The synthetic proposition: Conceptualism and the political referent in contemporary art (Rethinking Arts Histories MUP)

The synthetic proposition examines the impact of Civil Rights, Black Power, the student, feminist and sexual-liberty movements on conceptualism and its legacies in the United States between the late 1960s and the 1990s. It focuses on the turn to political reference in practices originally concerned with abstract ideas, as articulated by Joseph Kosuth, and traces key strategies in contemporary art to the reciprocal influences of conceptualism and identity politics: movements that have so far been historicised as mutually exclusive. It offers a study of Adrian Piper, David Hammons, Renée Green, Mary Kelly, Martha Rosler, Silvia Kolbowski, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Lorna Simpson, Hans Haacke, Andrea Fraser and Charles Gaines. The book demonstrates that while identity-based strategies were particular, their im

'Nizan Shaked's approach to Conceptual art is original, eloquent and informed by a quality of thought and scholarship that will set a new standard of excellence for work on this subject. . Her grasp of the field is both capacious in its breadth and erudite in its depth and attention to artistic and historical detail. This book promises to be a ground-breaker.' Adrian Piper -- . It is full of original insights - all delivered to the reader in unusually graceful prose

Nizan Shaked is Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History, Museum and Curatorial Studies at California State University, Long Beach