Imagining the Present: Context, Content, and the Role of the Critic

Lawrence Alloway ranks among the most important critics of his time, and his contributions to the spirited and contentious dialogue of his era make for fascinating reading. This collection of twenty-nine provocative essays from 1956 to 1980 provides readers with valuable perspectives on the art and visual culture of the second half of the 20th century. Lawrence Alloway was born in London in 1926 and died in New York in 1990, where he had taken up permanent residence in 1960 just prior to his appointment as Curator at the Guggenheim Museum. Critic, curator, editor, and teacher, Alloway wrote prescient pieces about the interactions of the fine arts with commercial art, science fiction, cybernetics, film, the mass media, and urban structures. An early member of the groundbreaking Independent Group in London, he coined the term "Pop Art," and his critical and curatorial advocacy was an important factor in that movement's early success. Throughout his career he maintained an inclusive, democratic view of art - one that encompassed popular culture, film, systemic abstract painting, realism, environmental art, women's art, the complex issues surrounding mechanical reproduction, the distribution of information and power in the art world, and the semiotics of cultural institutions. This text features a critical commentary by Richard Kalina, and a preface by series editor, Saul Ostrow.