The Bride and the Bachelors: Five Masters of the Avant-Garde

By Calvin Tomkins and Calvin Tompkins

Book Overview

An aesthetic subversive who signed his name on a bottle-drying rack and called it "readymade" art. A composer who cast the rules of music to the winds in order to "let sounds be themselves." A maker of suicidal machines. An artist whose pieces incorporate real bedclothes and stuffed goats. A choreographer who delights in the prosaic and the awkward. With lively understanding and irreverent wit, distinguished art critic Calvin Tomkins deciphers the challenging-and sometimes mystifying-work of Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Jean Tinguely, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cerce Cunningham.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670002488
• ISBN13: 9780670002481
• Release Date: November 1968
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Amaze Your Friends With Your Knowledge of Modern Art!

Tomkins' five essays are a great place to start if you've ever wondered about the purpose behind the "avant-garde" in art and want a general overview of its origins. The chapter on Jean Tinguely is especially fine: it is hard to resist the story of a man who builds robots designed to continuously paint abstracts, start fires or simply destroy themselves. The book is well written, easy to read and contains a subtle sense of humor. Reading this book will make you more intelligent.

excellent art criticism for the neophyte

this book is a surprisingly accessible work on the lives of five important artists (duchamp, cage, tinguely, rauschenberg, and cunningham) of the avant-garde, each working from a different discipline. tomkins has gathered exhaustive biographical data on each artist and the reader gets the impression that he is good friends with each of them. his critical stance on the artwork discussed is respectful, and he refrains from using a lot of artworld jargon. a very entertaining read.