Collecting as Modernist Practice

A book that's going to rewrite what we think about art objects, poems, property, museums, anthologies-and race and modernity and on and on... So comprehensive is it that it will be impossible to ignore. -- Tim Morton Ecology Without Nature 2012 The final chapter on the institutionalization of modernism in archival collections and rare book libraries is particularly illuminating for the history of librarianship... The breadth of his scholarship, evidenced by the seventy pages dedicated to the index and bibliography, makes this title a critical addition to libraries supporting modern art collections and modern art history programs. Art Libraries Society of North America 2012 Acute and important... a wide-ranging study based on the unexpected but revealing parallels between the selection of work for poetry anthologies and the acquisition of art for collections during the modernist era. -- Barry Schwabsky The Nation 2012 Braddock's book stands as a towering achievement... Essential. Choice 2012 Collecting as a Modernist Practice not only explains how art is consumed, but it also analyzes how art circulates, not freely, but according to choices made by people who enjoy either power, influence, or fortune. The author not only tells how things happened, but he also links decisions with consequences... Historians of ideas, sociologists of art and culture, and advanced students in cultural studies will surely benefit from this elegant, well-written book. -- Yves Laberge Journal of American Culture 2013