New Literary History 41(4): What Is an Avant-Garde? (2010)

“What is an avant-garde? In posing such a question, this issue of New Literary History seeks to reexamine a category that often seems all too self-evident. Our aim is not to draw up a fresh list of definitions, specifications, and prescriptions but to explore the conditions and repercussions of the question itself. In the spirit of analogously titled queries—from Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” to Foucault’s “What is an Author?”—we hope to spur reflection not only on a particular object of study but also on the frameworks and critical faculties that we bring to bear on it. As Paul Mann notes, every critical text on the avant-garde, whether tacitly or overtly, “has a stake in the avant-garde, in its force or destruction, in its survival or death (or both).” A reassessment of these stakes is one of the priorities of this special issue.” (from the Introduction)

With contributions by Jonathan P. Eburne and Rita Felski, Peter Bürger, John Roberts, Elizabeth Harney, Mike Sell, Benjamin Lee, Griselda Pollock, Amy J. Elias, Philippe Sers, Walter L. Adamson, Bob Perelman, Richard Schechner, Martin Puchner

Editor Rita Felski
Publisher The Johns Hopkins University Press

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-7-18)

Futurism: A Modern Focus (1973)

“This catalogue presents a selection of works in the Winston/Malbin Collection. Detroit-born Lydia Winston Malbin (1897–1989) was an avid collector of European art, who, with the Guggenheim’s first director Hilla Rebay, organized Detroit’s first show of abstract art in 1940. Although the focus of the collection was on Futurism (and the catalogue includes an extensive section on drawings and prints by Italian artist Umberto Boccioni), it was by no means limited to that movement. The catalogue brings together a selection that ranges from Cubist and Surrealist works to postwar Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting.

The catalogue’s two essays trace the influence of Futurism on other art movements, and each reproduction is accompanied by an artist biography, provenance, and exhibition history.”

With contributions by Marianne W. Martin and Linda Shearer
Publisher Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1973
252 pages

Publisher

PDF (43 MB, no OCR, updated on 2016-9-17)
multiple formats (Archive.org)

Exter, Goncharova, Popova, Rozanova, Stepanova, Udaltsova: Amazons of the Avant-Garde (2000)

“Amazons of the Avant-Garde presents work by six Russian women who contributed to the development of modern art in the first quarter of the 20th century: Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, and Nadezhda Udaltsova. The catalogue includes several essays that discuss the hindrances and influences affecting women in Russian avant-garde art circles. In addition, each artist featured in the exhibition (originally set up at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin in 1999, next year travelled to the New York’s Guggenheim through London, Venice, and Bilbao) is individually discussed at length, along with biographical timelines and excerpts of their writings from letters and publications. Color reproductions of the works in the exhibition accompany the essays to form a cohesive illustration of the art world in Russia during the first decades of the 20th century and the women who changed the aesthetic canons of their time.”

Contributions by Natalia Adaskina, John E. Bowlt, Charlotte Douglas, Matthew Drutt, Ekaterina Dyogot, Laura Engelstein, Nina Gurianova, Georgii Kovalenko, Alexander Lavrentiev, Olga Matich, Nicoletta Misler, Vasilii Rakitin, Dmitrii Sarabianov, and Jane A. Sharp

Edited by John E. Bowlt and Matthew Drutt
Published by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2000
ISBN 0892072253
366 pages

Review: Patricia Railing (Art Book 2000).

Publisher

PDF (23 MB, updated on 2012-7-18)
Internet Archive (multiple formats)
Guggenheim flipping book (Flash)