Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s [Paperback]

Linda Weintraub (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 1997

In this highly accessible introduction to American art since the 1970's, Linda Weintraub offers a musem goers a readable exploration of some of the most important artists and movements of the past decades.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

For the past three decades, contemporary artists have been dissolving the boundaries of established art by creating works that neither hang on walls nor adorn pedestals. The artists sometimes struggle against concepts of aesthetic value, permanence, and visual sense. Curator and educator Weintraub has researched and/or interviewed 35 prominent radical artists and here explores the common themes, creative processes, diverse media, and purposes in their works. Devoting one essay to each artist, she provides superb preparation to museum and gallery goers who may be confronting these exasperating works for the first time. The clear, highly sensitive essays discuss Andres Serrano's photo of a crucifix submerged in urine; the half ton of dirty clothes Christian Boltanski piled on a museum floor worn by children of the Holocaust; Janine Antoni's mammoth blocks of chocolate and lard, reflecting compulsions; Chuck Close's computer art; and David Hammon's construction forged from urban refuse. Recommended for collections with an interest in contemporary works.?Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

"Linda Weintraub is the author of the popular, accessible Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Artis Meaning in Contemporary Society (1995). She was named the Henry R. Luce Professor of Emerging Arts at Oberlin College in 2000, a multi-year post designed to facilitate the introduction of innovative, interdisciplinary, pedagogical schemes in a curriculum dedicated to fostering the creative process. Weintraub is also a contributor to the international art journal Tema Celeste. The exhibition Is it Art? was mounted in conjunction with Art on the Edge and Over and toured nationally from 1995 to 1997.~From 1982 to 1993, Weintraub served as the first director of the newly opened Edith C. Blum Art Institute located on the Bard College campus. She established a program that originated exhibitions on a broad range of subjects, including ancient Greek and Roman art, explorations of local art traditions, controversial contemporary art, neglected aspects of art history, and reconsiderations of masterworks. During her tenure, Weintraub originated fifty exhibitions and toured fourteen. She also published over twenty related catalogues, including Process and Product: The Making of Eight Contemporary Masterworks, Landmarks: New Site Proposals by Twenty Pioneers of Environmental Art, Art What Thou Eat: Images of Food in American Art, and The Maximal Implications of the Minimal Line. ~Since leaving Bard College, Weintraub has curated The Art of Body Crafting and, with Marketta Sepalla, Animal Anima Animus. Prior to her appointment at Bard, Weintraub was director of the newly constructed art center at Muhlenberg College. She has taught both contemporary art history and studio art and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University."

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Art Insights, Inc. (January 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965198812
• ISBN-13: 978-0965198813
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #325,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An OK overview, but superficial, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s (Paperback)

I guess this book is meant as a real "intro" text, but if you do know something about this art, it seems pretty lite. Clearly, lots of people like it, but Weintraub seems to bend so far over to make complex work accessible that she really over-simplifines. And the "art" in the book is so scattered and uneven, you don't get any deeper sense of what is going on, what the historical context of any of this might be.

Granted, there aren't many intro texts on recent art. So if this is one of the "better" ones, it's mostly for lack of competition. I wish there was some accessible middle ground between pop/gossip texts and academic tomes. This feels like it's written from someone really distant to the work, who's not always that well-informed.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost a bull's-eye, November 29, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Santa Cruz, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s (Paperback)

Anyone who wants to become familiar with intricacies of what can be the confusing world of post-modern art should read this book. The author does an excellent job of presenting an interesting cross-section of significant and fascinating collection of atypical artists. Pretty much every artist who is included has done their share of expanding the contemporary definition of Art in the Western and Non-western tradition. Over all, this compendium of essays does much to open the door to widen the reader's perspective on what art can do. The one aspect of this book that is troublesome is that the author often seems to focus on only one or two aspects of an artist's works, a habit that is frustrating at best and misleading at worst. While doing outside research on one of the artists included, Mel Chin, I was convinced there were two artists with the same name, as the perspective provided in the book did not prepare me for the artist's full range of activities. Still, this complaint should not stop an interested party from purchasing the book. I for one did not feel my money ill-spent.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Dissapointing, December 25, 2009

By 

D. Olsen (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s (Paperback)

A poor text. The author takes an uncritical and overly romantic stance on the various artist's work. While the artists included represent some of the very best examples of avante-garde practices spanning three decades, including several to whom I had would not have otherwise been exposed, the write ups read like publicity for their shows rather than critical analysis of the work. Most disappointing was the structure. Each artist is pigeon-holed into the demographic category they fall within, e.g. Felix Gonzales-Torres: A Latin, Homosexual Man. While I respect the effort to include a diverse range of artists, the demographics appear to be placed above the significance of their body of work. A difficult issue to address, and this book does so poorly.