Author: David W. Galenson File Type: pdf From Picassos Cubism and Duchamps readymades to Warhols silkscreens and Smithsons earthworks, the art of the twentieth century broke completely with earlier artistic traditions. A basic change in the market for advanced art produced a heightened demand for innovation, and young conceptual innovators from Picasso and Duchamp to Rauschenberg and Warhol to Cindy Sherman and Damien Hirst responded not only by creating dozens of new forms of art, but also by behaving in ways that would have been incomprehensible to their predecessors. Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art presents the first systematic analysis of the reasons for this discontinuity. David W. Galenson, whose earlier research has changed our understanding of creativity, combines social scientific methods with qualitative analysis to produce a fundamentally new interpretation of modern art that will give readers a far deeper appreciation of the art of the past century, and of today, than is available elsewhere.ReviewTo Mr. Galenson markets are what make the 20th century completely different from other eras for art. . . . [B]reaking the rules became the most valued attribute. The greatest rewards went to conceptual innovators who frequently changed styles and invented genres. - Patricia Cohen, The New York Times David Galenson brings the insights of an economic historian to this fascinating study of innovation in modern art. He shows how changes in the structure of the market for new art altered the innovation process itself and how the nature of innovation developed in the lives of many 20th century artists. Anyone interested in the development of 20th century art and any economist interested in the general process of innovation will want to read this book. - Martin Feldstein, Department of Economics, Harvard University With this book, David Galenson burnishes his reputation as one of the most interesting economists at work today. Once youve read Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art, youll never look at modern art - or the creative process - quite the same way. - Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind David Galenson has written the most inventive, surprising, and illuminating book on modern art to appear in my lifetime. I can think of no other book on modern art that remotely resembles Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art. Yet it is a surprising book because Galenson draws much of his evidence from what artists and art historians have been saying about modern art for more than a century. What Galenson has done is to take often over-familiar material and to reshape it by asking simple questions about artists behavior and then systematically setting out to explain them. Most importantly, I know of no artist, and certainly no art historian, who has seen so clearly the connection between the variety and pace of 20th-century artistic innovations and the increasing autonomy granted to artists by a richly competitive market. After introductory chapters on innovation and artistic importance, Conceptual Revolutions describes with unsurpassed clarity artistic behaviors new to recent art. Each chapter can be read independently of the others, but taken together readers will find clearly explained much of what often seems mysterious not only to the layperson but even to the art professional. Conceptual Revolutions offers new explanations for many familiar phenomena in modern art and challenges many received ideas held by scholars of 20th-century art, all presented in a prose style that is accessible to any intelligent reader. Conceptual Revolutions should change any open-minded readers basic perceptions about art today. - Robert Jensen, Department of Art, University of Kentucky A fascinating and highly readable explanation of why the art of the 20th century changed so dramatically from that which came earlier. David Galenson goes further in using innovative methods of analysis to change our concept of modern art than anyone I know. Entertaining and informative. - Don Thompson, author of The $12 Million Stuffed Shark The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art Book DescriptionFrom Picassos Cubism and Duchamps readymades to Warhols silkscreens and Smithsons earthworks, the art of the twentieth century broke completely with earlier artistic traditions. Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art presents the first systematic analysis of the reasons for this discontinuity. David W. Galenson combines social scientific methods with qualitative analysis to produce a fundamentally new interpretation of modern art that will give readers a far deeper appreciation of the art of the past century and of today.

