David Antin - Böcker

'We got to talking' so David Antin begins the introduction to "Radical Coherency", embarking on the pursuit that has marked much of his breathless, brilliantly conversational work. From his position in the visual arts department at the University of California, San Diego, Antin has served since the late 1960s as bantering laureate of the American avant garde. Whether spoken under the guise of performance artist or poet, cultural explorer or literary critic, his innovative observations have helped us to better understand everything from Pop to Postmodernism. Intimately wedded to the worlds of conceptual art and poetics, "Radical Coherency" collects Antin's influential critical essays and spontaneous, performed lectures (or 'talk-pieces') for the very first time, capturing one of the most distinctive perspectives in contemporary literature. The essays presented here range from front-line interventions in present debates on poetics to fugitive pieces from the '60s and '70s that still sparkle today - and represent a goldmine for art historians of the period.From Andy Warhol to Allan Kaprow, Mark Rothko to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Antin takes the reader on an idiosyncratic, personal journey through twentieth-century culture, including his earliest publications in "ARTNews" and more recent reflections on the legendary figures who ran in his circle. Forty years in the making, "Radical Coherency" will be welcomed by any fan of this consummate trailblazer.

In this series of intricately related texts, internationally known poet, critic, and performance artist David Antin explores the experience of time - how it's felt, remembered, and recounted. These free-form talk pieces - sometimes called talk poems or simply talks - began as improvisations at museums, universities, and poetry centers where Antin was invited to come and think out loud. Serious and playful, they move rapidly from keen analysis to powerful storytelling to passages of pure comedy, as they range kaleidoscopically across Antin's experiences: in the New York City of his childhood and youth, the Eastern Europe of family and friends, and the New York and Southern California of his art and literary career. The author's analysis and abrasive comedy have been described as a mix of Lenny Bruce and Ludwig Wittgenstein, his commitment to verbal invention and narrative as a fusion of Mark Twain and Gertrude Stein. Taken together, these pieces provide a rich oral history of and critical context for the evolution of the California art scene from the 1960s onward.

-- Talking bridges the stylistic gap between David Antin's early experimental poems and the talk pieces for which he is most well-known. Combining one poem with two improvisations and his first published talk-poem, Talking is a unique book that cannot be classified as solely poetry, fiction or criticism. Infusing the lyricism of poetry with the compelling pull of the spoken voice, this collection is a testament to David Antin's reputation as one of the most influential artists of the contemporary era.