Category Archives: culture
The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths
In this challenging collection of fifteen essays, most of which originally appeared in October, Krauss explores the ways in which the break in style that produced postmodernism has forced a change in our various understandings of twentieth-century art, beginning with the almost mythic idea of the avant-garde. Krauss uses the analytical tools of semiology, structuralism, and poststructuralism to reveal new meanings in the visual arts and to critique the way other prominent practitioners of art and literary history write about art. In two sections, “Modernist Myths” and “Toward Postmodernism,” her essays range from the problem of the grid in painting and the unity of Giacometti’s sculpture to the works of Jackson Pollock, Sol Lewitt, and Richard Serra, and observations about major trends in contemporary literary criticism.
Obey the Giant: Life in the Image World
Design critic Rick Poynor explores the thinking behind contemporary visual culture – intriguing and fascinating appraisal. In the twenty-first century, commerce and culture are ever more closely entwined. This new collection of essays by design critic Rick Poynor takes a searching look at visual culture to discover the reality beneath the ultra-seductive surfaces. Poynor explores the thinking behind the emerging resistance to commercial rhetoric among designers, and offers critical insights into the changing dialogue between advertising and design. Other essays address the topics of visual journalism; brands as religion; the new solipsism; graphic memes; the pleasures of imperfect design; and the poverty of “cool”. Around the world, many are now waking up to the dominance of huge corporations – invariably expressed by visual means. This pointed and provocative counterblast arrives at a moment when critical responses are vital if this mono-culture is to be challenged. It offers inspirational evidence of alternative ways of engaging with design, and it will appeal to any reader with a questioning interest in design, advertising, cultural studies, media studies, and the visual arts.
Yes Yes Y’All: An Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade
Based on the “Hip-Hop Nation” exhibit at Seattle’s Experience Music Project and the project’s ongoing Oral History Program, this history of the beginnings of hip-hop in 1970s New York City is a lavishly illustrated and lovingly compiled homage to the many artists who contributed to the birth of what soon became and remains today, more than 25 years later a worldwide cultural institution. Editors Fricke and Ahearn (director of the hip-hop film Wild Style) weave the insights and attitudes of nearly 100 of the key players into a multihued and multiracial tapestry that illustrates what the excitement of that era and its music was all about. Since the hip-hop style was first developed in the Bronx borough of New York City as a dance-floor alternative to the then-prominent “disco” sound, the oral narrative is dominated by the voices of well-known DJs: Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. But much of the success of the book is derived from its exploration of the roots of other related hip-hop trends: how the massive new styles of graffiti were both a response to urban violence as well as a way to provoke the interest of downtown New York avant-garde artists; how the competitive world of break dancing was rooted in the rapidly changing and fading gang culture of the Bronx; and how many women were far more active and influential in all types of hip-hop styles than was obvious or recognized at the time. This is an excellent documentation of how early hip-hop expressed “a balance between pain and the celebration of music and movements.”
Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein
Using obscure and familiar figures from around the world as touchstones for portraits, interviews, and essays, Corbett roams an incredible breadth of musical territory: blues and jazz, contemporary classical, funk and rap, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. His true talent becomes clear as he exits surface terrain to guide the reader through a labyrinth of philosophical and intellectual thought amid the musical landscape. His interview techniques (particularly with Cage), breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding, and use of words in a way that imparts wisdom and provokes deep thought all shine. This work shows Corbett to be an important writer of our time; recommended for serious musicians and all others who enjoy the “outside.”
Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America
In America today there is a little-known explosion of creative art by women and men from many different ethnic backgrounds. Mixed Blessings is the first book to discuss the crosscultural process taking place in the work of Latino, Native-, African-, and Asian-American artists. Rich with illustrations of artworks in many different mediums, and filled with incisive quotes and unsettling reports, it is more than a book about art, it is a complex meditation on the relationships of people to their cultures.
Living with Music: Ralph Ellison’s Jazz Writings
Ellison (1914-94) developed his love of music during his childhood in Oklahoma City, a bastion of Southwestern jazz in the 1920s and 1930s and the home of Jimmy Rushing, Charlie Christian, and the famous Blue Devils. As a young man, he lived with music, listening to it, analyzing it, and mingling with performers in the hopes of becoming one himself (he became a trumpeter). As editor O’Meally makes clear, jazz influenced both his thinking and writing. This fine collection consists mainly of previously uncollected jazz writings, among them “On Bird, Bird-Watching, and Jazz” and “Homage to Duke Ellington on His Birthday.” These interesting and highly personal pieces offer details about a bygone era as well as insights into the formation of Ellison’s mind and the writing of Invisible Man and other fiction in which jazz and its processes figured so strongly.
Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock-n-Roll
More than 20 years after its initial publication, Mystery Train remains one of the smartest, most provocative books ever written about rock-and-roll. Marcus puts his subjects–which include Robert Johnson, Elvis Presley, The Band, Randy Newman, and Sly Stone–into their proper context, which is the culture-at-large. He makes you understand why these musicians matter, and what they’ve contributed to the American imagination.
A People’s History of the United States
Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of A People’s History of the United States turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus’s arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.
Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture
In Dark Fiber, Lovink combines aesthetic and ethical concerns and issues of navigation and usability without ever losing sight of the cultural and economic agendas of those who control hardware, software, content, design, and delivery. He examines the unwarranted faith of the cyber-libertarians in the ability of market forces to create a decentralized, accessible communication system. He studies the inner dynamics of hackers’ groups, Internet activists, and artists, seeking to understand the social laws of online life. Finally, he calls for the injection of political and economic competence into the community of freedom-loving cyber-citizens, to wrest the Internet from corporate and state control.
Posted in culture, media, politics, technology
Mixing Messages
How do we disseminate information? And what does it look like? Ellen Kupton answers that in her new book, Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture. Lupton looks at the mission of design through discussions about publishing, signage, typography, corporate identity and the use of design in public places. Mixing Messages will fascinate fans of design, culture or social history.