The British Avant Garde:A Joint Venture Between the New York Cultural Center andStudio InternationalMagazine

Abstract

This essay considers the relevance of The British Avant Garde exhibition at the New York Cultural Center in 1971 to the reputation and discussion of British artists in the US, and its subsequent impact in Britain. It situates the exhibition with reference to Conceptual Art and Conceptual Aspects at the NYCC and Information at the Museum of Modern Art, both held in 1970, and within the background milieu of a lively transatlantic and multi-directional network of artists such as Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Ian Burn, Barry Flanagan, Dan Graham, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, Richard Long, Mel Ramsden, Sol LeWitt and Lawrence Weiner, who were developing alternative ways to make and to distribute work by using text, photocopies, and self-publication as forms of production as well as becoming the site of exhibition. Devised by Charles Harrison, assistant editor of Studio International magazine, the exhibition was a collaboration between the magazine and the NYCC, directed by Donald Karshan. Despite the mixed press reviews in New York, the exhibition paved the way for establishing institutional support for the artists in the UK.