Beyond the Crisis in Art by Peter Fuller

In this provocative collection of essays and articles, Peter Fuller takes a serious look at fashionable and official attitudes towards contemporary art and vigorously attacks the shallowness of much of post-war artistic activitiy. While he is careful to place art in its social, political and economic contexts – indicating, for example the extent of CIA involvement in Abstract Expressionism – Fuller engages in active debate with those who would make an immediate facile connection between quality in art and social function. Rather this collection which contains often heated interviews with David Hockney, Anthony Caro and Carl Andre, as well as articles on Kossoff, Bomberg and Leon Golub points a step beyond the aridity of much of the debate about the visual arts today.