Ad Reinhardt
Michael CorrisIn this much-needed work Michael Corris gives a comprehensive account of Ad Reinhardt's life, works and contributions to modern art. The book is a major contribution not only to Reinhardt scholarship, but also to the history of contemporary art in America.
Born in Buffalo, New York, Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967) was a highly influential pioneer of conceptual and minimal art. His influence as teacher, writer, activist and critic was as significant as his art - Reinhardt taught at Brooklyn College from 1947 to 1967, and during this time also lectured at the California School of Fine Arts, the University of Wyoming, Yale University and Hunter College, New York. In latter times Ad Reinhardt has largely fallen out of the spotlight, and in this much-needed book Michael Corris gives a comprehensive account of the artist’s life, works and contributions to modern art.
An artist with definite political beliefs, Ad Reinhardt immersed himself in the vibrant left-wing political and cultural circles of the 1930s and ’40s, only to find himself marginalized by the social and cultural conservatism that arose in postwar America. Corris examines Reinhardt’s art in this historical context, tracking the development of his entire oeuvre, ranging from his abstract paintings to his popular graphic artwork, which took the form of illustrations and cartoons. Ad Reinhardt also evaluates Reinhardt’s role in the art world as younger artists created successive avant-garde movements, such as Minimal and Conceptual art, and the impact his political beliefs ultimately had on his reputation and reception in the art world.
This long-awaited book is a major contribution not only to Reinhardt scholarship, but also to the history of contemporary art in America.
In this much-needed work Michael Corris gives a comprehensive account of Ad Reinhardt's life, works and contributions to modern art. The book is a major contribution not only to Reinhardt scholarship, but also to the history of contemporary art in America.
Born in Buffalo, New York, Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967) was a highly influential pioneer of conceptual and minimal art. His influence as teacher, writer, activist and critic was as significant as his art - Reinhardt taught at Brooklyn College from 1947 to 1967, and during this time also lectured at the California School of Fine Arts, the University of Wyoming, Yale University and Hunter College, New York. In latter times Ad Reinhardt has largely fallen out of the spotlight, and in this much-needed book Michael Corris gives a comprehensive account of the artist’s life, works and contributions to modern art.
An artist with definite political beliefs, Ad Reinhardt immersed himself in the vibrant left-wing political and cultural circles of the 1930s and ’40s, only to find himself marginalized by the social and cultural conservatism that arose in postwar America. Corris examines Reinhardt’s art in this historical context, tracking the development of his entire oeuvre, ranging from his abstract paintings to his popular graphic artwork, which took the form of illustrations and cartoons. Ad Reinhardt also evaluates Reinhardt’s role in the art world as younger artists created successive avant-garde movements, such as Minimal and Conceptual art, and the impact his political beliefs ultimately had on his reputation and reception in the art world.
This long-awaited book is a major contribution not only to Reinhardt scholarship, but also to the history of contemporary art in America.
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handsomely produced . . . An impressively researched book, this is also the first to provide an account of Reinhardt's entire career.
'Burlington magazine
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extremely readable and could have been a comfortable read over twice the length. Let us hope that when further exhibitions and studies of Reinhardt are undertaken, Michael Corris is invited to contribute. The furtherance of art history depends on scholars such as he being willing to get their hands dusty on our behalf.
'The Art Book
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Because of his background as a Conceptual artist, designer, and art historian, Michael Corris is wonderfully equipped to undertake a thoroughgoing art-historical survey of Reinhardt’s work, and he does so with great sensitivity and thoughtful analysis, employing a wide-angle lens that takes into consideration Reinhardt’s forays in the areas of popular and fine art as well as politics and culture.
'Robert Hobbs, Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair, Virginia Commonwealth University
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This book will make a major contribution to not only Reinhardt scholarship, but to the history of late modernist American art, from Abstract Expressionism to Conceptual Art. It should also be required reading in American studies of the 1930s and 40s.
'Frances Colpitt, Deedie Potter Rose Chair of Art History, Texas Christian University
Foreword by Dore Ashton
Introduction: 'Starting over at the beginning'
1. 'Every person is a special kind of artist'
2. Cartoons and Communists
'Hack'
Public Art and Public Media
Comrade Cubist
The Origins of 'Art-as-Art'
Comrade Ad
3. 'Painting-Reason' and 'Picture-Purpose'
Abstract Art for Society's Sake
The Inconsolable Polymath
Collage as Destruction
'Painting is more than the scum of its pots': Beyond Formalism
4. The Intellectual Gift of the Post-Historic Artist
'Blue in art is blue. Red in art is red. Yellow in art is yellow. Dark gray in art is not dark gray': Aesthetics and Indeterminacy
'How to make Modern Art in America: Fifteen Years Later'
Perfection and the End of Art
Neither Secular nor Sacred
Systems of Strife
5. 'An Invasion of the Ultimate'
Jamming
Rules
Convictions
Realignment
6. 'Every Dogma has its Day'
'The re-reformation of formalism'
'A dark flame, fog forming in the unformed': Responsive Eyes
Unfinished Business
The Success of Failure
7. Reinhardt and the Art of the Sixties
Empty Devices, Dead Diagrams and Invisible Spectacles
Trailer
8. Political Art and Political Power
Scepticism
The Artist as Citizen
Art and Resistance
9. Reinhardt's Difficult Freedom
Appendix
References
Bibliography
Artist's Chronology
Acknowledgements
Index
Michael Corris is Professor of Art and Chair of the Division of Art at SMU, Dallas, Texas. He was a member of the Conceptual art group ‘Art & Language’ in New York in the 1970s, and is editor of Conceptual Art: Theory, Myth, and Practice (2003), and author (with David Diao) of David Diao: Works 1969-2005 (2006). As well as Ad Reinhardt (Reaktion, 2008).