A facsimile of the Just Above Midtown 1978 exhibition catalog that disrupted the white-dominated canon of postwar abstract art
Originally published in 1978 alongside an exhibition at the legendary Just Above Midtown gallery, Contextures was the first of its kind. More textbook than traditional catalog, the volume realized the vital mission of situating Black artists within the still-prevalent, white-dominated canon of postwar abstract art. Contextures not only provides an extensive history of Black artists working in abstraction from 1945 to 1978, but it also articulates the then newly emerging movement of Black Conceptual Art in the 1970s. Despite its historical importance and visionary scholarship, it was originally produced in a limited run of just a few hundred copies by the gallery and remains rare and largely unknown. The publication contains extensive writing by editors Linda Goode Bryant and Marcy S. Philips, drawn from interviews with the featured artists, as well as 58 black-and-white and 16 color images documenting the work of 25 artists, including Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, David Hammons, Suzanne Jackson and Betye Saar. This new edition is produced in facsimile form and features a newly commissioned afterword by Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, curator of the exhibition Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Contextures.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Cultured
Johanna Fateman
Expository, scholarly, and visionary, the authors’ vintage text on postwar Black abstraction, meant to be catalogue for a major survey that never came to pass, remains both a primer and a trenchant theorization of a movement and a moment, whether it’s called Contexturalist or not.
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FORMAT: Pbk, 9 x 9.25 in. / 112 pgs / 16 color / 58 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $24.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $35 ISBN: 9798987624920 PUBLISHER: Pacific/Primary Information AVAILABLE: 10/15/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Pacific/Primary Information. Edited by Linda Goode Bryant, Marcy S. Philips.
A facsimile of the Just Above Midtown 1978 exhibition catalog that disrupted the white-dominated canon of postwar abstract art
Originally published in 1978 alongside an exhibition at the legendary Just Above Midtown gallery, Contextures was the first of its kind. More textbook than traditional catalog, the volume realized the vital mission of situating Black artists within the still-prevalent, white-dominated canon of postwar abstract art. Contextures not only provides an extensive history of Black artists working in abstraction from 1945 to 1978, but it also articulates the then newly emerging movement of Black Conceptual Art in the 1970s. Despite its historical importance and visionary scholarship, it was originally produced in a limited run of just a few hundred copies by the gallery and remains rare and largely unknown.
The publication contains extensive writing by editors Linda Goode Bryant and Marcy S. Philips, drawn from interviews with the featured artists, as well as 58 black-and-white and 16 color images documenting the work of 25 artists, including Frank Bowling, Ed Clark, David Hammons, Suzanne Jackson and Betye Saar. This new edition is produced in facsimile form and features a newly commissioned afterword by Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, curator of the exhibition Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
