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An Anti-Catalog

he Catalogue Committee of Artists Meeting for Cultural Change, New York, NY, 1977

Scare copy of this seminal artist's book. Critical document / artists' book that takes the Whitney Museum of Art to task for their 1976, Bicentennial, exhibition of works from the private collection of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III. "The neutrality of art is something we usually take for granted. Art, and the institutions that exhibit art - so we have been led to assume - have nothing to do with social or political issues. We experience exhibition, like the exhibition of the Rockefeller collections, mainly in terms of the individual works displayed and we react according to our preferences. Yet exhibitions result from a process of selection, and the selections that lead to the assembling of a collection or the mounting of an exhibition are of necessity based upon beliefs about art and the world art reflects. Thus, an exhibition, seen as a whole, embodies a point of view. But because we are asked to believe in the neutrality of art, that point of view usually goes unnoticed. Yet even a summary overview of an exhibition often reveals an underlying bias. In the case of the Rockefeller collection, "American art" turns out to be almost exclusively the work of white male artists. The collection contains not a single work by a Hispanic or native American and only one work by a woman artist and one work by a Black. The omissions (and they are only the most obvious) reflect a specific outlook - an outlook that is hardly neutral. There are those who argue that John D. Rockefeller III has the right to collect whatever he wishes. But Rockefeller's freedom to collect (or the reason he enjoys that freedom) is not the immediate issue. A private collection is, conceivably, a private matter. But when it is presented at an institution such as the Whitney Museum, the colleciton enters the public realm. here the owner's apparently personal outlook and prejudices take on the force of a polemic. The exhibition of the Rockefeller collection is, in effect, a public argument - an argument - made all the more powerful by its seeming neutrality - for the Rockefeller view of history and the Rockefeller view of art..." -- from A Statement within catalog. Written, designed and produced by Rudolf Baranik, Sarina Bromberg, Sarah Charlesworth, Susanne Cohn, Darol Duncan, Shawn Gargagliano, Eunice Golden, Janet Koenig, Joseph Kosuth, Anthony McCall, Paul Pechter, Elaine Bendock Pelosini, Aaron Roseman, Larry Rosing, Ann Marie Rousseau, Alan Wallach, Walter Weissman. Additional texts by Jimmy Durham, Gerald Horne, Benny Andrews, Lucy Lippard and others. Contains section of documents sent to the Museum, petitions, advertisements, protest images, and finally letter from Museum's librarian soliciting copy of the Anti-Catalog. In printed white wrappers. 79 pages. Illustrated. With an old paperclip attached to free front endpaper. Else clean and Near Fine.. Book Condition: Near Fine

First American Edition