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Painters on Painting: a Candid History of the New York Art Scene, 1940-1970 by 
The American Counterculture by
The American counterculture played a major role during a pivotal moment in American history. Post-War prosperity combined with the social and political repression characteristic of middle-class life to produce both widespread civil disobedience and artistic creativity in the Baby Boomer generation.This introduction explores the relationship between the counterculture and American popular culture. It looks at the ways in which Hollywood and corporate record labels commodified and adapted countercultural texts, and the extent to which countercultural artists and their texts were appropriated. It offers an interdisciplinary account of the economic and social reasons for the emergence of the counterculture, and an appraisal of the key literary, musical, political and visual texts which were seen to challenge dominant ideologies.Key Features:*examines the ways in which texts were seen to be countercultural*assesses the extent to which they represented real opposition to cultural orthodoxies*scrutinises the notion of the counterculture*examines the limits to and achievements of the counterculture*places key countercultural figures and texts in context of the shifting wider social and political climate of the United States*uses case studies to illuminate the text.
Countercultures and Popular Music by
'Counterculture' emerged as a term in the late 1960s and has been re-deployed in more recent decades in relation to other forms of cultural and socio-political phenomena. This volume provides an essential new academic scrutiny of the concept of 'counterculture' and a critical examination of the period and its heritage.
The Drawings of Roy Lichtenstein by 
Finding McLuhan: the Mind, the Man, the Message by 
In Search of the Lost Chord by
"Danny Goldberg is a relentless tracker of people. However elusive this Lost Chord may be, Danny G. searches it out and nails it to the tree flesh. Eternity now! 1967 forever!" --Wavy Gravy "Danny Goldberg’s deeply personal and political history of 1967 and the hippie idea weaves together rollicking, rousing, wonderfully colorful and disparate narratives to remind us how the energies and aspirations of the counterculture were intertwined with protest and reform. There is a direct line from many of the events, movements, and people of 1967 to our times. Goldberg draws the line for us with mesmerizing storytelling, characters, and conversations." --Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation "Danny Goldberg has written a lively, well-researched, kaleidoscopic account--at once openhearted and levelheaded--of a spiritual, pharmacological, political, and musical supernova whose reverberations are still strongly felt a half-century later." --Hendrik Hertzberg "Danny Goldberg is probably one of the purest, most reasonable guides you could ask for to 1967." --Andrew Loog Oldham, author of Rolling Stoned "Hippie 101--a kaleidoscopic snapshot of the Big Bang fifty years ago, three parts social and musical history, one part personal memoir, a sweeping overview that also manages to be up close and personal. Bravo." --Joel Selvin, author of Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day "Danny Goldberg has done something I would not have thought possible: with diligent research, sharp prose, a clear mind, and an open heart, he has rescued a period of history from the clich#65533;s that had previously defined it. I began this book thinking hippies ridiculous. I ended it with a far more complex view, and one that showed me how little I had known or understood--a truly impressive achievement." --Eric Alterman, author of The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama Danny Goldberg’s new book is a subjective history of 1967, the year he graduated from high school. It is, he writes in the introduction, "an attempt at trying to remember the culture that mesmerized me, to visit the places and conversations I was not cool enough to have been a part of.” It is also a refreshing and new analysis of the era; by looking at not only the political causes, but also the spiritual, musical, and psychedelic movements, Goldberg provides a unique perspective on how and why the legacy of 1967 lives on today. 1967 was the year of the release of the Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and of debut albums from the Doors, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, among many others. In addition to the thriving music scene, 1967 was also the year of the Summer of Love; the year that millions of now-illegal LSD tabs flooded America; Muhammad Ali was convicted of avoiding the draft; Martin Luther King Jr. publicly opposed the war in Vietnam; Stokely Carmichael championed Black Power; Israel won the Six-Day War, and Che Guevara was murdered. It was the year that hundreds of thousands of protesters vainly attempted to levitate the Pentagon. It was the year the word "hippie” peaked and died, and the Yippies were born. Exhaustively researched and informed by interviews with Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Tom Hayden, Cora Weiss, and Gil Scott-Heron (one of many of Goldberg’s high school classmates who entered the culture), In Search of the Lost Chord is a mosaic of seminal moments in the psychedelic, spiritual, rock-and-roll, and political protest cultures of 1967.
Lichtenstein Posters by
Roy Lichtenstein's art is most recognisable for its trademark Benday dots and two-dimensional planes, cartoon-like qualities that placed him at the forefront of the American Pop Art scene. With its heavy emphasis on America's consumer culture, Lichtenstein's style lends itself easily to the poster genre. This volume opens with his earliest poster, designed for his first exhibition at the Leo Castelli gallery in 1962, and closes with his last, which he completed in the year of his death. An additional section features reproductions from the Claus von Olden collection and includes posters and flyers that were produced all over the world using Lichtenstein's iconic motifs. The works reflect Lichtenstein's prolific imagination and ability to adapt his vision to the promotion of music and film festivals, theatrical performances, museums, restaurants, public service messages, as well as his own exhibitions. An essay by Jurgen Doring, curator of the exhibit for which this volume was created, expounds upon Lichtenstein's development as an artist who blurred the boundaries between low- and highbrow art. The book also includes an illustrated biography of the artist.
On the Ground by
Neither meant to be an official nor a comprehensive history, this focuses on the anecdotal stories that bring the history of the underground press movement of the 1960s alive. In four short years, the underground press grew from five small newspapers in the USA to over 500 newspapers - attracting millions of readers from all over the globe. The book features stories by the individuals involved with the production and distribution of the newspapers and features 50 full-colour scans taken from a broad range of eclectic publications.
Remediating McLuhan by
While current scholarly interest has assured Marshall McLuhan's (1911-80) foundational status as a media theorist, much room still exists for further exploration of his writings, which have taken on additional layers of significance in our contemporary digital moment. Holding that media were extensions of the human, McLuhan also posited that the human was a product of technology. Ranging across fields as diverse as art history, biotechnology, and beyond, this collection of essays considers McLuhan's groundbreaking approach within a number of new contexts and explores the distinguishing features of his media theory.
Robert Rauschenberg by
Critical essays on the artist Robert Rauschenberg, focusing on the important period of his development in the 1950s and 1960s. From the moment art historian Leo Steinberg championed his work in opposition to Clement Greenberg's rigid formalism, Robert Rauschenberg has played a pivotal role in the development and understanding of postmodern art. Challenging nearly all the prevailing assumptions about the visual arts of his time, he pioneered the postwar revival of collage, photography, silkscreen, technology, and performance.This book focuses on Rauschenberg's work during the critical period of the 1950s and 1960s. It opens with a newly prefaced version of Leo Steinberg's "Reflections on the State of Criticism," the first published version of his famous 1972 essay, "Other Criteria," which remains the single most important text on Rauschenberg. Rosalind Krauss's "Rauschenberg and the Materialized Image" builds on Steinberg's essay, arguing that Rauschenberg's work represents a decisive shift in contemporary art. Douglas Crimp's "On the Museum's Ruins" examines Rauschenberg's silkscreens in the context of the modern museum. Helen Molesworth's "Before Bed" uses psychoanalytic and economic structures to examine the artist's Black Paintings of the early 1950s. A second essay by Krauss, "Perpetual Inventory," revisits both her and Steinberg's articles of nearly twenty-five years earlier. Finally, Branden Joseph's "A Duplication Containing Duplications" views Rauschenberg's silkscreens in relation to the artist's interests in technology, particularly television. contemporary art. Douglas Crimp's "On the Museum's Ruins" examines Rauschenberg's silkscreens in the context of the modern museum. Helen Molesworth's "Before Bed" uses psychoanalytic and economic structures to examine the artist's Black Paintings of the early 1950s. A second essay by Krauss, "Perpetual Inventory," revisits both her and Steinberg's articles of nearly twenty-five years earlier. Finally, Branden Joseph's "A Duplication Containing Duplications" views Rauschenberg's silkscreens in relation to the artist's interests in technology, particularly television.
Roy Lichtenstein by
This work aims to be the definitive monograph on Roy Lichtenstein, a founder of American Pop Art. It covers every phase of his career including: still lifes; landscapes; the Brushstroke, Modern, Mirror, Entablature and Interiors series; sculptures; murals; and public commissions.
