and art, his new book focuses on the myriad accomplishments of Tony Conrad. It's hard to imagine, let alone find, a work in 1960s cultural historiography of comparably broad insight and originality." andlt;Bandgt;David E. James andlt;/Bandgt;, author of andlt;Iandgt;The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angelesandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Branden W. Joseph's new book Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage is a necessary and timely one. In sum, Joseph has succeeded in substantially altering our notion of the so-called expanded field of art and film. With its meticulous research and precise mode of argumentation, Beyond the Dream Syndicate sets an important standard for future scholars..." Texte zur Kunstandlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Branden W. Joseph"s new book, andlt;Iandgt;Beyond the Dream Syndicateandlt;/Iandgt;, is a major contribution to our thinking about this period.... an immensely engaging -- and important -- book." andlt;Iandgt;Modern Paintersandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;" andlt;Iandgt;Beyond the Dream Syndicateandlt;/Iandgt; is Branden W. Joseph"s admirable step outside the art historian"s typically crisp disciplinary boundaries. Joseph"s gambit is to use the brilliant, improbable Tony Conrad as his guide through one generation"s challenge to make art after John Cage. In the course of this expedition, we encounter rigorous meditations on minimalist music and visual art, Henry Flynt"s Concept Art, daily life with Jack Smith, the hilarious head-on collisions that resulted in the Primitives and the Velvet Underground, and the stroboscopic consequences of Conrad"s 1966 film andlt;Iandgt;The Flicker.andlt;/Iandgt; This is a highly original, rewarding book, and one that will catch people by surprise. I imagine that this is a book for which many people have unconsciously been waiting." andlt;Bandgt;David Grubbs andlt;/Bandgt;, Drag City recording artistandlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"In the avant-garde, Conrad knows no peers. He is so fundamentalist that his only rival in the whole of the Universal music scene could be Sky Saxon of the Seeds." andlt;Bandgt;Julian Cope andlt;/Bandgt;, Krautrocksamplerandlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Joseph writes powerfully... and with a brio most academic writers can only dream about.... a major book" andlt;Iandgt;The Wireandlt;/Iandgt;andlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"Richly detailed, scrupulously researched, Joseph's brilliant analysis deploys a Foucauldian model to reformulate crucial questions of artistic authorship, tease out the political and social implications of Conrad's prescient production and interactions with his peers, and reconfigure a broad swathe of American vanguard culture so that the imbrication of these artists' practices in structures of power stands newly revealed." andlt;Bandgt;Lynne Cooke andlt;/Bandgt;, curator, Dia Art Foundationandlt;/Pandgt; Zone Books
Review
andlt;Pandgt;"This is a highly original, rewarding book, and one that will catch people by surprise. I imagine that this is a book for which many people have unconsciously been waiting." andlt;Bandgt;David Grubbs andlt;/Bandgt;, Drag City recording artistandlt;/Pandgt;
Review
"Joseph moves across and between disciplinary genres of scholarship, and thereby challenges the reader's capacity to think outside familiar categories. This study sits at the fringes of several academic disciplines and, to its credit, fits squarely within none."--Stephen Petersen, Leonardo Reviews Zone Books
Review
and#8220;Turnerand#8217;s book offers an important look at how our technologies might, or might not, resonate with the democratic politics many of us hope to better exercise.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The Democratic Surroundand#160;is a dazzling cultural history that demonstrates how American intellectuals, artists, and designers from the 1930s to the 1960s imagined new kinds of collective eventsand#8212;different from fascismand#8217;s crowdsand#8212;that were intended to promote a powerful experience of American democracy in action. Drawing parallels across a wide set of venuesand#8212;from MoMAand#8217;s Road to Victory and Family of Man shows of the mid-century period to the 1959 National Exhibition in Moscow to the Happenings of the sixties counterculture, Turner challenges us to think about the lines between information, entertainment, art, and propaganda. Along the way he shows how important the media have become to the design of collective experiences and forms of democratic citizenship. A brilliant argument from a gifted writer, this book not only informs but also surprises!and#8221;
Review
and#8220;This is the true story of how a small group of artists and anthropologists set out to create an alternative to fascism during World War IIand#8212;and ended up setting the stage for the consumer-driven, media-saturated world we inhabit today. A gripping, well-balanced, and surprising history.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The photographic wartime propaganda of Road to Victory or the post-war humanism of The Family of Man usually don't come to mind when accounting for Happenings, Be-Ins, expanded cinema, or Andy Warholand#8217;s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, but they are tightly woven in the social fabric of Fred Turnerand#8217;s The Democratic Surround. In what will surely be a controversial revision, Turner maps the attempts of social scientists, industrial designers, European expats, and others to mold democratic personalities as a bulwark against authoritarianism, forming a civil foundation upon which arose spatial media experiments of the arts and counterculture of the 1960s. From an Americana more associated with Aaron Copland comes the radical surround sound of John Cage; from image management of psyches, psychedelic media environments.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The history of ideas is intellectual archeology, and Stanford professor Turner is a man with a well-whetted pickaxe and an arsenal of delicate brushes.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The creators of 1960s happenings claimed that they were using sights and music to undermine the fascist American state. However, as Turner demonstrates here, the legacy of happenings dates back to WWII, and they enjoyed significant governmental support. Looking at American concerns with the abuse of media by fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler, the author makes a convincing argument that leftist artists and social scientist developed a theory of multimedia installations what would use mass communication techniques to further the cause of democracy rather than undermine it. . . . This book represents a significant contribution to literature on mass media and its uses in the 20th century. Highly recommended.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;What makes the book so fascinating as both an intellectual and cultural history is Turnerand#8217;s ability to juggle multiple disciplines and schools of thought, all the while showing how a diverse lot of thinkers were grappling with the same questions about democracy, personality, and technology.and#160; . . . [An] excellent and thought-provoking book.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;The Democratic Surround is the book Alexis de Tocqueville would have written if, instead of spending his time with the respectable menfolk of New England in the 1830s, he had been lucky enough to hang out with the psychedelic pioneers of the California of the 1960s. Once he got over the initial shock (and it should not have taken him long: Tocqueville had seen his share of radical enthusiasts), he would have realized that in a prosperous and populous America at the peak of its Cold War glory, the experience of participation in a democratic polity was increasingly dependent on the immersion of its citizens in alland#8212;enveloping media environments, tightly composed communicative architectures where they could receive a vivid impression of life in a diverse and egalitarian society. . . .The achievement of Turnerand#8217;s book is to reveal the technical and aesthetic mediationsand#8212;a heady combination of social-scientific ideas, multi-media formats, and new styles of artistic installation and performanceand#8212;that enabled this phenomenological recalibration of the American democratic experience.and#8221;
