Description
Book SynopsisMarshall McLuhan (19111980) is best known as a media theoristmany consider him the founder of media studiesbut he was also an important theorist of art. Though a near-household name for decades due to magazine interviews and TV specials, McLuhan remains an underappreciated yet fascinating figure in art history. His connections with the art of his own time were largely unexplored, until now. InDistant Early Warning, art historian Alex Kitnick delves into these rich connections and argues both that McLuhan was influenced by art and artists and, more surprisingly, that McLuhan's work directly influenced the art and artists of his time. Kitnick builds the story of McLuhan's entanglement with artists by carefully drawing out the connections among McLuhan, his theories, and the artists themselves. The story is packed with big names: Marcel Duchamp, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, and others. Kitnick masterfully weaves this history with McLuhan's own words
Trade Review"Each chapter puts McLuhan into context with individual artists... This is a good way to revisit McLuhan, particularly as his work is too often reduced to enigmatic bons mots... [Kitnick] makes a compelling case..." * Literary Review of Canada *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1 The Age of Mechanical Production
Chapter 2 What It Means to Be Avant-Garde
Chapter 3 Lights On
Chapter 4 Electronic Opera
Chapter 5 Massage, ca. 1966
Chapter 6 Information Environment
Chapter 7 Culture Was His Business
Postscript: McLuhan’s Art Today
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
