xx, 239 pages : 25 cm

Over a decade ago, Arthur Danto announced that art ended in the sixties. Ever since this declaration, he has been at the forefront of a radical critique of the nature of art in our time. After the End of Art presents Danto's first full-scale reformulation of his original insight, showing how, with the eclipse of abstract expressionism, art has deviated irrevocably from the narrative course that Vassari helped define for it in the Renaissance. Moreover, he leads the way to a new type of criticism that can help us understand art in a posthistorical age - where, for example, an artist can produce a work in the style of Rembrandt to create a visual pun, and where traditional theories cannot explain the difference between Andy Warhol's Brillo Box and the product found in the grocery store. Here we are engaged in a series of insightful and entertaining conversations on the most relevant aesthetic and philosophical issues of art, conducted by an especially acute observer of the art scene today. Originally delivered as the prestigious Mellon Lectures on the Fine Arts, these writings cover art history, pop art, "people's art," the future role of museums, and the critical contributions of Clement Greenberg - who helped make sense of modernism for viewers over two generations ago through an aesthetics-based criticism

Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction: modern, postmodern, and contemporary -- Three decades after the end of art -- Master narratives and critical principles -- Modernism and the critique of pure art: the historical vision of Clement Greenberg -- From aesthetics to art criticism -- Painting and the pale of history: the passing of the pure -- Pop art and past futures -- Painting, politics, and post-historical art -- The historical museum of monochrome art -- Museums and the thirsting millions -- Modalities of history: possibility and comedy

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