Art - General & Miscellaneous, Modern Art, Art of the 1980s and 1990s

Modern Art in the Common Culture : Essays

Name: Modern Art in the Common Culture : Essays
Author: Thomas Crow
ISBN: 9780300064384

by Thomas Crow

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Overview

Must avant-garde art hold itself apart from the values and beliefs widely held in the common culture? Must advanced artists always be the symbolic adversaries of the ordinary citizen? These questions have dominated, even paralyzed the modern art world, particularly in recent years when perceived elitism and imposed canons of taste have come under fire from all sides. In this stimulating book, a prominent art historian shows that the links between advanced art and modern mass culture have always been robust, indeed necessary to both. Thomas Crow focuses on the continual interdependence between the two phenomena, providing examples that range from Paris in the mid-nineteenth century to the latest revivals of Conceptual art in the 1990s.

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Editorials

Library Journal

In this collection of essays, British art historian Crow examines the relationship of avant-garde art to popular culture. Opening with an insightful examination of Manet's relationship to 19th-century Parisian mass culture, Crow segues into a scathingly apt portrayal of the alliance of certain members of the New York School with the commercial world of kitsch journalism. Exploring the relationship of pop art, conceptual art, and other modern movements to common culture, Crow questions the adversarial relationship that has arisen between art and the common citizen. He writes in a clear style and has a generally strong argument (though he is a bit strained in his discussion of Richard Serra's controversial "Tilted Arc" sculpture). Inquiring into what creates the distinction between "high" and "low" art in critical and popular conception, he envisions a symbiotic rather than a competitive relationship. Recommended for larger collections with an interest in modern and contemporary art.-Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Lib., Washington, D.C.