Courtney J. Martin

Rebecca Peabody

Lucy Bradnock

Lawrence Alloway (1926–1990) was a key figure in the development of modern art in Europe and America from the 1950s to the 1980s. He is credited with coining the term pop art and with championing conceptual art and feminist artists in America. His interests as a critic and as a curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York were wide-ranging, however, and included architecture, design, earthworks, film, neorealism, science fiction, and public sculpture. Early in his career he was associated with the Independent Group in London and although he was largely self-taught, he was a noted educator and lecturer. A prolific writer, Alloway sought to escape the conventions of art-historical discourse. This volume illuminates how he often shaped the field and anticipated approaches such as social art history and visual and cultural studies. Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator provides the first critical analysis of the multiple facets of Alloway’s life and career, exploring his formative influence on the disciplines of art history, art criticism, and museum studies. The nine essays in this volume depend on primary archival research, much of it conducted in the Lawrence Alloway Papers held by the Getty Research Institute. Each author addresses a distinct aspect of Alloway’s eclectic professional interests and endeavors.

Critic and Curator

Lawrence Alloway

This groundbreaking account of postwar American art traces the profound influence of Antonin Artaud Proposing an original reassessment of art from the 1950s to the 1970s, No More Masterpieces reveals how artistic practice in postwar America was profoundly shaped by the work of the rebellious French poet and dramatist Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). A generation of artists mobilized Artaud's countercultural ideas to imagine new forms of representation and to redefine the relationship between artist and audience. The book shows how Artaud's radical writings inspired the experimental theatrical work of John Cage, Rachel Rosenthal, and Allan Kaprow; the attack on artistic and social conventions launched by assemblage artists Wallace Berman and Bruce Conner; and the feminist work of Carolee Schneemann and Nancy Spero. Lucy Bradnock traces the dissemination of Artaud's writings in America and demonstrates how his interest in political and cultural disorder, the dangers of authority, and the unreliability of representation found fertile ground in the context of the Cold War, disillusionment with the ideals of Abstract Expressionism, and the early years of identity politics.

Modern Art After Artaud

No More Masterpieces

Kelly Baum

Tina Rivers Ryan

Can postwar art be understood as an exercise in calculated insanity? Taking this provocative question as its basis, this book explores the art and history of delirium from 1950 to 1980, an era shaped by the brutality of World War II and the rapid expansion of industrial capitalism. Skepticism of science and technology—along with fear of its capability to promote mass destruction—developed into a distrust of rationalism, which profoundly influenced the art of the times. Delirious features work by more than sixty artists from Europe, Latin America, and the United States, including Dara Birnbaum, León Ferrari, Gego, Bruce Nauman, Howardena Pindell, Peter Saul, and Nancy Spero. Experimenting with irrational subject matter and techniques, these artists forged new strategies that directly responded to such unbalanced times. Disturbing and challenging, the works in this book—in multiple media and often, counterintuitively, incorporating highly ordered and systematic structures—upend traditional notions of aesthetic harmony. Three wide-ranging essays and a richly illustrated plates section investigate the degree to which delirious times demand delirious art, inviting readers to “think crazy." p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}

Art at the Limits of Reason 1950–1980

Delirious

Thomas W. Gaehtgens

The Getty Research Journal showcases the remarkable original research underway at the Getty. Articles explore the rich collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum and Research Institute, as well as the Research Institute's research projects and annual theme of its scholar program. Shorter texts highlight new acquisitions and discoveries in the collections, and focus on the diverse tools for scholarship being developed at the Research Institute. This issue includes essays by Scott Allan, Adriano Amendola, Valérie Bajou, Alessia Frassani, Alden R. Gordon, Natilee Harren, Sigrid Hofer, Christopher R. Lakey, Vimalin Rujivacharakul, and David Saunders; the short texts examine a Nuremberg festival book, translations of a seventeenth-century rhyming inventory, the print innovations of Maria Sibylla Merian, Karl Schneider's Sears designs, Clement Greenberg's copy of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, the Marcia Tucker papers, a mail art project by William Pope.L, the L.A. Art Girls' reinvention of Allan Kaprow's Fluids, and Jennifer Bornstein's investigations into the archives of women performance artists.

Lucy Bradnock

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