France and the Visual Arts since 1945
by Prof Catherine Dossin
Taking on the myth of France's creative exhaustion following World War II, this collection of essays brings together an international team of scholars, whose research offers English readers a rich and complex overview of the place of France and French artists in the visual arts since 1945.Addressing a wide range of artistic practices, spanning over seven decades, and using different methodologies, their contributions cover ground charted and unknown. They introduce greater depth and specificity to familiar artists and movements, such as Lettrism, Situationist International or Nouveau Réalisme, while bringing to the fore lesser known artists and groups, including GRAPUS, the Sociological Art Collective, and Nicolas Schöffer.Collectively, they stress the political dimensions and social ambitions of the art produced in France at the time, deconstruct the traditional geography of the French art world, and highlight the multiculturalism of the French art scene that resulted from its colonial past and the constant flux of artistic travels and migrations.Ultimately, the book contributes to a story of postwar art in which France can be inscribed not as a main or sub chapter, but rather as a vector in the wider constellation of modern and contemporary art.
Hardcover
English
Brand New
Author Biography
Catherine Dossin is Associate Professor of Art History, Purdue University, USA.
Table of Contents
1. Beyond the Clichés of "Decadence" and the Myths of "Triumph": Rewriting France in the Stories of Postwar Western ArtCatherine Dossin, Purdue University, USA2. Art and Communism in Postwar France: The Impossible Task of Defining a French Socialist RealismLucia Piccioni, Center for Italian Modern Art of New York, USA, and Cécile Pichon-Bonin, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France3. The Art of Community in Isidore Isou's Traité de bave et d'éternité (1951)Marin Sarvé-Tarr, University of Chicago, USA 4. Their Paris, Our Paris: a Situationist dériveEmmanuel Guy, Parsons Paris, The New School, France5. Pinot Gallizio's Cavern: Re-Excavating Postwar ParisSophie Cras, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France6. Agnès Varda's du Côté de la Côte: Place as 'Sociological Phenomenon'Rosemary O'Neill, Parsons – The New School, USA7. Cybernetic Bordello: Nicolas Schöffer's Aesthetic HygieneHervé Vanel, American University of Paris, France8. Nouveau Réalisme in its "Longue Durée": From the 19th Century Chiffonnier to the Remembrance of World War IIDéborah Laks, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, France 9. Decelerating Le Mouvement of Paris with Vision in Motion - Motion in Vision of Antwerp: Movement, Time, and Kinetic Art, 1955-1959Noémi Joly, Paris-Sorbonne University, France 10. The Public Art of Jean Tinguely 1959-1991: Between Performance and PermanenceElisabeth Tiso, Graduate Center CUNY, USA11. Jean-Jacques Lebel's Revolution: The French Happening, Surrealism, and the Algerian WarLaurel Fredrickson, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA12. Reimagining Communism after 1968: The Case of GrapusSami Siegelbaum, UCLA, USA13. Autogestion in French Art after 1968: A Case Study of the Sociological Art CollectiveRuth Erickson, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, USA14. André Cadere's Disorderly ConductLily Woodruff, Michigan State University, USA15. Places of Memory and Locus: Ernest Pignon ErnestJacopo Galimberti, The University of Manchester, UK16. Questioning the Void: Sophie Calle's Archival SubversionsRachel Boate, New York University, USA17. Claire Fontaine, RedemptionsLiam Considine, Pratt Institute, USAIndex
Review
[France and the Visual Arts since 1945] makes an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of French art worlds. * H-Net Reviews *
Path-breaking, provocative, and richly informative, Dossin's anthology presents a timely reassessment of French art within its complex local and global contexts. Built on incisive research, it challenges conventional art-historical narratives and nationalist clichés. The book will be an essential reference for future mappings of European art's relationships to history, geopolitics and aesthetics. * Jill Carrick, Associate Professor, Art History, Carleton University, Canada *
This fine collection of essays corrects any lingering notion that artistic practices in France were on the decline in the post-war period or that American art history can remain the predominant model. Against a long-standing narrative that locates France's decadence as the pendant to the United States' ascendance, the international group of authors in this collection historicize and contextualize a diverse set of case studies that illuminate the specific French experience; in so doing, they make a compelling argument for writing different history of art, one that simultaneously re-examines the place of Frances in the visual arts since 1945 and questions the genealogies and historiographies that have sustained the authority of American postwar and contemporary art. Such an attempt to expand the canonical narrative has been a long time coming. * Noit Banai, Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Vienna, Austria *
This invaluable collection confirms the undeniable richness and diversity of post-war French art. More importantly, it reveals the distinctive political and intellectual commitments of key artists and movements, and helps combat the prejudices of a modernist art history still too often narrated from the vantage point of the United States. * Alex J. Taylor, University of Pittsburgh, USA *
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A new perspective on the place of France and French artists in the visual arts after 1945.
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This invaluable collection confirms the undeniable richness and diversity of post-war French art. More importantly, it reveals the distinctive political and intellectual commitments of key artists and movements, and helps combat the prejudices of a modernist art history still too often narrated from the vantage point of the United States.
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A new perspective on the place of France and French artists in the visual arts after 1945.
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Comprehensive text on French visual arts since 1945
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