Sculpture in the Age of Doubt [Anglais] [Broché]

In a series of dense, thoughtful essays on sculpture and sculptors from Duchamp to today, McEvilley (art history, Rice Univ.) argues that the dissolution of belief and trust in this century--the rise of skepticism and doubt about universal truth and common assumptions--is reflected in the interdependent development of sculpture and postmodern theory. He is at his best in showing this interdependence in the works of individual artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Lucas Samaras, and Louise Bourgeois, but the reading will be hard going at times for those not deeply immersed in postmodern critical theory. Still, McEvilley does look at the works of art, which ground his discussion, and the essays do reinforce one another in the end. Recommended for academic collections supporting graduate art studies.
-Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"McEvilley's book is at once a survey of Modern sculpture and an insightful examination of several particularly challenging contemporary sculptors. There is no other book that traces the changing conception of sculpture in the twentieth century."

Sculpture in the Age of Doubt is a revelatory exploration of the course of twentieth-century sculpture framed in a lucid discussion of the major issues surrounding the post- Modern movement. It traces the evolution of Modern sculpture from its earliest break with representation and illusion to the unconstrained independence it has achieved in contemporary art. Beginning with the Readymades of Marcel Duchamp and continuing into the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s with the anti-illusion statements of Pop Art, New Realism, Minimalism, Conceptualism, and Performance Art, McEvilley unearths the significance of post-Modern theories and attitudes in the works of twenty-five preeminent sculptors. A groundbreaking work in the realm of twentieth-century art history and criticism, this is a fundamental text for anyone following the development of art into the new century.

The artists include (in order of appearance): Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Broodthaers, Dennis Oppenheim, Jannis Kounellis, Lucas Samaras, Eric Orr, Wolfgang Laib, Marina Abramovi , Michael Tracy, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Marinus Boezem, Louise Bourgeois, Mel Chin, James Lee Byars, Meret Oppenheim, Edward Kienholz, Jana Sterbak, Tony Cragg, Francesc Torres, Elaine Reichek, Leonardo Drew, Gerhard Merz, Dove Bradshaw, and James Croak.

Co-published with the School of Visual Arts as part of the Aesthetics Today series.

Thomas McEvilley is Distinguished Lecturer in Art History at Rice University, where he has been on the faculty since 1969. He has been a visiting professor at Yale University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. He was a recipient of the Fullbright Grant in 1993, and has been awarded an NEA critic's grant and the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism by the College Art Association.

McEvilley has been a contributing editor of Artforum and has published hundreds of articles, catalogue essays, and reviews in the field of contemporary art, as well as monographs on Yves Klein, Jannis Kounellis, and Pat Steir. His recent books include Art and Discontent, Art and Otherness, and The Exile's Return: Toward a Redefinition of Painting for the Post-Modern Era.

He lives in New York City.