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Reviews
This history is as lively as its subject, clarifying the genealogy of the successive rebellions that marked the unfolding of modernism. It pays particular attention to the contributions of African Americans, helping us see, for example, the link between bebop and Abstract Expressionism.
New York Modern mirrors the bewildering welter of its subject—zigzagging through time to cover the evolution of different neighborhoods... expand[ing] our understanding of the city as the primary muse, site, and subject of 20th-century creative activity. The authors make this argument convincingly, through an accretion of innumerable details.
This is a wonderful survey of the artistic life of a great and complex city. It is like a panorama, a sweeping history of a century of artistic production, of cultural pretension and achievement.
Scott and Rutkoff explore the energy and vitality of the city from Greenwich Village to Harlem as a supportive (and destructive) environment for the arts. Like a nonfiction Ragtime, the book presents a cast of characters that is remarkable, from Robert Henri and his school of art at the beginning of the century through Steiglitz and O'Keefe to the happenings of Cunningham and Cage in the 1960s. While solidly based in scholarship, the lively, well-organized prose provides enough colorful detail to keep the pages turning.
Scott and Rutkoff... distill an enormous range of scholarly work... The authors' clear vision of New York as the center of a plurality of modern arts, particularly after WWII, is bolstered by their minute attention to the social structures and political ideals that undergirded the polis and supported the artistic community. They are particularly astute in their scathing indictment of 1950 and '60s urban renewal, and in their documentation of Harlem's central role in all the arts.
A demanding, spirited study of New York's engagement with Modernism... All students of New York City's artistic achievements will have to start with this book.
In their exceptionally well-researched study, William Scott and Peter Rutkoff explore the centrality of New York City in the development of a vibrant, modern American culture... Their's is a rich and satisfying chronicle of the seemingly impossible, a thorough account of New York cultural life between 1876 and 1976... Scott and Rutkoff capture the vitality of the city as well as the individuals and institutions that made possible a modern, democratic American culture by focusing on the multiple roles that New York City played in the lives of the artists and institutions they investigate.
It is surprising that no one has attempted previously what the authors accomplish in this book. New York Modern provides a history of manifestations of 'the modern' in the visual arts, music, dance, architecture, and drama in New York. The authors' comprehensive, engaging, and informative account connects Greenwich Village and Harlem with one another and with many points in between and beyond. There can be no doubt that New York has played a far more important role than any other American city in defining the meaning of modern in the arts, and over the last five decades has played a larger role than any other city in the world. This is an important work that offers unique and valuable insights, and a wealth of information, to those interested in art, concepts of the modern, New York City, and twentieth-century cultural and intellectual history.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
7
x 10
Pages
472
ISBN
9780801867934
Illustration Description
61 b&w illus.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue: Before the Modern: The New York Renaissance
Chapter 1. Times Square: Urban Realism for a New New York
Chapter 2. Paris and New York: From Cubism
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue: Before the Modern: The New York Renaissance
Chapter 1. Times Square: Urban Realism for a New New York
Chapter 2. Paris and New York: From Cubism to Dada
Chapter 3. Bohemian Ecstasy: Modern Art and Culture
Chapter 4. New York Modern: Art in the Jazz Age
Chapter 5. Rhapsody in Black: New York Modern in Harlem
Chapter 6. Modernism versus New York Modern: MoMA and the Whitney
Chapter 7. True Believers on Union Square: Politics and Art in the 1930s
Chapter 8. Behind the American Scene: Music, Dance, and the Second Harlem Renaissance
Chapter 9. New York Blues: The Bebop Revolution
Chapter 10. Homage to the Spanish Republic: Abstract Expressionism and the New York Avant-Garde
Chapter 11. Life without Father: Postwar New York Drama
Chapter 12. Renovating the Modern: Monuments and Insurgents
Notes
Index
