Alex Kitnick

Donald Judd (1928-1994) is one of the most influential American artists of the postwar era. Beginning in the 1960s, he developed new ideas about art-in both his works and writings-that challenged many of modernism's core tenets by resisting the categories of painting and sculpture. Judd described this work as "specific objects." Critics labeled it minimalism. Perhaps because Judd's own critical writings provide a discursive framework for his work, some of the monographic essays on his work are not widely known. This volume collects critical and scholarly writings on Judd, examining his work as both artist and critic.

The working notes of the influential video artist behind Technology/Transformation: Wonder WomanThis facsimile edition of Note(s): Work(ing) Process(es) Re: Concerns (That Take On / Deal With) was completed in 1977 as a single handmade copy by the multimedia artist Dara Birnbaum (born 1946). It includes notes for works such as Attack Piece, Mirroring and Pivot: Turning Around Suppositions, where Birnbaum interrogates the role of mass media in contemporary society and its means of production through sketches, transcripts, photographs and diagrams for installations and videos that take as their subject film clich s, gender roles, patriotism, emotional states and psychology, among others. Note(s) documents her contributions to the burgeoning Conceptual art movement and underscores her significant but under-recognized influence upon the emergence of feminist art, video art and the Pictures Generation.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) is best known as a media theorist—many consider him the founder of media studies—but he was also an important theorist of art. Though a near-household name for decades due to magazine interviews and TV specials, McLuhan remains an underappreciated yet fascinating figure in art history. His connections with the art of his own time were largely unexplored, until now. In Distant Early Warning, art historian Alex Kitnick delves into these rich connections and argues both that McLuhan was influenced by art and artists and, more surprisingly, that McLuhan’s work directly influenced the art and artists of his time. Kitnick builds the story of McLuhan’s entanglement with artists by carefully drawing out the connections among McLuhan, his theories, and the artists themselves. The story is packed with big names: Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, and others. Kitnick masterfully weaves this history with McLuhan’s own words and his provocative ideas about what art is and what artists should do, revealing McLuhan’s influence on the avant-garde through the confluence of art and theory. The illuminating result sheds light on new aspects of McLuhan, showing him not just as a theorist, or an influencer, but as a richly multifaceted figure who, among his many other accolades, affected multiple generations of artists and their works. The book finishes with Kitnick overlaying McLuhan’s ethos onto the state of contemporary and post-internet art. This final channeling of McLuhan is a swift and beautiful analysis, with a personal touch, of art’s recent transgressions and what its future may hold.

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) is best known as a media theorist—many consider him the founder of media studies—but he was also an important theorist of art. Though a near-household name for decades due to magazine interviews and TV specials, McLuhan remains an underappreciated yet fascinating figure in art history. His connections with the art of his own time were largely unexplored, until now. In Distant Early Warning, art historian Alex Kitnick delves into these rich connections and argues both that McLuhan was influenced by art and artists and, more surprisingly, that McLuhan’s work directly influenced the art and artists of his time. Kitnick builds the story of McLuhan’s entanglement with artists by carefully drawing out the connections among McLuhan, his theories, and the artists themselves. The story is packed with big names: Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, and others. Kitnick masterfully weaves this history with McLuhan’s own words and his provocative ideas about what art is and what artists should do, revealing McLuhan’s influence on the avant-garde through the confluence of art and theory. The illuminating result sheds light on new aspects of McLuhan, showing him not just as a theorist, or an influencer, but as a richly multifaceted figure who, among his many other accolades, affected multiple generations of artists and their works. The book finishes with Kitnick overlaying McLuhan’s ethos onto the state of contemporary and post-internet art. This final channeling of McLuhan is a swift and beautiful analysis, with a personal touch, of art’s recent transgressions and what its future may hold.

On Pleasure Bent traces in reverse chronology the work of British artist Mark Leckey (born 1964), revealing the persistent centrality of popular culture, music and technology in his oeuvre. The book includes Leckey's recent video, sculpture and installation work, and earlier works from the 1990s.