World Famous Comics: Publisher: Art Insights, Inc. Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s
Publisher: Art Insights, Inc. Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s
By: Linda Weintraub Publisher: Art Insights, Inc. Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Art Insights, Inc. Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 264 Publication Date: January 02, 1997 Release Date: January 02, 1997
Product Description: In this highly accessible introduction to American art since the 1970's, Linda Weintraub offers a musem goers a readable exploration of some of the most important artists and movements of the past decades.
Great buy The book is very informative on the artists,talks about their different pieces, I just wish it was in color instead of black and white because it takes away from the pieces meaning and depth
Out of the box art Read this book for a non-traditional studio class and it was a great introduction to many contemporary artists I did not know.
Terrible writing and terrible art. I can't believe that there are so many positive reviews for this book. Aside from any personal preferences, did anyone else notice that the text is FULL of grammatical mistakes? Even the artists' names are not spelled consistently the same way throughout an article. If you don't believe me, count the number of times she uses Mesa-Bains and then the number of times she uses Mesa-Baines.
Aside from that, the writing style is simply awful, although I guess with this kind of subject matter, it's hard to do much better. This book, along with my Studio Art class, has helped me to develop a strong disliking for most of the contemporary art that is gaining attention. It is thoroughly disturbing and pointless. None of the artists manage to successfully convey their messages. I am very glad to never have to see this book again.
A little of this and a little of that as a MFA student thats currently being educated by "the institution" i find myself flip flopping between wanting to drop out or drop in...this book didn't save me but it sure put things in perspective, never before in a book have I seen cover such topics where you can find Barbara Kruger and James Luna and Joseph Beuys and Tomie Arai between the same cover's in a book. This book also addresses an important issue for me. race. The art world is racist and if you don't know that just look around, art is life and a reflection of society and if you dont know that its because your a white (sorry but its true). This book may not address it but it surely helps to have some artists of color represented (although they aren't near the best art makers).
An OK overview, but superficial I guess this book is meant as a real "intro" text, but if you do know something about this art, it seems pretty lite. Clearly, lots of people like it, but Weintraub seems to bend so far over to make complex work accessible that she really over-simplifines. And the "art" in the book is so scattered and uneven, you don't get any deeper sense of what is going on, what the historical context of any of this might be.
Granted, there aren't many intro texts on recent art. So if this is one of the "better" ones, it's mostly for lack of competition. I wish there was some accessible middle ground between pop/gossip texts and academic tomes. This feels like it's written from someone really distant to the work, who's not always that well-informed.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
