A Companion to Contemporary Art Since 1945 [Paperback]

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• Collects 27 original essays by expert scholars describing the current state of scholarship in art history and visual studies, and pointing to future directions in the field.
  
• Contains dual chronological and thematic coverage of the major themes in the art of our time: politics, culture wars, public space, diaspora, the artist, identity politics, the body, and visual culture.
  
• Offers synthetic analysis, as well as new approaches to, debates central to the visual arts since 1945 such as those addressing formalism, the avant-garde, the role of the artist, technology and art, and the society of the spectacle.

List of Figures ix

Notes on Contributors xiv

Series Editor’s Preface xviii

Acknowledgments xix

Part I: Introduction 1

1 Writing Contemporary Art into History, a Paradox? 3
Amelia Jones

Part II: Decades 17
1945–60

2 “America” and its Discontents: Art and Politics 1945–60 19
Gavin Butt
1960–70

3 The 1960s: A Decade Out-of-Bounds 38
Anna Dezeuze
1970–80

4 “I’m sort of sliding around in place . . . ummm . . .”: Art in the 1970s 60
Sam Gathercole<l6