Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture

Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture - Paperback

$29.95
$29.95
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Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture
  • Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture
Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture - Paperback

Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture - Paperback

by Peter Wollen
$29.95
$29.95

Book Overview

Raiding the Icebox is a kaleidoscopic review of the avant-garde and radical subcultures of the twentieth century, and explains how the most powerful artistic statements of the era redrew the line between high and low art.

Beginning with an analysis of the role of Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet, Wollen argues that modernism has always had a hidden, suppressed side which cannot easily be absorbed into the master-narrative of modernity.

Wollen reviews the hopes, fears and expectations of artists and critics such as the Bauhaus movement, as fascinated by Henry Ford's assembly line as they were by the Hollywood dream factory, concluding with Guy Debord's caustic dystopian vision of an all-consuming "Society of the Spectacle."

Finally, Wollen chronicles the emergence of a subversive sensibility as he explores some of the unexpected new cultural forms which non-Western artists are taking as modernism enters into crisis at the beginning of a new century: reversing the rules of the game and raiding the icebox of the West.
ISBN9781844672509
Author Peter Wollen
PublisherVerso
GenreEducation, Arts, and Society & culture
FormatPaperback
PublishedAugust 2008
LanguageENG- English
Pages240
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Art Nonfiction Social Science

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More by Peter Wollen

Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture

Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture - Paperback

Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture - Paperback

By Peter Wollen

About Peter Wollen

Peter Wollen was Chair of the Department of Film, Television and New Media at the University of California, Los Angeles. His other books include Paris/Hollywood: Writings on Film and Paris/Manhattan: Writings on Art.

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