The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization

Abstract

The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization provides an original account of the relationship between postindustrial capitalism and postmodern culture. Examining American conceptual art and experimental poetry alongside sociological and historical accounts of postwar labor, this book describes the cultural production of the period as a “counter-laboratory,” a space of speculation and experiment from which new modes of interaction emerged, premised on collaboration, mutability and free association, and utilizing the literary resources of lyric address, free indirect discourse, and the poetic line. As Bernes argues, these artistic models and challenges were eventually absorbed by industry in the long process of capitalist restructuring that followed the crisis of the 1970s, providing the conceptual germ for the eventual corporate grammar of participation, teamwork, flexibility, and creativity. The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization therefore provides a prehistory of the labor-intensive present, examining how the art and writing of the 1960s and 1970s served as a vanishing mediator, a set of challenges to work and the workplace that, unwittingly, assisted in the renewal of work and helped to reverse the trendline of rising wages and falling work hours that had held in most of the industrialized world for the better part of the 20th century. Bringing together an extensive understanding of postwar capitalism and postwar literary and artistic developments, Bernes demonstrates, conclusively, that the work of art and work in general share a common fate.