[Art Textbook] A Fine Book Detailing the Flow of Art Chronologically — “ART SINCE 1900: An Illustrated Guide to Art After 1900”

ART SINCE 1900: An Illustrated Guide to Art After 1900

I purchased the large-format book “ART SINCE 1900,” recommended for art professionals and enthusiasts.
It is the Japanese edition of the original published in September 2016.

“ART SINCE 1900” is a large-format book compiling the art history and art scene from 1900 to 2015, centered on newly written commentary by five art historians and art critics who are core members of the American quarterly art-theory journal “October.”

The original (about ¥7,000 on Amazon) was published in September 2016 by the British art publisher Thames & Hudson. The Japanese edition was released in June 2019. Nearly three years passed in between, but when you open the book you are astonished by itsoverwhelming volume of text, and you can sense the hardship of translating it.
Incidentally, the original’s subtitle reads: “Modernism Antimodernism Postmodernism.”

【Structure of the Book】

This book is organized into the following five parts.
The main part is ②, the chronological entries.
It classifies 1900 to 2015 into 130 entries by year (including years with multiple entries).

1. Five introductions
2. 130 chronological entries (from 1900 to the present)
3. 41 columns
4. Two roundtables
5. Glossary, bibliography, index

Table of contents

The main table of contents of this book is as follows.

【Table of Contents】
ART SINCE 1900 [Japanese edition]: On Publication | Manabu Kondo
Structure of the Book / On the Translation System / Editorial Notes (On Notation / On Symbols and Punctuation)
How to Use This Book
Preface — A Guide for Readers
Introductions
1 Psychoanalysis in Modernism, Psychoanalysis as Method | Foster
2 The Social History of Art: Models and Concepts | Buchloh
3 Formalism and Structuralism | Bois
4 Poststructuralism and Deconstruction | Krauss
5 Globalization, Networks, and the Aggregate as Form | Joselit
1900-1909
1910-1919
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1944
Roundtable 1: Art at Mid-Century
1945-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
2000-2015
Roundtable 2: The Predicament of Contemporary Art
Glossary
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index

Where to buy

Of course it’s fine to pick it up at a large bookstore or an art bookstore, but considering the weight of the book, mail-order purchase such as Amazon is recommended.
In any case, it is a heavyweight large-format book, hefty through and through.

Summary

The writer of this article has not yet finished reading all the pages either.
Completely reading through this book seems likely to take a year or two.
Briefly, I have organized a summary of the book below.

1. An “art textbook” that details the flow of art in chronological order
2. Rich, full-volume content with a large amount of information
3. Contains as many as 884 illustrations, with a structure that’s easy to absorb
4. Includes the authors’ roundtables, making it interesting as reading material too
5. Comes with an index—a book of high reference value that can be used like a dictionary
6. Overwhelmingly inexpensive — ¥12,000 is a heavy amount, but in terms of content it offers extremely high cost performance!

I’d really like anyone interested in art to pick it up!

Overview

ART SINCE 1900: An Illustrated Guide to Art After 1900

By Hal Foster, Rosalind E. Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, David Joselit
Japanese edition editorial committee: Shinichiro Osaki, Sunao Kanai, Nobuyuki Konishi, Manabu Kondo
Publisher: Tokyo Shoseki
ISBN: 978-4-487-81035-2
Price: ¥12,000 (excl. tax)
Release date: June 5, 2019
Pages: 896
Format: A4 variant