Feed your head: conceptual art and the American counterculture

Doniak, Katherine M. (2019) Feed your head: conceptual art and the American counterculture. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

This thesis provides a historically contextual account of American conceptual art of the Sixties, examining it in relation to the concurrent counterculture. It challenges the notion that conceptual art was entirely autonomous and self-referential by identifying an interconnection between its origins and concerns and those of this era-defining socio-cultural phenomenon. It synthesizes histories and theories of conceptual art with those of the counterculture, with particular focus on Californian conceptual practices. This includes the work of Tom Marioni and the activities of his Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA) in San Francisco, John Baldessari, Terry Fox, Allen Ruppersberg and Barbara T. Smith. Whilst acknowledging regionally distinct aspects of West Coast conceptualism, it dismantles its artificially imposed separation from ‘orthodox’ East Coast practices, positing an expanded definition of conceptual art’s terms based on the intrinsic utopian impulses it shared with the activities of the counterculture.

Item Type: Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors: Bradnock, Lucy
Rawlinson, Mark
Keywords: Conceptual art; Counterculture; Californian conceptualism; Museum of Conceptual Art; MOCA; John Baldessari; Robert Barry; Terry Fox; Tom Marioni; Barbara T. Smith; Allen Ruppersberg
Subjects: N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General). For photography, see TR
Faculties/Schools: UK Campuses > Faculty of Arts > School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies
Item ID: 56333
Depositing User: Doniak, Katherine
Date Deposited: 05 Sep 2019 07:33
Last Modified: 22 Jul 2021 04:30
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/56333

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