Johanna Drucker's sweet dream is for a new and more positive approach to
contemporary art. Calling for a revamping of the academic critical
vocabulary used to discuss art into one more befitting current creative
practices, Drucker argues that contemporary art is fully engaged with
material culture--yet still struggling to escape the oppositional legacy
of the early twentieth-century avant-garde.
Drucker shows that artists today are aware of working within the
ideologies of mainstream culture and have replaced avant-garde defiance
with eager complicity. Finding their materials at flea markets or
exploring celebrity culture, contemporary artists have created a
vibrantly participatory movement that exudes enthusiasm and
affirmation--all while critics continue to cling to an outmoded
vocabulary of opposition and radical negativity that defined modernism's
avant-garde. At the cutting edge of new media research, Drucker surveys
a wide range of exciting contemporary artists, demonstrating their clear
departure from the past and petitioning viewers and critics to shift
their terms and sensibilities as well. Sweet Dreams is a testament to
the creative processes and self-conscious heterogeneity of art today as
well as a revolutionary effort to solicit collaboration that will
encourage the production of imaginative thought and contribute to
contemporary life.
