Johanna Drucker's "sweet dream" is for a new and more positive approach to contemporary art. Calling for a revamping of the academic critical vocabulary used to discuss art into one more befitting current creative practices, Drucker argues that contemporary art is fully engaged with material culture—yet still struggling to escape the oppositional legacy of the early twentieth-century avant-garde.Drucker shows that artists today are aware of working within the ideologies of mainstream culture and have replaced avant-garde defiance with eager complicity. Finding their materials at flea markets or exploring celebrity culture, contemporary artists have created a vibrantly participatory movement that exudes enthusiasm and affirmation—all while critics continue to cling to an outmoded vocabulary of opposition and radical negativity that defined modernism's avant-garde. At the cutting edge of new media research, Drucker surveys a wide range of exciting contemporary artists, demonstrating their clear departure from the past and petitioning viewers and critics to shift their terms and sensibilities as well. Sweet Dreams is a testament to the creative processes and self-conscious heterogeneity of art today as well as a revolutionary effort to solicit collaboration that will encourage the production of imaginative thought and contribute to contemporary life.

By Johanna Drucker.

Traces the history and evolution of writing from ancient times to the present, and discusses how the letters of the alphabet have been invested with political, mystical, and religious significance over the centuries

Product Description: Johanna Drucker is among the foremost authorities on the history of alphabets, writing, artists' books, and visual poetry. This book is a compendium of Drucker's thought - yet rather than anthologize from her numerous published books, Figuring the Word collects writings only previously found in academic and literary journals, as well as transcriptions of her lectures and interviews...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: a novel by critic/experimental typographer