Shaky Ground by
Alice Echols has never shied away from controversy. Long before it was fashionable, she wrote searing critiques of antiporn feminism. Her subsequent books about the 1960s are trenchant and provocative, and written with unflinching honesty. Now she maps an alternative history of contemporary American culture, taking on such subjects as hippies, gay/lesbian and women's liberation, disco and the racial politics of music, and artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell and Lenny Kravitz. Echols upends many of our bedrock assumptions about American culture since the 1950s, challenging in particular the notions that the '60s represented a total rupture with the past and that the '70s marked the end of meaningful change.
Street Art by
Bold, brave, and brilliant, street art is springing up in urban areas all over the world. Make sure it's on your radar! Inside you'll find these features: Real-Life Story Find out how one street artist helped save the planet. In the Zone Find out why gardening and knitting are cool! Read All about It It's the latest craze on the streets--flash mobbing!
Temptis by
At a time when the dominant mode of painting, Abstract Expressionism, emphasised expressive drama through bold brushwork and largely abstract compositions, Johns' paintings of the American flag, targets, numbers and the alphabet demonstrated a decided departure from convention. Despite being painted with obvious care, they seemed emotionally reticent, cool and quiet, far from the emotional fireworks then fashionable. "It all began... with my painting a picture of an American flag. Using this design took care of a great deal for me because I didn't have to design it. So I went on to similar things like the targets - things the mind already knows. That gave me room to work on other levels. For instance, I've always thought of painting as a surface; painting it in one color made this very clear. Then I decided that looking at a painting should not require a special kind of focus like going to church. A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator." Unlike most artists' statements in New York during the 1950s, Johns' remarks contained none of the familiar talk of doubt and angst, and his selection of subject matter appeared deliberate, thoughtful, and far removed from emotional attachments and desires. To younger artists, his art seemed not so much cold and unfeeling as clear-eyed and honest after the excesses of Abstract Expressionism. Furthermore, in selecting recognisable subjects, Johns seemed to reject prevailing abstract modes of painting, yet his subjects themselves - flags, targets, numbers - each possessed a vital characteristic of classic abstraction, namely, a flatness rendering them all but indistinguishable from the picture plane itself. This book underlines how Johns's work made the polarity between abstraction and representation that had dominated debates about modern art for decades seem suddenly obsolete, opening up other ways of thinking about art's relation to the world. It also tries to understand why, since his first exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery at the age of twenty-seven, he has remained one of the major artists of the contemporary artistic scene.
West of Center by
. In the heady and hallucinogenic days of the 1960s and OCO70s, a diverse range of artists and creative individuals based in the American WestOCofrom the Pacific coast to the Rocky Mountains and the SouthwestOCobroke the barriers between art and lifestyle and embraced the new, hybrid sensibilities of the countercultural movement. Often created through radically collaborative artistic practices, such works as Paolo SoleriOCOs earth homes, the hand-built architecture of the Drop City and Libre communes, Yolanda LpezOCOs political posters, the multisensory movement workshops of Anna and Lawrence Halprin, and the immersive light shows and video-based work by the Ant Farm and Optic Nerve collectives were intended to generate new life patterns that pointed toward social and political emancipation. In West of Center, Elissa Auther and Adam Lerner bring together a prominent group of scholars to elaborate the historical and artistic significance of these counterculture projects within the broader narrative of postwar American art, which skews heavily toward New YorkOCOs avant-garde art scene. This west of center countercultural movement has typically been associated with psychedelic art, but the contributors to this book understand this as only one dimension of the larger, artistically oriented, socially based phenomenon. At the same time, they reveal the disciplinary, geographic, and theoretical biases and assumptions that have led to the dismissal of countercultural practices in the history of art and visual culture, and they detail how this form of cultural and political activity found its place in the West. A companion to an exhibition originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, this book illuminates how, in the western United States, the countercultureOCOs unique integration of art practices, political action, and collaborative life activities serves as a linchpin connecting postwar and contemporary artistic endeavors.
