No other introductory book presents the diversity and complexity of postwar American art from Abstract Expressionism to the present as clearly and succinctly as this groundbreaking survey. David Joselit traces and analyzes the contradictory formal, ideological, and political conditions during this period that made American art predominant throughout the world.

Social and cultural transformations rooted in mass media technologies—photography, television, video, and the Internet—elevated consumer commodities to the status of legitimate art subjects, as in pop and installation art, and also brought about a mechanization of the creative act. Canonical movements and figures are discussed at length—Pollock, Rothko, Krasner, Oldenburg, Johns, Warhol, Paik, Ruscha, Sherman, Schnabel, Koons, Barney, and others—in juxtaposition with lesser known contemporary artists and practices.

David Joselit worked as a curator at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston from 1983 to 1989 where he co-organized several exhibitions including "Dissent: The Issue of Modern Art in Boston," "Endgame: Reference and Simulation in Recent Painting and Sculpture," and "The British Edge." He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of California, Irvine. Joselit is the author of Infinite Regress: Marcel Duchamp 1910-1941, and is completing a book entitled Feedback: Art and Politics in the Age of Television.

ISBN 0-500-20368-7 · 5 ⁷/₈" x 8 ¹/₄" · 183 illustrations, 80 in color · 256 pages · ART

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