Contents

• Introduction: dilemmas of professional culture
• The case for modern art as a distinct form of knowledge
• Modern art in a provincial nation
• Modern art and California’s progressive legacies
• From an era of grand ambitions
• Becoming postmodern
• California assemblage: art as counterhistory
• Learning from the Watts Towers
• Contemporary art along the U.S.-Mexican border
• Conclusion: improvising from the margins