Eleanor Antin (Paperback)

As critics begin to assess the accomplishments of the postmodern era, the work of Eleanor Antin, one of the period's early innovators and veteran practitioners, has proved seminal. Over the past 30 years, Antin has produced conceptual artworks, mail art, photographic narratives, performances, videotapes, short and feature-length movies, and what she calls "filmic installations" -- theatrical environments that can be entered and include rear-screen projections through which stories unfold. Her work from the late 1970s centers on the lives of three invented personae, or what Antin calls her "other selves" the King, the Ballerina, and the Nurse. As a first generation feminist artist, Antin explored the lives of these fictional characters, whose made-up histories reflect her notions of self as well as her vision of the dreams and desires of American culture. This exhibition catalogue, presented by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is the first comprehensive survey of Antin's art in all its inventive forms.