Synopsis
These highly polemical discourses document the critical ideas and strategies that characterize the culture of the 1980s and record the dialectical means through which these ideas and strategies were formulated.
Engaging more than 80 artists, theorists, and critics from a variety of fields, the conversations touch on numerous topics of current contention: 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.
Among the discussants are Michel Foucault, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said, Tim Rollins, Greil Marcus, Ethyl Eichelberger, Douglas Crimp, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Gayatri Spivak and Laurie Anderson.
This is the third volume in the New Museum of Contemporary Art series Documentary Sources in Contemporary Art which includes Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation and Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Writings by Contemporary Artists. Other publications by The New Museum include Haws Haacke: Unfinished Business, and Impresario: Malcolm McLaren and the British New Wave.
Discourses is copublished with The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and distributed by The MIT Press.
(Previously announced as Discourses: Conversations about Postmodern Culture, edited by Brian Wallis.)
Reviews
As the series title makes clear, the subject here is not only high art but also its place in contemporary society. The personalities we encounter include icons (Malcolm MacClaren), underground performers (Ethyl Eichenberger), practicing professionals (Phillip Johnson), and theoreti cians (Michel Foucalt). The format, which blends their conversations, inter views, and seminar transcripts, allows them to be spontaneous and interactive, providing accessible texts for the lay reader, as well as valuable "raw data" for researchers. The resulting 26 "dis courses" are divided into five categories (roughly theory, identity, community, popular culture, and authority) and in dexed with over 500 name entries; infor mation on many disparate contemporary sociology subjects can also be found. The photo-sketchbook by John Baldesari is a bonus. Although some marketing will be necessary to entice public library patrons to read this book, the effort will bring you their thanks. Recommended for all art and large pop culture collections.
- Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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