France and the Visual Arts since 1945: Remapping European Postwar and Contemporary Art

(Hardback)

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Taking on the myth of Frances creative exhaustion following World War II, this collection of essays brings together an international team of scholars, whose research offers English readers a rich and complex overview of the place of France and French artists in the visual arts since 1945. Addressing a wide range of artistic practices, spanning over seven decades, and using different methodologies, their contributions cover ground charted and unknown. They introduce greater depth and specificity to familiar artists and movements, such as Lettrism, Situationist International or Nouveau Ralisme, while bringing to the fore lesser known artists and groups, including GRAPUS, the Sociological Art Collective, and Nicolas Schffer. Collectively, they stress the political dimensions and social ambitions of the art produced in France at the time, deconstruct the traditional geography of the French art world, and highlight the multiculturalism of the French art scene that resulted from its colonial past and the constant flux of artistic travels and migrations. Ultimately, the book contributes to a story of postwar art in which France can be inscribed not as a main or sub chapter, but rather as a vector in the wider constellation of modern and contemporary art.

Reviews

[France and the Visual Arts since 1945] makes an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of French art worlds. * H-Net Reviews *
Path-breaking, provocative, and richly informative, Dossin's anthology presents a timely reassessment of French art within its complex local and global contexts. Built on incisive research, it challenges conventional art-historical narratives and nationalist clichs. The book will be an essential reference for future mappings of European art's relationships to history, geopolitics and aesthetics. * Jill Carrick, Associate Professor, Art History, Carleton University, Canada *
This fine collection of essays corrects any lingering notion that artistic practices in France were on the decline in the post-war period or that American art history can remain the predominant model. Against a long-standing narrative that locates Frances decadence as the pendant to the United States ascendance, the international group of authors in this collection historicize and contextualize a diverse set of case studies that illuminate the specific French experience; in so doing, they make a compelling argument for writing different history of art, one that simultaneously re-examines the place of Frances in the visual arts since 1945 and questions the genealogies and historiographies that have sustained the authority of American postwar and contemporary art. Such an attempt to expand the canonical narrative has been a long time coming. * Noit Banai, Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Vienna, Austria *
This invaluable collection confirms the undeniable richness and diversity of post-war French art. More importantly, it reveals the distinctive political and intellectual commitments of key artists and movements, and helps combat the prejudices of a modernist art history still too often narrated from the vantage point of the United States. * Alex J. Taylor, University of Pittsburgh, USA *

Author Bio

Catherine Dossin is Associate Professor of Art History, Purdue University, USA.