Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism

Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism examines the critical reception of Pop Art in America during the 1960s. Comparing the ideas of a group of New York-based critics, including Leo Steinberg, Susan Sontag, and Max Kozloff, among others, Sylvia Harrison demonstrates how their ideas - broadly categorized as either sociological or philosophical - bear a striking similarity to the body of thought and opinion which is now associated with deconstructive post-modernism. Perceived through these disciplinary lenses, Pop Art arises as not only a reflection of the dominance of mass communications and capitalist consumerism in post-war American society, but also a subversive commentary on worldviews and the factors necessary for their formation.