Art in Theory 1900 - 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas

The subtitle to this book is "An Anthology of Changing Ideas", which is remarkably accurate. The excerpts in this book run the ideological spectrum from Winston Churchill to Adolf Hitler, and everyone in-between. The assembly of so many artists, politicians, philosophers, and theorists in one place has had a profound impact on my understanding of particular artworks, and my relationship to art in general. It's an intimidating book, but somehow this diverse group of thinkers is organized in a way that could be read straight through. Personally, I find it to be an invaluable tool for research and artistic growth.

It seems that students of art and art history eventually end up with a copy of this book in their possession, at least for a while. This is a book of excerpts. It's fantastic because it presents the written thoughts of artists, critics, and intellectuals in their own words. It's maddening because all the entries are trimmed, edited, boiled down into excerpts. The book is a good starting point and offers a meaty cross-section of thought in the twentieth century art world. But if one wants to read the whole article, one must seek the original sources to find what has been cut away. Also, editing the work this way allows the editors to insert their own slant on the material. Consequently, though I like the book, I can't give it five stars.

my college library had the "feminist art theory" volume from this same series, and i LOVED that book to death.
since i liked that book so much, i thought it would be a good investment to cash in a recent gift certificate on this hefty volume.
i wish that i had gone for the feminist art volume-- it's much more relevant for anyone who is interested in art as political expression... that topic is really not addressed in this anthology.
it's probably still good as a reference if you're going to be writing a lot of papers for standard survey courses covering this time period, though.

Had I read the reviews about this book, I wouldn't have bought it.
I had to though, for my "Art: Language and Theory" class, in my second year of Graphic Design major. I was shocked with it at first, it's almost 1300 pages, with not a single image in it! It looked extremely dull. But the thing is, I found it extremely useful, and enjoyable to read at times too. It covers art theories in the 20th century, and has texts written by artists, philosophers, polticians and much more.
I now refer to it with every paper I write, every presentation I make and so on. There are also letters and notes in the book by artists such as Cezanne and Matisse, which are delightful to read. I use a dictionary sometimes, but not always, though I agree, the language is hard to comprehend at first glance.
I don't think any art student or teacher could do without this book, I used it as a beginners guide while studying art, and I won't stop using it. Don't be put off when you first get this book, you'll learn to value and appreciate it with little time.

I used this book for a graduate theory class and ended up reading pretty much all of it. The book provides an excellent overview of the major movements during the past 100 years but also misses out on a lot of the most current trends. I believe there were less than 3 articles dated after 1999. The writings seem to be obscure at times, with the editors trying to draw distant similarites between varying fields. Most of the passages used overly pretentious language, so keep a dictionary nearby. This book is not a beginner guide and it helps to have some knowledge of art history as well as a little world history. A better or easier read would have to be "Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art"...