Author: Wallace Shawn File Type: pdf * Style Definitions * table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-nameTable Normal mso-tstyle-rowband-size0 mso-tstyle-colband-size0 mso-style-noshowyes mso-style-parent mso-padding-alt0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt mso-para-margin0in mso-para-.0001pt mso-paginationwidow-orphan 10.0pt Times New Roman mso-ansi-language#0400 mso-fareast-language#0400 mso-bidi-language#0400} Full of what you might call conversation starters tricky propositions about morality... politics, privilege, runaway nationalist fantasies, collective guilt, and art as a force for change (or not)...Its a treat to hear him speak his curious mind.O Magazine His observations about class and culture are searinga reminder of our complacency about the gaps between rich and poor, free and oppressed.Washinton Post In these beautiful essays, Wallace Shawn takes us on a revelatory journey in which the personal and political become one. Whether writing about the genesis of his plays, such as Aunt Dan and Lemon discussing how the privileged world of arts and letters takes for granted the work of the unobtrusives, the people who serve our food and deliver our mail or describing his upbringing in the sheltered world of Manhattans cultural elite, Shawn reveals a unique ability to step back from the appearance of things to explore their deeper social meanings. He grasps contradictions, even when unpleasant, and challenges us to look, as he does, at our own behavior in a more honest light. He also finds the pathos in the political and personal challenges of everyday life. With a sharp wit, remarkable attention to detail, and the same acumen as a writer of prose as he is a playwright, Shawn invites us to look at the world with new eyes, the better to understandand change it. Praise for Wallace Shawn and Essays Lovely, hilarious and seriously thought provoking, I enjoyed it tremendously.Toni Morrison Wallace Shawn writes in a style that is deceptively simple, profoundly thoughtful, fiercely honest. His vocabulary is pungent, his wit delightful, his ideas provocative.Howard Zinn, author, A Peoples History of the United States Wally Shawns essays are both powerful and riveting. How rare to encounter someone willing to question the assumptions of class and the disparity of wealth that grows wider every year in this country. To have such a gentle and incisive soul willing to say what others may be afraid to is considerably refreshing.Michael Moore, film-maker Wallace Shawns career as a playwright has been uncompromisingly devoted to proving, again and again, that theater is an ideal medium for exploring difficult matters of great consequence. The qualities that make his dramatic work so challenging, startling, unsettling, sensual, mind-and-soul expanding, so indispensible, are equally in evidence in the marvelous political and theatrical essays collected here. The basic faith of politically progressive people, that human beings are full of decent impulses perverted by political and economic malevolence, is in Shawns writing held up to the liveliest, sharpest scrutiny imaginable not, as in so much reactionary art, to shift blame from oppressor to oppressed, or from artifice to Nature, not to insist that were innately, inescapably incapable of change, but rather as a scrupulous accounting of the slippery ethics, dream logic, fear-ridden resistance to progress, disturbing desires, of the greatest problem confronting all our hopes for a better, transformed world Us, the actors in our collective drama. His essays are without sentiment and entirely resistant to the easy comforts of despair. Complexities are rendered delightfully plain, obfuscations are unsnarled and illuminated, clarity and rational thought are organized to plumb mysteries, and mysteries are respected and celebrated. Shawns language, his unmistakable, original voice, felicitous, is unadorned, elegant, immediate, true. Hes also a brilliant interviewer, as everyone whos seen My Dinner With Andre (which is just about everyone) knows. And, of course, hes very funny.Tony Kushner, playwright, Angels in America Wallace Shawn is a bracing antidote to the op-ed dreariness of political and artistic journalism in the West. He takes you back to the days when intellectuals had the wit and concentration to formulate great questions - and to make the reader want to answer them.David Hare, playwright * Style Definitions * table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-nameTable Normal mso-tstyle-rowband-size0 mso-tstyle-colband-size0 mso-style-noshowyes mso-style-parent mso-padding-alt0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt mso-para-margin0in mso-para-.0001pt mso-paginationwidow-orphan 10.0pt Times New Roman mso-ansi-language#0400 mso-fareast-language#0400 mso-bidi-language#0400} Wallace Shawn is an Obie Award-winning playwright and a noted stage and screen actor (Star Trek, Gossip Girl, The Princess Bride, Toy Story). His plays The Designated Mourner and Marie and Bruce have recently been produced as films. He is co-author of the movie My Dinner with Andre and author of the plays The Fever, The Designated Mourner, Aunt Dan and Lemon, and Grasses of a Thousand Colours. Friends call him Wally.