"In 1965, the American artist and Fluxus cofounder Dick Higgins stated that much of the best art being made at the time fell between media. He linked the dismantling of divisions among media to decompartmentalization in society more generally and to the impending dawn of a "classless" society. After High Art, represented by the elite medium of painting, he wrote, came the deluge, brought on by Duchamp's ready-mades, Robert Rauschenberg's combines, and Alan Kaprow's happenings. Intermedia, the term Higgins selected to describe this trend, referred to works of art that conceptually fused different and, often, non-traditional media, rather than simply juxtaposing them, as with "mixed media" or "multimedia" art. In intermedia, boundaries between mediums dissolve and new mediums emerge. Visual poetry is a classic example of intermedia, as are Nam June Paik's video sculptures. Never a prescriptive term, intermedia remains fluid, both as an artistic practice and an art-historical category. It resists periodization, as well. Higgins associated intermedia with post-war art yet understood intermedia as a mode of making taken up by many cultures across time. Essays in the volume consider a range of subjects from the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art and visual culture, exploring in detail and depth particular instances of intermedia within specific cultural, social, and historical contexts and in relation to both current and contemporaneous theorizations of media, image making, and materiality. Together, the essays present a rich and newly illuminating account of American artistic practice as an open and proliferating system of medial interrelation and exchange, highlighting the persistent and experimental cross-pollinations and transgenic mutations among painting, drawing, print, sculpture, photography, film, installation, performance, site specific work, and social practice in the art of the United States"--
The history of innovative intermedia art practices in America.
In 1965, American artist and Fluxus cofounder Dick Higgins stated that much of the best art being made at the time fell between media. He linked the dismantling of divisions among media to decompartmentalization in society and the impending dawn of a “classless” society. After high art, he wrote, came the deluge brought on by Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades, Robert Rauschenberg’s combines, and Alan Kaprow’s happenings. Intermedia, the term Higgins selected to describe this trend, referred to works of art that fuse different, often nontraditional, media. In intermedia, boundaries between mediums dissolve and new mediums emerge. Never a prescriptive term, intermedia remains fluid, both as an artistic practice and an art historical category.
The essays in this volume consider a range of subjects from nineteenth- and twentieth-century American art and visual culture, exploring instances of intermedia within specific cultural, social, and historical contexts and in relation to theories of media, image-making, and materiality. They present a rich account of American artistic practice as an open system of medial interrelation and exchange, highlighting experimental cross-pollinations and mutations among artistic forms.
