rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Lives of the imaginary artists in Cold War California
  name:
    name part: Steinberg, Monica
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: Biographies.
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: ilu
    date issued: 2025
    copyright date: 2025
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: 453 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), facsimiles ; 27 cm + 1 supplemental leaf (folded)
  abstract: "How artists created fictionalized identities to realize works that resisted political overreach and art historical conventions. This book explores how a group of real California artists created imaginary artists, engaging with the political climate of the Cold War era and frustrating the discipline of art history. They employed pseudonymity, obfuscation, anonymity, (auto)biografiction, imaginary portraiture, heteronymity, role-playing, doubling, and alter ego. Often laced with humor, these exploits facilitated stylistic experimentation, provoking reactions from art viewers and governing authorities alike, and disrupting reliance on documentation and attribution within art history. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Ed Kienholz, Walter Hopps, Robert Alexander, Wally Hedrick, George Herms, and Wallace Berman activated imagined and secret identities, provoking reactions within a conservative environment gripped by communist paranoia. As political concerns shifted in the 1960s and 1970s to movements for peace and equality, artists including Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode, Lynda Benglis, Larry Bell, Judy Chicago, and Eleanor Antin redirected these tactics to probe the rise of celebrity culture and the administrative state. These practices also became the precursor for later interventions by Bruce Conner, Asco, Allen Ruppersberg, Senga Nengudi, and others. Considering a compelling range of visual material, including paintings, sculptures, and performed intrusions as well as publications, postcards, and advertisements, Monica Steinberg examines why these imaginary artists appeared when and where they did-and to what ends"--
  table of contents: Introduction: Imaginary Lives -- On Pseudoautonymy: Maurice Syndell -- On Obfuscation: Wally Hedrick -- On Fictional Creativity: George Herms and Wallace Berman -- On Role-Playing: Billy Al Bengston, Edward Ruscha, Joe Goode, and Lynda Benglis -- On Doubling: Larry Bell and Judy Chicago -- On Historical Fictions: Eleanor Antin -- Conclusion: Imaginary Afterlives.
  note: Monica Steinberg.
  note: Includes supplemental leaf in pocket in back cover.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    geographic code: n-us-ca
  subject:
    topic: Artists
    geographic: California
    genre: Biography
  subject:
    topic: Art, Modern
    temporal: 20th century
  subject:
    topic: Cold War
    topic: Influence
  subject:
    topic: Imaginary biography
  subject:
    topic: Anonyms and pseudonyms
    topic: In art
  subject:
    topic: Artistes
    geographic: Californie
    genre: Biographies
  subject:
    topic: Art
    temporal: 20e siècle
  subject:
    topic: Biographies imaginaires
  subject:
    topic: Pseudonymes
    topic: Dans l'art
  subject:
    topic: ART
    topic: General
  classification: N6536 .S74 2025
  classification: 709.2/2794
  identifier: 9780226839639
  identifier: 022683963X
  identifier: 9780226839646
  identifier: 2025013908
  location:
    physical location: POD
  record info:
    record content source: ICU/DLC
    record creation date: 250328
    record change date: 20260315044605.3
    record identifier: in00005695435
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng