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Plastics
Series: ART/WORK
Brief Description
Why modern and contemporary art and art conservation can't be understood without taking account of the revolutionary impact of plastics. Modern and contemporary art wouldn't exist without the invention of plastics. From sculpture to paint, and photography to film, plastics have shaped every major medium of...
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Plastics
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Description
Why modern and contemporary art and art conservation can't be understood without taking account of the revolutionary impact of plastics.
Modern and contemporary art wouldn't exist without the invention of plastics. From sculpture to paint, and photography to film, plastics have shaped every major medium of art. In turn, plastics have revolutionised art conservation, transforming the possibilities of preservation but also producing new challenges for conservators struggling to preserve toxic and degrading material. Hailed as utopian in the twentieth century, plastics today are often understood as pollution and waste—a central cause of ecological crisis. Plastics is the first book to address the multifaceted history of plastics from the perspective of artists, art historians, conservators, and environmental scientists.
Plastics demonstrates that this material cannot easily be summarised as toxic or utopian, catastrophic or necessary. Instead, plastics define the modern world in both its possibility and failures. The book also reveals how artists have been a critically overlooked voice in debates about plastics, and how they have offered theories of the material through works that explore its potential and harmfulness.
Presenting a variety of perspectives on the world of plastics through the lens of art, artmaking, art history, and art conservation, Plastics shows why and how coming to terms with this material is critical to understanding not only modern and contemporary art and art conservation but also the crises of the twenty-first century.
Series: ART/WORK
View allBook Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780691238821
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 11 November 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Illustration: 39 color + 4 b/w illus.
Contributors:
- Edited by Ittai Weinryb
- Edited by Caroline Fowler
- Contributions by Bess Williamson
- Contributions by Susan Heald
- Contributions by Kevin Beasley
- Contributions by Elena Torok
- Contributions by Jennifer Gabrys
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 178.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 160
About the Author
Anne Gunnison is the Alan J. Dworsky Senior Associate Conservator of Objects at the Yale University Art Gallery.
David Joselit is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University and the author of, among other books, Art's Properties and After Art (both Princeton).
Also by David Joselit
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