Discourses: Conversations about Postmodern Culture (Documentary Sources in Contemporary Art)

Photographic Sketchbook by John Baldessari

This anthology of interviews and discussions documents the polemical positions and strategies of contemporary critical thought in the making.

Engaging nearly 100 artists, theorists, and critics from a variety of fields, these conversations focus on the most contested areas within contemporary critical debate: the relationship between theory and artistic production, the role of art in the community, the meaning of postmodernism, the effects of representation on racial and sexual stereotypes, the relationship between high art and popular culture, and the responsibilities of art institutions.

Reflecting the breadth of the postmodern debate, Discourses includes the voices of filmmakers, artists who work outside traditional art contexts, social activists, novelists, drag performers, architects, and musicians. Participants in the discussions include Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Greil Marcus, Vito Russo, Edmund White, M. C. Lyte, Roland Barthes, Kate Millett, Malcolm McLaren, Richard Hell, Philip Johnson, and Laurie Anderson.

Russell Ferguson is Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs and Chief Curator at the University of California, Los Angeles, Hammer Museum.