Rereading Abstract Expressionism, Clement Greenberg and the Cold War - Hardcover

Neofetou, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1501358383 ISBN 13: 9781501358388

Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021

Synopsis

Since the 1970s, it has been argued that Abstract Expressionism was exhibited abroad by the post-war US establishment in an attempt to culturally match and reinforce its newfound economic and military dominance. The account of Abstract Expressionism developed by the American critic Clement Greenberg is often identified as central to these efforts. However, this book rereads Greenberg's account through Theodor Adorno and Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to contend that Greenberg's criticism in fact testifies to how Abstract Expressionism opposes the ends to which it was deployed.

With reference not only to the most famous artists of the movement, but also female artists and artists of colour whom Greenberg himself neglected, such as Joan Mitchell and Norman Lewis, it is argued that, far from reinforcing the capitalist status quo, Abstract Expressionism engages corporeal and affective elements of experience dismissed or delegitimated by capitalism, and promises a world that would do justice to them.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel Neofetou completed his PhD at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. He is the author of Good Day Today: David Lynch Destabilises the Spectator (2012) and regularly contributes to The Wire and Art Monthly. In 2018 he curated Divine Cargo, a group show of performance art at The South London Gallery.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501358383
• ISBN 13: 9781501358388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240