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Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage

Tony Conrad has significantly influenced cultural developments fromminimalism to underground film, "concept art," postmodern appropriation, and the most sophisticated rock and roll. Creator of the "structural"film, The Flicker, collaborator on Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, follower of Henry Flynt's radical anti-art, member of the Theatre of Eternal Musicand the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and early associate of MikeKelley, Tony Oursler, and Cindy Sherman, Conrad has eluded canonic histories. YetBeyond the Dream Syndicate does not claim Conrad as a major but under-recognizedfigure. Neither monograph nor social history, the book takes Conrad's collaborativeinteractions as a guiding thread by which to investigate the contiguous networks anddiscursive interconnections in 1960s art. Such an approach simultaneouslyilluminates and estranges current understandings of the period, redrawing the mapacross medium and stylistic boundaries to reveal a constitutive hybridization at thebase of the decade's artistic development. This exploration of Conrad and his milieugoes beyond the presentation of a relatively overlooked oeuvre to chart multiple, contestatory regimes of power simultaneously in play during the pivotal moment ofthe 1960s. From the sovereign authority invoked by Young's music, to the"paranoiac" politics of Flynt, to the immanent control modeled by Conrad'sfilms, each avant-garde project examined reveals an investment within a particularstructure of power and resistance, providing a glimpse into the diversity of theartistic and political stakes that continue to define our time.Branden W. Joseph isProfessor of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History andArchaeology at Columbia University and an editor of the journal Grey Room (MITPress). He is the author of Random Order: Robert Rauschenberg and theNeo-Avant-Garde (MIT Press, 2003.)

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 479
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781890951863
  • Genres
  • music, art, film
  • Release date
  • 2008