Rhetorical Image

Catalogue of the exhibition "Rhetorical Image" that through a dialogue across cultures, between European, Soviet, Brazilian, Japanese, Canadian, and American artists, reexamines the role of the artist as an active participant in society. The New Museum has chosen to undertake such an exhibition at a moment when the art world is moving away from an interest in social and political issues, and towards a renewed appreciation of minimalism and abstraction. It is a move welcomed with relief by many. At last, people are returning to real art, they feel, to an art of predominantly formal concerns.