“In preparation since 1969 — rejected so far by publishers — this slender volume finally sees the light of day nineteen years after the untimely death of Goodman — the first published collection of essays on NO!art. No understanding of Radical — as opposed to market-oriented art — is possible without background information on NO!art, it occupies the strategic juncture where artistic production and socio-cultural action meet. This volume deals mainly with the collective period from about 1960 to 1964; individual earlier seminal works dating from about 1955 and individual later works dealing with "Women's Liberation," the new antisemitism, postrevolutionary violence, postrevolutionary sadomasochism are included. The origins of NO!art sprout from the Jewish experience, struck root in the world's largest Jewish community, New York, a product of armies, concentration camps, Lumpenproletariat artists. Its targets are the hypocritical intelligentsia, capitalist culture manipulation, consumerism, American and other Molochs. Their aim total unabashed self-expression in art leading to social involvement. Collective confrontation artists as early as the Peace Demonstrations of 1961-62. No lighthearted Duchampesque Dadaists, Neodadaists, or "pop-artists"; no consumerism's middleclass nor Nouveau Riche Liberals' neuter background makers. But believers in the unfashionable notion of Art with a capital "A". — This is a very short version — we hope for eventual publication of a complete version with full illustrations and bibliography of NO!art: Pinups, Excrement, Protest, Jew-art.”
A documentation of the No!art activities by Boris Lurie + Seymour Krim, with contributions by Louis Aragon, Isser Aronovici, Dore Ashton, erje Ayden, Gregory Battcock, Herb Brown, Al Brunelle, Iris Clert, Fielding Dawson, Allan D’Arcangelo, De Hirsh Margules, Dov Or-Ner, Erro, John Fischer, Stanley Fisher, Gerard Gassiot-Talabot, Dorothy Gillespie, Esther Gilman, Augustus Goertz, Sam Goodman, Thomas B.Hess, Marcel Janco, Wolfgang Kahlke, Elmer L.Kline, Seymour Krim, Yaoi Kusama, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Boris Lurie, Mario De Micheli, Jack Micheline, Brian O’Doherty, Lil Picard, Harold Rosenberg, Barry N.Schwartz, Arturo Schwarz, Paul Simon, Gertrude Stein, Micelle Stuart, Jean Toche, Wolf Vostell, Stella Waitzkin, Ray Wisniewski, Tom Wolfe.
With an extensive section of b/w reproduction of works and documentation,German and English, soft cover, 108 pages, 20,5 x 14,5 cm, Berlin Köln 1988
