From Library Journal
Liberating artworks from their conventional chronological boundaries might appear heretical to the traditional art historian's eye, but this book, which documents an exhibition appearing at the Kunsthaus Zrich in November 2000 and at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in February 2001, reveals the didactic potential of such an action. The catalog's dismissal of historical categories allows larger conceptual affinities and stylistic patterns to emerge among artworks completed within the last 50 years. Six themes provide the conceptual framework for both exhibition and catalog and determine the artworks analyzed. Kunsthaus Zrich curator Bice Curiger (Birth of the Cool), who has published works on Meret Oppenheim and Sigmar Polke, highlights the particulars of each era's politics and manifests instead society's historical engagement with the six themes. The seven prefatory essays by notable art world figures, such as feminist art historian Griselda Pollock, are refreshingly readable and examine another subject integral to the exhibition's premise: the concept of reality in our media-inundated, postindustrial society. Recommended for academic libraries and collections that focus on contemporary art and cultural analysis. Savannah Schroll, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
