Out of the Ivory Tower: The Independent Group and Popular Culture Hardcover - 2013

From the publisher

The Independent Group is now the subject of global scholarly interest, and this book, a sequel to The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945-59, explores the Anglo-American phenomenon from a new perspective. The Group included fine artists Magda Cordell, Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull; architects Alison and Peter Smithson, James Stirling and Colin St John Wilson; graphic designer Edward Wright; music producer Frank Cordell and writers Lawrence Alloway, Reyner Banham, John McHale and Toni del Renzio. This radical collective met at the ICA in London during the early 1950s, and worked with and within the new world of both the avant garde and popular culture.

This sequel includes an in-depth discussion of the recent historiography of the Independent Group, and examines its history from an alternative perspective, that of popular culture. Arguing that the established historiography reinforces patriarchal patterns of power, this counter narrative investigates the nature of culture, in its broadest sense. The book fills in gaps in understanding, by looking at the Group beyond the 'high culture' paradigm, and include discussions of the domestic space, Hollywood film, fashion, mass circulation magazines, science-fiction and popular music to broaden the general understanding of the Group.

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