Raiding the Icebox: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Culture

By Peter Wollen

Book Overview

Raiding the Icebox is a kaleidoscopic review of the avant-garde and radical subcultures of the twentieth century, and explains how the most powerful artistic statements of the era redrew the line between high and low art. Beginning with an analysis of the role of Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet, Wollen argues that modernism has always had a hidden, suppressed side which cannot easily be absorbed into the master-narrative of modernity. Wollen reviews the hopes, fears and expectations of artists and critics such as the Bauhaus movement, as fascinated by Henry Ford's assembly line as they were by the Hollywood dream factory, concluding with Guy Debord's caustic dystopian vision of an all-consuming "Society of the Spectacle." Finally, Wollen chronicles the emergence of a subversive sensibility as he explores some of the unexpected new cultural forms which non-Western artists are taking as modernism enters into crisis at the beginning of a new century: reversing the rules of the game and raiding the icebox of the West.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1844672506
• ISBN13: 9781844672509
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Stirring the muddy waters of history

Although Mr. Wollen has been criticized (I'm refering to the debate collected in "Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents" edited by Tom McDonough) for his supposedly questionable political position (and where he was exactly) on those exhaustingly and tirelessly addressed days of May 1968 by European intellectuals, this does not reflect negatively on this collection of historical reappraisals. Wollen has dredged out of the dustbin of history many facts that are conveniently dropped from the ruling versions of history. For example, his exposition of Jackson Pollock as a far more politically involved, and to a degree his artistic practice, individual stands at odds with Clement Greenberg's and others' quick evacuation of the man from his art. Wollen's essay on the mimicry of early Soviet and American ideologies, particularly in relation to Fordist means of production, problematizes (at the very least) the commonly accepted wisdom of the antagonism between the two powers. This collection illuminates several historical narratives of politics and culture as precisely that, fictive creations. It is an insightful read and there is bound to be at least 1 or 2 instances, if not more, where you will be disturbed at the inexplicable depth to which some will steep simply to bolster their own positions. Returning to the Pollock example, there is no reason beside sheer megalomania that Greenberg and others in the art world should have decided to avoid considering and discussing some infamous moments of Pollock's. Unless there was something more sinister involved, which calls into question Greenberg's and others' so-called commitment to socialist and emancipatory ends. And this is the important point of Wollen's collection. This book is a vastly worthwhile read if you have any interest in cultural studies, ideological critiques, historical investigations, or political interests. There is a supposed reprint coming, which is very good news.