The Widening Circle

Barry Schwabsky has published four previous books of poetry as well as several chapbooks. He is the author of numerous works of criticism, and is the art critic for The Nation and co-editor of international reviews for Artforum.

A collection of essays about modernism and art since the 1960s.

Part I. Abstraction, Representation ...: 1. The widening circle: abstraction and representation in contemporary art and criticism; 2. 'The real situation': Philip Guston and Mark Rothko at the end of the 1960s; 3. Norman Bluhm and the eternal feminine; 4. Color field and Caro: mannerist modernism; 5. Larry Poons: formalism in ruins; 6. Gesture revisited: Mel Bochner, Howard Buchwald, Brice Marden; 7. Mary Heilmann's ceramics and paintings: color as substance; 8. Porfirio DiDonna: vision fulfilled; 9. Moira Dryer: answering machines; 10. The rustle of painting: Jacques Lacan, David Row, Brenda Zlamany; Part II. Italian Interlude: 11. W. de Pisis; 12. Rotellascope; 13. Michelangelo Pistoletto: mirrors to monuments; 14. The abstraction epidemic: a conversation with Demetrio Paparoni; Part III ... and Inscription: 15. Thomas Chimes: concerning the surface; 16. Cy Twombly: Et in Arcadia Ego?; 17. Bruce Conner's inkblot drawings: documents for a secret tradition; 18. Reverse continuity: the prints of Mel Bochner; 19. Rubble: representing Mel Bochner's early work; 20. Ross Bleckner: memories of light; 21. L. C. Armstrong: written on the skin; 22. Rainer Ganahl: windows on the word.