This essay examines what was called the academization of the North American avant-garde in the 1970s and 1980s, arguing for a material historical understanding of the role that academic institutions played in sustaining avantgarde distribution coops , regionalizing exhibition, publishing criticism, providing employment, and developing future generations of artists, critics, and audiences.
In 1967, film critic Stanley Kauffmann reflected on “the end of a decade that had seen the rise of a Film Generation around the country” (1968, 274). Yet, this rise of a Film Generation happened at a time when the theatrical box office suffered its lowest attendance: In 1971, the smallest number of tickets was sold in American film history — 16 million per week (Cook 2002, 14). How do we make sense of this apparent contradiction between the decline in theatrical film‐going and the rise of a “Film Generation”?
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