This incisive book offers a revealing glimpse into the life and thought of a seminal art critic. Lawrence Alloway (1926-1990) was a key figure in the development of modern art in Europe and America from the 1950s to the 1980s. He is credited with coining the term pop art and with championing conceptual art and feminist artists in America. His interests as a critic and as a curator at the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York were wide-ranging, however, and included architecture, design, earthworks, film, neo-realism, science fiction, and public sculpture. Early in his career he was associated with the Independent Group in London and although he was largely self-taught, he was a noted educator and lecturer. A prolific writer, Alloway sought to escape the conventions of art-historical discourse. This volume illuminates how he often shaped the field and anticipated approaches such as social art history and visual and cultural studies. Lawrence Alloway: Critic and Curator provides the first critical analysis of the multiple facets of Alloway's life and career, exploring his formative influence on the disciplines of art history, art criticism, and museum studies.The nine essays in this volume depend on primary archival research, much of it conducted in the Lawrence Alloway Papers held by the Getty Research Institute. Each author addresses a distinct aspect of Alloway's eclectic professional interests and endeavors.

This third volume of the catalogue raisonne of Ed Ruscha's works on paper documents more than 1,000 works created between 1998 and 2018 The third volume of this extraordinary catalogue raisonne project compiles the unique works on paper that celebrated American artist Edward Ruscha (b. 1937) made between 1998 and 2018. There are 1,068 works documented, hundreds of which have rarely, or never, been exhibited or published. Drawing is the mode in which Ruscha is most prolific, poetic, and experimental. In this period, he further developed some of his iconic subjects, among them film titles, gasoline stations, mountains, and of course words and phrases. He also expanded into new thematic territory in palindrome drawings, map-like representations, and "swiped word" works that incisively reflect the contemporary moment. Included are pencil, dry pigment, pastel, and acrylic drawings on paper, board, and assorted unconventional supports; collages and photo-based works; and sketches and studies for various contemporaneous paintings, commissions, and miscellaneous projects. Each work is catalogued with a beautiful color reproduction, collection details, full chronological provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographic references. Distributed for Gagosian

This groundbreaking account of postwar American art traces the profound influence of Antonin Artaud Proposing an original reassessment of art from the 1950s to the 1970s, No More Masterpieces reveals how artistic practice in postwar America was profoundly shaped by the work of the rebellious French poet and dramatist Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). A generation of artists mobilized Artaud's countercultural ideas to imagine new forms of representation and to redefine the relationship between artist and audience. The book shows how Artaud's radical writings inspired the experimental theatrical work of John Cage, Rachel Rosenthal, and Allan Kaprow; the attack on artistic and social conventions launched by assemblage artists Wallace Berman and Bruce Conner; and the feminist work of Carolee Schneemann and Nancy Spero. Lucy Bradnock traces the dissemination of Artaud's writings in America and demonstrates how his interest in political and cultural disorder, the dangers of authority, and the unreliability of representation found fertile ground in the context of the Cold War, disillusionment with the ideals of Abstract Expressionism, and the early years of identity politics.