Synopsis
Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, "concept art," postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the "structural" film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories. Yet Beyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognized figure. Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art. Such an approach simultaneously illuminates and estranges current understandings of the period, redrawing the map across medium and stylistic boundaries to reveal a constitutive hybridization at the base of the decade's artistic development. This exploration of Conrad and his milieu goes beyond the presentation of a relatively overlooked oeuvre to chart multiple, contestatory regimes of power simultaneously in play during the pivotal moment of the 1960s. From the sovereign authority invoked by Young's music, to the "paranoiac" politics of Flynt, to the immanent control modeled by Conrad's films, each avant-garde project examined reveals an investment within a particular structure of power and resistance, providing a glimpse into the diversity of the artistic and political stakes that continue to define our time.Branden W. Joseph is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and an editor of the journal Grey Room (MIT Press). He is the author of Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde (MIT Press, 2003.)
Synopsis
Examining Tony Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art.
Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, "concept art," postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the "structural" film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories. Yet Beyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognized figure. Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art. Such an approach simultaneously illuminates and estranges current understandings of the period, redrawing the map across medium and stylistic boundaries to reveal a constitutive hybridization at the base of the decade's artistic development. This exploration of Conrad and his milieu goes beyond the presentation of a relatively overlooked oeuvre to chart multiple, contestatory regimes of power simultaneously in play during the pivotal moment of the 1960s. From the sovereign authority invoked by Young's music, to the "paranoiac" politics of Flynt, to the immanent control modeled by Conrad's films, each avant-garde project examined reveals an investment within a particular structure of power and resistance, providing a glimpse into the diversity of the artistic and political stakes that continue to define our time.
Branden W. Joseph is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and an editor of the journal Grey Room (MIT Press). He is the author of Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde (MIT Press, 2003.)
Synopsis
Tony Conrad is exemplary of the 1960s artist who remains inassimilable to canonic histories. Creator of the "structural" film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has significantly impacted cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, "concept art," postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Yet Beyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognized figure.
Rather, by drawing on Deleuzian notions of the "minor" and the Foucauldian problematization of authorship found in Conrad's own artistic/musical project, Early Minimalism, it disperses him into an "author function." Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections amongst the arts of the time.
Synopsis
Examining Tony Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art.
Synopsis
andlt;Pandgt;Examining Tony Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art.andlt;/Pandgt;
Synopsis
andlt;Pandgt;Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments from minimalism to underground film, andquot;concept art,andquot; postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the andquot;structuralandquot; film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Music and the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories. Yet Beyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognized figure. Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad's collaborative interactions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks and discursive interconnections in 1960s art. Such an approach simultaneously illuminates and estranges current understandings of the period, redrawing the map across medium and stylistic boundaries to reveal a constitutive hybridization at the base of the decade's artistic development. This exploration of Conrad and his milieu goes beyond the presentation of a relatively overlooked oeuvre to chart multiple, contestatory regimes of power simultaneously in play during the pivotal moment of the 1960s. From the sovereign authority invoked by Young's music, to the andquot;paranoiacandquot; politics of Flynt, to the immanent control modeled by Conrad's films, each avant-garde project examined reveals an investment within a particular structure of power and resistance, providing a glimpse into the diversity of the artistic and political stakes that continue to define our time.Branden W. Joseph is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and an editor of the journal Grey Room (MIT Press). He is the author of Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-Garde (MIT Press, 2003.)andlt;/Pandgt;
About the Author
Fred Turner is associate professor of communication at Stanford University. He previously taught at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to his academic career, he was a journalist for over ten years, writing for the Boston Phoenix, Boston Sunday Globe, and other publications.and#160;
Table of Contents
Introduction
and#160;
PART ONE
World War II and the Making of the Democratic Surround
and#160;
1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Where Did All the Fascists Come From?
and#160;
2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; World War II and the Question of National Characterand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;
3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The New Language of Vision
and#160;
4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The New Landscape of Sound
and#160;
and#160;
PART TWO
The Democratic Surround in the Cold War
and#160;
5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Cold War and the Democratic Personality
and#160;
6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Museum of Modern Art Makes the World a Familyand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;
7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Therapeutic Nationalism
and#160;
8and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Coming of the Counterculture
and#160;
and#160;
Acknowledgments
and#160;
Notes
and#160;
Bibliography
and#160;
Index