Embodied Visions: Bridget Riley, Op Art and the Sixties - Softcover

Follin, Frances

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0500976430 ISBN 13: 9780500976432

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2004

Synopsis

Bridget Riley’s Op art paintings are icons of the 1960s, fascinating art lovers now as they did then. Their central position in the art history of the period has not been generally acknowledged however – until now.

In this account, based on extensive research, art historian Frances Follin examines contemporary reviews of Riley’s work to reveal the complex associations between her paintings and the culture in which they were produced. Far from being the peripheral art form that some later accounts have presented, Riley’s Op work occupies a key position in contemporary debates on the future of Western societies and of modernism in the arts, relating in subtle and unexpected ways to much of the other art of the period, from Happenings to Minimalism, to earlier work such as Pollock’s and to later developments in postmodernism, and to areas of culture that might seem to have little to do with art at all, such as the ‘space race’ or the development of the ‘hippy’ movement.Frances Follin is chair of the independent Scholars' Group of the Asociation of Art Historians. She holds BSc, BA and PhD degrees from the University of London.

About this title

Synopsis

Bridget Riley's Op art paintings are icons of the 1960s, and fascinate art lovers as much now as they did then. Their central position in the art history of the period has not been generally explored, however - until now. In this new book, based on eight years' research, Frances Follin examines contemporary reviews of Riley's work to reveal the complex associations between these paintings and the culture in which they were produced. Far from being the peripheral art form that some later accounts have presented, Follin shows how Riley's Op work occupies a key position in debates on modernism in the arts and in the future of Western societies. She explores the ways in which Riley's work relates in unexpected and subtle ways to the other art of the period, from Happenings to Minimalism, to earlier art such as Pollock's and to later developments in postmodernism, and to areas of culture that might seem to have little to do with art at all, such as the 'space race' or the development of the hippy culture. As Embodied Visions so deftly illustrates, Riley's art is a point of focus at which many strands of art and cultural history come together.

Edition details

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0500976430
• ISBN 13: 9780500976432
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264