Nineteen Forty-Five marked a historical moment in the figurative arts, with new trends related to changes in the cultural climate caused in large part by the war. This book presents an in-depth overview of the arts from the postwar period in Europe and the United States to today, from analysis of the pictorial languages of the leading masters of the second half of the 20th century, including the avant-gardes of the 1950s, to consideration of the trends that have inaugurated the third millennium, breaking the traditional borders between painting and sculpture.
Contemporary art has become the site of cultural exchanges during our time, with global materials and contexts. External space has itself become part of art, leading to such extremes as Land Art. "Postmodern Art", with more than 400 color images, explores the currents, themes, and names that are part of the artistic heritage of today, from Art Informel to New Dada to body and video art. Its sixteen chapters present painters, sculptors, photographers, and architects with their most important works, many of them results of the close identification between art and life.
This volume examines the innovations that have changed the contemporary international art scene: