Customer Reviews

Art Of The Postmodern Era: From The Late 1960s To The Early 1990s

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am considering assigning this as a textbook in my contemporary art class. The text IS accessible, and does not follow the conventional art history textbook format. Refreshing is Sandler's emphasis on art-world and other contexts. One emerges, after reading the book, feeling like one understands how the art came about in the first place, rather than simply feeling groundlessly familiar with a few key figures and their major works.

The book came as it was advertised. It's in great condition, and it keeps together well. That's all I have to say about it.

Because I believe in upfront honesty, I will say that I am by no means an Art buff. I've taken humanities courses, art history and so forth, but soley as electives. My main interest in academia has nothing what so ever to do with art and my interest in it is only casual.

That having been said, let me say that after reading literally dozens of academic text books, reference materials, etc, including all those I used in my humanities and art history courses before, Sandlers "Art of the Postmodern Era..." wholly deserves the 1 star rating that I gave it. I say this not because the material doesn't interest me, but because Sandler makes it so terribly thick and impassable. Even if you've taken a small dose of art history before, the manner in which Sandler wrote this book will leave you're eyes bleeding.

Worst of all, Sandler follows an almost tragic formula throughout the book. Introduce the topic with relevant fact, mention an artist or work, go on obscure tangent about said artist or work, throw in a few black and white (a disservice to both reader and artist) print of the work, then move on to another artist or work. Never do you return to a concrete discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of the movements he discusses. There are passing references to how each particular work or artist is connected with the movement being discussed, but never do you get a clean cut, definitive exploration of the movement. In essence, the only way you can gain any understanding is by finding these sometimes obscure portions of the chapter and putting it together. One should not have to read upwards of 70 pages in order to gain a paragraph's worth of insight about postminimalism.

The entire book follows this dismall format. As a reference I would never recommend this book to anyone. The photographs are almost entirely devoid of color, not to mention a necessary amount of detail or perspective. The writing itself is dry, unimaginative and lacking in structure. I found myself falling asleep during every reading I've ever done out of this book, regardless of time of day or frame of mind. You simply cannot stay awake through any given chapter of this book, no matter how much coffee, caffine or sugar you keep on hand.

Do yourself a favor and stay away from this....I would have to be paid a healthy sum of money before I would ever read this book of my own free will. What readings are required of me as part of the course are utter and complete torture, even for a hardcore academic like myself.

I will not argue that Sandler is knowledgable as one can be about the subject, but a worldly art critic does not a good author make. Something to keep in mind.

Content is good but in my opinion, the book is overpriced for its size.