State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970

by Constance M. Lewallen, Karen Moss, Julia Bryan-Wilson (Contribution by), Anne Rorimer (Contribution by)

Overview

State of Mind, the lavishly illustrated companion book to the exhibition of the same name, investigates California’s vital contributions to Conceptual art—in particular, work that emerged in the late 1960s among scattered groups of young artists. The essays reveal connections between the northern and southern California Conceptual art scenes and argue that Conceptualism’s experimental practices and an array of then-new media—performance, site-specific installations, film and video, mail art, and artists’ publications—continue to exert an enormous influence on the artists working today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520270619
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/31/2011
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Constance Lewallen is adjunct curator at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the author of several UC Press titles, including Ant Farm 1968-1978 and A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s. Karen Moss is adjunct curator at the Orange County Museum of Art.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Will leave [locals] . . . wondering how they failed to notice so much provocative activity - a lot of it very public - when it occurred."—San Francisco Chronicle

"Makes for conceptual art's continued influence on contemporary art."—Public Art Review

"Informative and well written."—Orange County Register

Editorial Reviews

"A pleasure. . . . The curators have written short, elucidating comments for almost everything here, about 150 items. Not only do their words bring individual images to life; but they also add up to an absorbing narrative of a place and an era."

New York Times - Holland Cotter

Gives a vivid overview of California artists’ contributions to conceptual art. Pairing primary images from then-emerging experimental media (site-specific installations, film/video, etc.) with critical essays, this book makes for conceptual art’s continued influence on contemporary art.

Public Art Review

Will leave [locals] . . . wondering how they failed to notice so much provocative activity—a lot of it very public—when it occurred.

San Francisco Chronicle

"Constance Lewallen and Karen Moss take advantage of [the] outsider position, making use of art’s ability to conjure or invent new meanings and contexts."

Gallerist NY - Maika Pollack

"While showing a real breadth, and the consistency of various sorts of conceptual thinking, [State of Mind is] in fact very useful in terms of ways in which an artist could reinvent their congenial mediums to express social, political, as well as artistic concerns."

Brooklyn Rail - Phong Bui

Informative and well written.

Orange County Register

"Provocative. . . . Puts pressure on the category of idea-based art through a focus on the body, ritual, media and the social world."

Art in America

"Provocative. . . . Puts pressure on the category of idea-based art through a focus on the body, ritual, media and the social world."

Art in America - Gillian Young

“Will leave [locals] . . . wondering how they failed to notice so much provocative activity - a lot of it very public - when it occurred.

San Francisco Chronicle

"Will leave [locals] . . . wondering how they failed to notice so much provocative activity - a lot of it very public - when it occurred."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Makes for conceptual art's continued influence on contemporary art."--Public Art Review

"Informative and well written."--Orange County Register

From the Publisher