Objectives

A closer reading--perhaps one divided into several chunks with intervals for reflection--will reveal that for all the "complexity and contradiction," much of what has happened in late twentieth-century art is still soundly based on historical precedents that we saw in earlier chapters. Very little of what has happened would have shocked Dada artists, and much of what has happened can be seen as a continuation of those poles that were so clearly set out in the last chapter: formalism and expressionism.

Goals for this chapter include:

• Grasp the speed of change in art in our own time.

• Recognize the emergence of New York as a major cultural capital.

• Recognize the growth of "borderless" art.

• Appreciate the extent to which much of the developments in art represent conversations of art with art.

• Analyze the role that liberation movements (feminist, color, third world) have had on both art and patronage.