What was contemporary art? /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Meyer, Richard, 1966-
Imprint:Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2013]
Description:xii, 361 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Language:English
Subject:Art, Modern -- 20th century.
Art -- Historiography.
Art -- Historiography.
Art, Modern.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9041863
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780262135085 (hardcover : alk. paper)
0262135086 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-339) and index.
Review by Choice Review

The elusive notion of "contemporary" art has long been a point of departure for engaging discussions of art criticism, history, and theory. The conversation is ongoing, of course, as is the very idea of "contemporary" culture. Carrying this conversation forward in the most accessible and intellectually agile manner is this study of early- and mid-20th-century conceptions of the contemporary in the context of the institutional development of modernism and their implications for understanding the contemporary in the present. In exploring the fascinating career and influence of Alfred Barr, his impact on the Museum of Modern Art in New York in particular, and related developments associated with the often-controversial embrace of contemporary art in modern culture, Meyer (Stanford Univ.) offers readers a remarkably accessible line of critical and historical investigation. This is a wonderfully readable book, with a natural conversational tone and well-chosen imagery. Its strong contribution to 20th-century art history and historiography will make this volume of great use to students and scholars of 20th- and even 21st-century art and culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. M. R. Freeman Western Oregon University

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Meyer (Outlaw Representation) seeks to put the contemporary art world in honest conversation with its past, presenting the study and making of art as a "relation between an ever-shifting present and the volatile force of history." His triptych congeals around three moments in 20th century American art: the first college course on contemporary art, taught at Wellesley College in 1927 by Alfred H. Barr; the 1937 exhibit Prehistoric Rock Pictures in Europe and Africa, mounted at the Museum of Modern Art, also by Barr; and the 1948 controversy surrounding the name change of Boston's Institute of Modern Art to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Hard-hitting critical concerns blend into the narrative, the minutia of historical debates providing an opportunity to broaden our own art-historical moment and consider its possibilities. An extended introduction and afterword frame Meyer's story, the latter of which focuses on artist Glenn Ligon's recent work-ostensibly to solidify earlier arguments regarding the slipperiness of time and the potentials that come from diachronic art-making. Like Barr before him, Meyer finds room for the historical in the contemporary and the contemporary in the historical, all the while convincing us it's in the art world's as well as the layperson's best interest to do so. Color illustrations. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Library Journal Review

Art historians grapple with the problem of defining contemporary art. One favored approach is periodization-locating the artwork's historical origins in a recent time and place, e.g., 1989 Berlin. Here Meyer (art history, Stanford Univ.; Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered) proceeds differently. Rather than presenting the contemporary as a new historical epoch, he examines select moments from the first half of the 20th century, when the issue of displaying and studying new art arose with a newfound urgency, and when the term "contemporary" began to gain currency. Alfred Barr, founding director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), is a central figure in Meyer's episodic history, which charts a path from Barr's groundbreaking 1927 Wellesley College seminar on recent art, to his directorship at MoMA, and concludes with the controversy surrounding the Boston Museum of Modern Art's 1948 decision to rename itself the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). VERDICT Meyer demonstrates that the often-opposed categories of modern and contemporary art in fact developed conterminously, in the process giving historical studies of the early 20th century a newfound relevance for scholars of the present.--Jonathan Patkowski, CUNY Graduate Ctr. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review


Review by Publisher's Weekly Review


Review by Library Journal Review