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In The Rise and Fall of American Art, 1940s-1980s, Catherine Dossin challenges the now-mythic perception of New York as the undisputed center of the art world between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall, a position of power that brought the city prestige, money, and historical recognition. Dossin reconstructs the concrete factors that led to the shift of international attention from Paris to New York in the 1950s, and documents how a "peripheriesa (TM) such as Italy, Belgium, and West Germany exerted a decisive influence on this displacement of power. As the U.S. economy sank into recession in the 1970s, however, American artists and dealers became increasingly dependent on the support of Western Europeans, and cities like Cologne and Turin emerged as major commercial and artistic hubs - a development that enabled European artists to return to the forefront of the international art scene in the 1980s. Dossin analyses in detail these changing distributions of geopolitical and symbolic power in the Western art worlds - a story that spans two continents, forty years, and hundreds of actors. Her transnational and interdisciplinary study provides an original and welcome supplement to more traditional formal and national readings of the period
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the rise and fall of american art, 1940s–1980s In The Rise and Fall of American Art, 1940s–1980s, Catherine Dossin challenges the now-mythic perception of New York as the undisputed center of the art world between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall, a position of power that brought the city prestige, money, and historical recognition. Dossin reconstructs the concrete factors that led to the shift of international attention from Paris to New York in the 1950s, and documents how “peripheries” such as Italy, Belgium, and West Germany exerted a decisive influence on this displacement of power. As the U.S. economy sank into recession in the 1970s, however, American artists and dealers became increasingly dependent on the support of Western Europeans, and cities like Cologne and Turin emerged as major commercial and artistic hubs—a development that enabled European artists to return to the forefront of the international art scene in the 1980s. Dossin analyses in detail these changing distributions of geopolitical and symbolic power in the Western art worlds—a story that spans two continents, forty years, and hundreds of actors. Her transnational and interdisciplinary study provides an original and welcome supplement to more traditional formal and national readings of the period. Catherine Dossin is Associate Professor of Art History at Purdue University, USA This page has been left blank intentionally The Rise and Fall of American Art, 1940s–1980s A Geopolitics of Western Art Worlds Catherine Dossin © Catherine Dossin 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Catherine Dossin has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Wey Court East Union Road Farnham Surrey, GU9 7PT England Ashgate Publishing Company 110 Cherry Street Suite 3-1 Burlington, VT 05401-3818 USA www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Dossin, Catherine. The rise and fall of American art, 1940s-1980s : a geopolitics of Western art worlds / by Catherine Dossin. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4724-1171-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Art and societ