Out now: The Synthetic Proposition: Conceptualism and the Political Referent in Contemporary Art, by Nizan Shaked, published by Manchester University Press
http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781784992767/
Description
The synthetic proposition examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and sexual-liberty movements on conceptualism and its legacies in the United States between the late 1960s and the 1990s. It focuses on the turn to political reference in practices originally concerned with abstract ideas, as articulated by Joseph Kosuth, and traces key strategies in contemporary art to the reciprocal influences of conceptualism and identity politics: movements that have so far been historicised as mutually exclusive.
The book demonstrates that while identity-based strategies were particular, their impact spread far beyond the individuals or communities that originated them. It offers a study of Adrian Piper, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser and Charles Gaines. By turning to social issues, these artists analysed the conventions of language, photography, moving image, installation and display.
Reviews
‘Nizan Shaked’s approach to Conceptual art is original, eloquent and informed by a quality of thought and scholarship that will set a new standard of excellence for work on this subject. Her grasp of the field is both capacious in its breadth and erudite in its depth and attention to artistic and historical detail. It is full of original insights – all delivered to the reader in unusually graceful prose. This book promises to be a ground-breaker.’
Adrian Piper
