Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Can fine art survive in an age of mass media? If so, in what forms and to what purpose? And can radical art still play a critical role in today's divided world?These are the questions addressed in the Art in the Age of Mass Media, as John Walker examines the fascinating relationship between art and mass media, and the myriad interactions between high and low culture in a postmodern, culturally pluralistic world.Using a range of historic and contemporary works of art, Walker explores the variety of ways in which artists have responded to the arrival of new, mass media. He ranges from the socialist paintings of Courbet to the anti-Nazi photomontages of Heartfield, from community murals and Keith Haring's use of graffiti to the kitsch self-promotion associated with Jeff Koons. The new edition describes what happened during the 1990s, including Toscani's adverts for Benetton, the simulations of Leeds 13, art and cinema, Damien Hirst, and the cyberart currently being produced for the internet.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface to the third edition (p. vii)
• Acknowledgements (p. vii)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• 1. Core Terms/Concepts (p. 6)
• The Fine Arts (p. 6)
• The Mass Media and Mass Culture (p. 8)
• 2. Art Uses Mass Culture (p. 15)
• Courbet, Van Gogh and Popular Imagery (p. 15)
• Pop Art Translates Mass Culture (p. 22)
• American Pop (p. 29)
• Formalism in Pop Art (p. 34)
• The Politics of Pop (p. 37)
• Transubstantiation (p. 43)
• Indirect Influences of the Mass Media (p. 47)
• 3. The Mass Media Use Art (p. 49)
• Art as Subject-matter (p. 49)
• Image of the Artist in Advertisements (p. 49)
• Art as a Source of Styles and Formal Innovations (p. 52)
• Art as Subject-matter in the Cinema (p. 56)
• Artists as a Pool of Skilled Labour (p. 58)
• 4. Mechanical Reproduction and the Fine Arts (p. 67)
• 5. High Culture: Affirmative or Negative? (p. 78)
• 6. Cultural Pluralism and Post-Modernism (p. 83)
• Reporting the Zeitgeist (p. 89)
• The Politics of Pluralism (p. 90)
• 7. Alternatives (p. 93)
• John Heartfield and Photo-montage (p. 95)
• Community Art/Murals (p. 102)
• Political Art in the Galleries (p. 106)
• 8. Art and Mass Media in the 1980s (p. 112)
• Cross-overs and Mass Avant-gardism (p. 112)
• Simulacra (p. 115)
• Art, Advertising and Billboards (p. 118)
• Appropriationists (p. 125)
• Plagiarists (p. 132)
• Koons, the Master of Kitsch and Business Art (p. 133)
• 9. Artists and New Media Technologies (p. 138)
• Photography (p. 138)
• Photocopiers (p. 140)
• Video (p. 143)
• Computers (p. 145)
• 10. Art and Mass Media 1990-2000 (p. 151)
• War, the Media and Art (p. 151)
• Art and Surveillance (p. 157)
• Art and Advertising (p. 158)
• Art and Cinema (p. 162)
• The Artist as Media Celebrity: Damien Hirst (p. 164)
• Simulation (p. 166)
• Digital Art (p. 170)
• The Internet and Website Design (p. 170)
• Museums (p. 175)
• Melrose Place (p. 176)
• 11. Conclusion (p. 179)
• Notes and References (p. 181)
• Bibliography (p. 189)
• Index (p. 205)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This book explores the condition of the fine arts in an era of mass media dominance. Walker discusses the differences, as well as the interactions, of "high" and "low" culture: artists' responses, from the late 19th century to the present, to the ever-increasing presence of the mass media and, conversely, how the various media have drawn upon the fine arts. The author writes about individual artists, critics, and philosophers and about their response to the media. He also delves into the effects that mass production, mechanical reproduction, and the new technologies have had on fine art production. Numerous but mediocre black-and-white reproductions. Exhaustive bibliography. Both comprehensive in its coverage and readable, this book is a good general source on the subject. It belongs with Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik's High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture (CH, Apr'91). General; lower-division undergraduate through graduate. R. J. Merrill; Rio Salado Community College