Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

After the dominant models of art-as-text in the 1970s and are now witness to a return to the real - to art and theory that seek to be grounded in bodies and sites, identities and communities.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Since the late 1950s, art and critical theory have been increasingly linked, both by artists themselves and by commentators. Editor of the journal October, Foster (art history and comparative literature, Cornell Univ.) discusses here a wide range of artists (including Andy Warhol, Robert Smithson, Barbara Kruger, Mike Kelley, and Cindy Sherman) to explore his ideation of the avant-garde and the regrounding of art in materiality. Focusing on art and artists active after 1960, Foster traces the movement from "art-as-text" in the 1970s, to "art-as-simulacrum" in the 1980s, to contemporary art that is moving more toward materiality. For those not conversant with the language and ideology of contemporary critical theory, Foster's discussion of developments since 1960 will be hard to follow. Recommended only for larger academic collections.‘Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Lib., Washington, D.C. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.