Art in the Age of Aquarius, 1955-1970

This passionate, scholarly review of art of the 1960s by a curator/art historian who was instrumentally involved in the movements discussed. Seitz, who died in 1974, organized influential exhibitions at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. He defends pop art's ``acts of creative negation''; decodes happenings, assemblages and environments as attempts to wrest meaning from a fragmented urban existence; ties earthworks to the destruction of the world's ecosystems; and situates outspoken political art within the kaleidoscope of '60s counterculture. He also discusses minimalism, conceptual art, monumental sculpture, op art, color field painting and photorealism in terms of the era's compulsion for innovation and change. Nearly 200 illustrations (36 in color) reproduce fresh, arresting, often unfamiliar images that crackle with '60s energy. Editor Price is chief curator of the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, Tex. (Sept.)