Retro: The Culture of Revival (Reaktion Books - Focus on Contemporary Issues) [Paperback]

Elizabeth Guffey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 186189290X | ISBN-13: 978-1861892904 | Publication Date: November 15, 2006

Bell-bottoms are in. Bell-bottoms are out. Bell-bottoms are back in again. Fads constantly cycle and recycle through popular culture, each time in a slightly new incarnation. The term “retro” has become the buzzword for describing such trends, but what does it mean? Elizabeth Guffey explores here the ambiguous cultural meanings of the term and reveals why some trends just never seem to stay dead. 

Drawing upon a wealth of original research and entertaining anecdotal material, Guffey unearths the roots of the term “retro” and chronicles its evolving manifestations in culture and art throughout the last century. Whether in art, design, fashion, or music, the idea of retro has often meant a reemergence of styles and sensibilities that evoke touchstones of memory from the not-so-distant past, ranging from the drug-induced surrealism of psychedelic art to the political expression of 1970s afros.

Guffey examines how and why the past keeps coming back to haunt us in a variety of forms, from the campy comeback of art nouveau nearly fifty years after its original decline, to the infusion of art deco into the kitschy glamor of pop art, to the recent popularity of 1980s vogue. She also considers how advertisers and the media have employed the power of such cultural nostalgia, using recycled television jingles, familiar old advertising slogans, and famous art to sell a surprising range of products.

An engrossing, unprecedented study, Retro reveals the surprising extent to which the past is embedded in the future.

(20060626)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"What happens when a stylistic revival is neither merely ironic nor flooded with sentimentality?  Elizabeth Guffey considers retro''s resistance to modernist progressive cheerleading and, in fact, its rewriting of modernism itself. Deftly drawing from popular culture, consumerist trends, and design history, Guffey has created a great read and a challenging history in her brave, dizzying, and entirely useful study."--Maud Lavin, professor of Visual and Critical Studies and Art History, Theory and Criticism, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and author of Clean New World: Culture, Politics, and Graphic Design

 

 

(Maud Lavin 20061020)

"[An] enjoyable exploration of retro chic. . . . Guffey offers an intriguing investigation of our seduction by the past."--The Independent



 



 

(Christopher Hirst The Independent 20070122)

"Provides an interesting take on the various rapidly recycling revivals of the late 20th century. . . . A thought-provoking read - it weaves in lots of fresh and stimulating material which adds to our understanding of the complexities of post war cultural life."--Building Design



 



 

(Catherin Croft Building Design )

 "In this informative and lively book, Elizabeth Guffey cuts through the ambiguities of the term retro and examines its roots, evolution and myriad manifestations. . . . Throughout, the book seeks to understand how and why the recent past has been transformed into a revolving door of pop historicism. . . . Based on considerable original research and including rich anecdotal material, the book is aimed at all readers interested in retro as well as twentieth-century art, design and consumer culture."--Concept for Living

 



 

(Concept for Living )

About the Author

Elizabeth Guffey is associate professor of art and design history at Purchase College, State University of New York and is also vice president of the Design Studies Forum. She is the author of Drawing an Elusive Line: The Art of Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, and writes regularly on the history and criticism of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art and design.

 

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Reaktion Books (November 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 186189290X
• ISBN-13: 978-1861892904
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #903,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Engaging Scholarship, January 6, 2007

By 

american art savant "mazie" (bloomington, in, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Retro: The Culture of Revival (Reaktion Books - Focus on Contemporary Issues) (Paperback)

Elizabeth Guffey begins <Retro: The Culture of Revival> with a useful tracing of the meanings of "retro" and the chronology of retro in popular culture. The introduction highlights Guffey's argument that retro recalls the recent past yet without nostalgia. Instead, retro ambivalently looks at the past and assigns its own contemporary meanings to past art and design. Retro, Guffey argues, counters the optimism imbued in Modernism, which posits the future to be progressively better than the present and certainly than the past. Retro brings Modernity's blind faith in progress back to reality with humor and irony. It is that impish reminder that the past is past, yet still present--however changed the associations might be--in the borrowings of current popular culture.

In the first of the four chapters, Guffey examines Art Nouveau. After establishing how Art Nouveau was initially conceived, and to whom it appealed, Guffey reveals how Art Nouveau's two sides--one wholesome, the other psychological and dark--later would appeal to both revivalists interested in pure recall as well as retro subversion. Guffey reveals why Art Nouveau would be in favor in the 1900s but out of style by the 1930s, until the retro movement of the 1950s that included Modernist design and anxiety of atomic devastation. Guffey traces how Art Nouveau's being read as "camp," designs and attitudes that seek to subvert power, helped establish its participation in the counter-culture of the mid-1960s.

Each chapter has five or six sub-themes, which outline Guffey's research and arguments. Retro: The Culture of Revival recounts retro movements and demonstrates why retro has recurring appeal to popular culture. Guffey's well-written and jargon-free text is a pleasure to read. Happily for academics whose interests are so often relegated to obscurity, Guffey demonstrates that academics can also triumph having hip and cool scholarship.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars That's so retro..., May 29, 2007

By 

Suzanne L. Kaebnick (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Retro: The Culture of Revival (Reaktion Books - Focus on Contemporary Issues) (Paperback)

"That's so Retro..." Having grown up with that phrase, it was an absolute delight to read Elizabeth E. Guffey's analysis of our society's uses of the concept, "retro" in her book, Retro: The Culture of Revival. Her writing is as fun to read as I remember the word was to use as teenager--- proud as I was of my ironic attitude on the world. And Guffey easily, effortlessly encompasses a broad swath of culture: film, kitchen technology, clothing, music, painting, architecture etc. in her cogent, succinct arguments. This was very illuminating for me, perhaps especially as I am not an art historian. One example early on of this wide-ranging discussion is in her introduction to one of her fundamental arguments:
"...retro considers the recent past with an unsentimental nostalgia. It is unconcerned with the sanctity of tradition or reinforcing social values; indeed, it often insinuates a form of subversion while side-stepping historical accuracy. In 1966 the bikini-clad, all-female staff of the Samson and Delilah barbers in London gave a winking nod to a nineteenth-century world of erotic fantasy when they offered haircuts in a salon decorated with Beardsley-inspired murals. Retro quotes styles from the past, but applies them in anomalous settings; it regards the past from a bemused distance, its dark humour re-mixing popular mid-century drinks and serving them up as `atomic cocktails'. ...it gently nudges us away from older ideas of `Modernity' and towards an uncharted future. The culture of revival has changed." (12)
Lots of pictures throughout, such as one for above mentioned barbershop of Samson and Delilah, of course help bring her arguments "home" and are part of the pleasure of her book.