Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966 (Menil Collection (YUP))

by Franklin Sirmans and Michelle White

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Book cover for Vija Celmins

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American artist Vija Celmins (b. 1938) is widely admired and respected for her sublime images of night skies and ocean waves. Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, 1964-1966 looks closely at Celmins's early work, which is deeply engaged with the Pop Art scene of 1960s Los Angeles. The authors argue convincingly for a better understanding of this body of work, which is not well known by contemporary audiences, both within Celmins's overall career, and as part of the complicated historical context in which she was working.

The book illustrates Celmins's work from the mid-1960s. These paintings and sculptures of war planes, smoking guns, and other representations of death and disaster were informed by images found in books and magazines. Also reflecting the moment when print began to give way to television, as well as the impact of the first televised war, they are creative interpretations of a world destabilized by the turmoil of war and domestic political conflicts.



Distributed for The Menil Collection


Exhibition Schedule:

The Menil Collection
(11/19/10-02/20/11)

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(03/13/11-06/05/11)

  • ISBN10 0300166125
  • ISBN13 9780300166125
  • Publish Date 31 January 2011
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 26 January 2023
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Yale University Press