Includes bibliographical references (page 59).

This book sets out to disentangle the many strands which have appeared since Pop started the cult of cool in art. The Pop artists proved that figuration was not dead; and their Photo-Realist successors have carried the icy gloss finish to its limits. The Abstract Expressionists, too, have had successors, who proved that abstraction was not dead either; these were the high Hard Edge artists, whose rejection of illusion was part of the trend towards the reduction of form and content to a minimum. With Minimal Art many people expected painting and sculpture to disappear altogether; this has not happened, but they have been joined by a number of would-be successors: Environments, Actions, Land art, photographic records, printed definitions, Conceptual art. The contact with popular culture, with the Rock underground, even with cybernetics and academic philosophy, has changed the physical appearance of art without changing the art world - and without diminishing the resources of creativity which mankind still puts into art. - taken from back cover.