Art in the age of Aquarius, 1955-1970

About this book

"A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with than wood, nails, turpentine, oil and fabric," stated artist Robert Rauschenberg at the beginning of the 1960s. A decade marked by extraordinary upheaval, the 1960s spurred an artistic climate at once ebullient, fragmented, and fascinating. Written by a leading art world figure who was instrumental in introducing the artists of this era to the public, Art in the Age of Aquarius, 1955-1970, both reexamines and. Pins down the many movements of the modern art explosion of the time: color field painting, assemblages, happenings, op and pop art, minimal art, big sculpture, earthworks, the disembodied idea, art as adversary politics, and photorealism. In a lively, thoroughly accessible style, critic William C. Seitz, in the last work begun before his death in 1974, traces the antecedents of sixties innovations and locates the chronological and theoretical turning point away from. Abstract expressionism and action painting that occurred in the mid-1950s. He then chronicles the rise of each new artistic innovation, clearly delineating the leading figures and placing their work in the context of the New York and international art scenes. Seitz profiles a number of the principal artists in the decade (among them Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Wayne Thiebaud, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Roy Lichtenstein, and Frank Stella) and represents these and. More than two dozen others through their artworks. A timeline of the era reveals the whirlwind of forces - political, popular, and random - that affected the creation of sixties art. Capturing contradictory ideas, attitudes, and events of the "Now" decade, Seitz stresses that one of its few constants was change. Beautifully illustrated, Art in the Age of Aquarius presents a master's assessment of a decade still reverberating into the present.