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an enjoyable exploraton of retro chic ... Guffey offers an intriguing investigation of our seduction by the past The Independent provides an interesting take on the various rapidly recycling revivals of the late 20th century ... a thought-provoking read - it weaves in lots of fresh and stimulating material which adds to our understanding of the complexities of post war cultural life. Building Design This is an informative, interesting and provocative book that adds depth and complexity to many aspects of modern art and design history and to diverse related areas of academic study. Journal of Design History In this informative and lively book, Elizabeth Guffey cuts through the ambiguities of the term retro and examines its roots, evolution and myriad manifestations ... Throughout, the book seeks to understand how and why the recent past has been transformed into a revolving door of pop historicism ... Based on considerable original research and including rich anecdotal material, the book is aimed at all readers interested in retro as well as twentieth century art, design and consumer culture. Concept for Living Magazine Guffey's analysis is an important complement to design-history books that gloss over cultural undercurrents that help shape the way things look. Winterthur Portfolio
Product Description
Flares are in. Flares are out. Flares are back again. Fads constantly cycle and recycle through popular culture, each time in a slightly new incarnation. The term retro' has become the buzz word for describing such trends, but what does it mean? Elizabeth Guffey explores here the ambiguous cultural meanings of the term and reveals why some trends just never seem to stay dead. Drawing upon a wealth of original research and entertaining anecdotal material, Guffey unearths the roots of the term retro and chronicles its evolving manifestations in culture and art throughout the last century. Whether in art, design, fashion or music, the idea of retro has often meant a re-emergence of styles and sensibilities that evoke familiar touchstones of memory from the not-so-distant past. Guffey explores how and why the past keeps coming back to haunt us in a variety of forms, from the comeback of Art Nouveau nearly fifty years after its original decline, to the infusion of Art Deco into the kitsch glamour of Pop art, to the recent popularity over 1980s vogue. She also considers how advertisers and media have employed the power of such cultural nostalgia, using recycled television jingles, familiar old slogans and famous art to sell a surprising range of products. An engrossing and wholly unprecedented study, "Retro" reveals how the past is embedded in the future of contemporary art and culture.
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First Sentence
When the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened its summer exhibition season in 1966, it was little prepared for the rush and hype that would surround its retrospective of an obscure nineteenth-century draughtsman and illustrator. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
When the Victoria and Albert Museum in London opened its summer exhibition season in 1966, it was little prepared for the rush and hype that would surround its retrospective of an obscure nineteenth-century draughtsman and illustrator. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow! Engaging Scholarship, 6 Jan 2007
By american art savant "mazie" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Retro: The Culture of Revival (FOCI) (Paperback)
Elizabeth Guffey begins <Retro: The Culture of Revival> with a useful tracing of the meanings of "retro" and the chronology of retro in popular culture. The introduction highlights Guffey's argument that retro recalls the recent past yet without nostalgia. Instead, retro ambivalently looks at the past and assigns its own contemporary meanings to past art and design. Retro, Guffey argues, counters the optimism imbued in Modernism, which posits the future to be progressively better than the present and certainly than the past. Retro brings Modernity's blind faith in progress back to reality with humor and irony. It is that impish reminder that the past is past, yet still present--however changed the associations might be--in the borrowings of current popular culture.
In the first of the four chapters, Guffey examines Art Nouveau. After establishing how Art Nouveau was initially conceived, and to whom it appealed, Guffey reveals how Art Nouveau's two sides--one wholesome, the other psychological and dark--later would appeal to both revivalists interested in pure recall as well as retro subversion. Guffey reveals why Art Nouveau would be in favor in the 1900s but out of style by the 1930s, until the retro movement of the 1950s that included Modernist design and anxiety of atomic devastation. Guffey traces how Art Nouveau's being read as "camp," designs and attitudes that seek to subvert power, helped establish its participation in the counter-culture of the mid-1960s.
Each chapter has five or six sub-themes, which outline Guffey's research and arguments. Retro: The Culture of Revival recounts retro movements and demonstrates why retro has recurring appeal to popular culture. Guffey's well-written and jargon-free text is a pleasure to read. Happily for academics whose interests are so often relegated to obscurity, Guffey demonstrates that academics can also triumph having hip and cool scholarship.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
That's so retro..., 29 May 2007
By Suzanne L. Kaebnick - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Retro: The Culture of Revival (FOCI) (Paperback)
"That's so Retro..." Having grown up with that phrase, it was an absolute delight to read Elizabeth E. Guffey's analysis of our society's uses of the concept, "retro" in her book, Retro: The Culture of Revival. Her writing is as fun to read as I remember the word was to use as teenager--- proud as I was of my ironic attitude on the world. And Guffey easily, effortlessly encompasses a broad swath of culture: film, kitchen technology, clothing, music, painting, architecture etc. in her cogent, succinct arguments. This was very illuminating for me, perhaps especially as I am not an art historian. One example early on of this wide-ranging discussion is in her introduction to one of her fundamental arguments:
"...retro considers the recent past with an unsentimental nostalgia. It is unconcerned with the sanctity of tradition or reinforcing social values; indeed, it often insinuates a form of subversion while side-stepping historical accuracy. In 1966 the bikini-clad, all-female staff of the Samson and Delilah barbers in London gave a winking nod to a nineteenth-century world of erotic fantasy when they offered haircuts in a salon decorated with Beardsley-inspired murals. Retro quotes styles from the past, but applies them in anomalous settings; it regards the past from a bemused distance, its dark humour re-mixing popular mid-century drinks and serving them up as `atomic cocktails'. ...it gently nudges us away from older ideas of `Modernity' and towards an uncharted future. The culture of revival has changed." (12)
Lots of pictures throughout, such as one for above mentioned barbershop of Samson and Delilah, of course help bring her arguments "home" and are part of the pleasure of her book.
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