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.

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.

"Andy Warhol’s Raid the Icebox exhibition [held at the RISD Museum of Art, April 23-June 30, 1970], and the many similar museum projects it has spawned throughout the world over the past fifty years allow us to reconsider what storage is and might be. How do we recuperate the lost narratives residing in storage? How do we write new histories? How do objects that have become disassociated from their original contexts acquire fresh lives? How does storage evolve from a problem to be solved to an opportunity for discovery?"--Prelude.

"This is an anthology of essays that first appeared in The Artist as Curator, a series that occupied eleven issues of Mousse from no. 41 (December 2013/January 2014) to no. 51 (December 2015/January 2016). It set out to examine what was then a profoundly influential but still under-studied phenomenon, a history that had yet to be written: the fundamental role artists have played as curators. Taking that ontologically ambiguous thing we call "the exhibition" as a critical medium, artists have often radically rethought conventional forms of exhibition making. This anthology surveys seminal examples of such exhibitions from the postwar to the present, including rare documents and illustrations. It includes an introduction and the twenty essays that first appeared in Mousse, a newly commissioned afterword by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and two additional essays that appear here for the first time."

An exploration of the converging worlds of art and fashion in the twentieth century.

This is an anthology of the best criticism produced about Hawks' films. Among the critics collected together in this book are Andrew Sarris and Robin Wood who go towards demonstrating the coherence and integrity of Hawks' work.

A "highly recommended" (Library Journal) contribution to interdisciplinary debate about how cultural differences are implicit within visual forms.