The Avant Garde in Exhibition [Hardcover]

Bruce Altshuler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 1994

Through photographs of personalities, installations, and works of art--and in a lively text that recounts the artistic thinking as well as the gossip surrounding each movement--this volume presents a complete overview of 20th century avant-garde art. Focusing on breakthrough exhibitions, the book tells the story of each show and that of the movement that inspired it.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

The questionable premise of this data-packed book is that the avant-garde is dead, that the isolated artist spurned by a ridiculing public no longer exists, and that today challenging art is readily brought into mainstream venues. Altshuler, director of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in New York City, focuses on 19 exhibitions held between 1905 and 1969, when the avant-garde was still alive. He covers, among other movements, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, the Blaue Reiter, Dada, Action Painting, and Pop, ending with the ``When Attitudes Become Form'' show at the Bern, Switzerland, Kunsthalle, devoted to the work of conceptual artists like Joseph Kosuth, Joseph Beuys, and Richard Artschwager. Altshuler notes that by the late '60s the art- loving public had come not just to tolerate difficult art, but to ``crave'' it. The story of the 20th-century artistic avant-garde is hardly unfamiliar. For years, the permanent collection of New York City's Museum of Modern Art followed the same time line as Attshuler's; also Robert Hughes covered similar ground in The Shock of the New (1981). But Altshuler emphasizes the intense battles artists fought to bring their work into the public eye; many of the century's ground-breaking shows, like the ``First Exhibition of the Editors of the Blaue Reiter'' (Munich, 1911), were organized by the artists themselves and financed by the group's wealthier members. The author describes a group in Japan, the little-known Gutai Art Association, whose activities were funded by Jiro Yoshihara, head of a cooking-oil empire. But unlike today's corporate sponsors, Yoshihara kept company with his artists and felt deeply about their work. Altshuler provides a fascinating account of ``Gutai's Experimental Outdoor Modern Art Exhibition to Challenge the Burning Midsummer Sun'' (outside of Osaka, 1955), showing how that work anticipated process, performance, and conceptual art. While Altshuler does raise valid points, his argument neglects today's increasingly conservative climate for art funding; many avant-garde artists whose grants have recently been withdrawn or their applications denied might feel less than coddled and coopted. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"I've found that a lot of gaps and uncertainties in my awareness of the subject matter were easily and fluently filled in by this readable book." -- Thomas McEvilley, Artforum

"Treating each exhibition as a hub from which radiated myriad effects, the book also tracks the international impact of some twenty watershed shows through public and critical reaction. . . . For students of the twentieth century, it's an indispensable read." -- Alexandra Anderson-Spivy, Art Journal --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (August 20, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810936372
• ISBN-13: 978-0810936379
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #474,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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