Gary McDonogh. Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture

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GARY McDONOGH

Pepsi

soda

performance art

Performance art is surprisingly difficult to define. It requires that an artist perform an

action over time (even if very brief), either in a public or a private place, with or without

an audience present, which may or may not be documented photographically or by other

means. Performance art thus lacks the stylistic continuity of such avant-garde artistic

movements as

abstract expressionism

pop art

. Nevertheless, performance in one

form or another has appeared in relation to every post-1945 avant-garde movement (critic

Harold Rosenberg even referred to the abstract expressionist’s canvas as an arena). It has

included participatory multimedia events such as Allan Kaprow’s “happenings” of the

late 1950s and Carolee Schnee-man’s erotic rituals of the 1960s. Extreme events include

Chris Burden having himself shot in the arm and Vito Acconci masturbating while

hidden under a gallery floor, in the early 1970s, and Karen Finley’s impassioned feminist

theatrical monologues of the 1980s. There are also more familiar events, such as versions

of dance or stand-up comedy which have been incorporated into art contexts.

In the American art world, performance art was most influential in the late 1960s and

early 1970s. Some performance artists were concerned with the reintroduction of ritual

into aesthetic experience; some used performance to bring art and activism together.

Others developed from

minimalism

an interest in experience as embodied, and from both

minimalism and conceptual art a concern with the production of meaning as a

articipatory process. In this regard, performance art appeared as a critical response to

formalist, modernist orthodoxy, which required that art seek autonomy from social reality

The strongest work from the period, by feminist artists and others including Acconci and

Burden, brought into question normative assumptions about relations between public and

rivate realms of behavior. At the same time, these boundaries were being tested by the

counterculture, the

women’s liberation

movement, the continuation of the

civil rights

struggle and protests against the

Vietnam War

Further reading

Banes, S. (1993)

Greenwich Village 1963,

Durham: Duke University.

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Hart, L. and Phelan, P. (eds) (1993)

Acting Out: Feminist Performances,

Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan.

Henri, A. (1974)

Total Art,

New York: Oxford University.

O’Dell, K. (1998)

Contract with the Skin,

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.

Sayre, H. (1989)

The Object of Performance,

Chicago: University of Chicago.

Schimmel, P. (1998)

Out of Actions,

New York: Thames and Hudson.

FRAZER WARD

performing arts centers

Major urban monuments of the late twentieth century reflecting public support for the

arts and strategies for competitive urban development. Earlier nineteenth- and twentieth-

century centers for

theater, opera,

symphony and ballet often depended on individual

philanthropy and the power of collective elite representation evoked by “opening night”

New York’s

Metropolitan Opera. By the 1950s, the Met’s move to Lincoln Center

resulted in slum clearance and neighborhood revitalization funded by city and federal

revenues. Both smaller (

Louisville’s

Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts) and larger

cities (

Washington’s

Kennedy Center and

Philadelphia’s

$240 million new center) have

used these monuments to promote urban prestige and downtown development, alongside

other features of the commoditized metropolis, including stadiums, festival marketplaces

and historical theme parks.

GARY McDONOGH

Perot, H.Ross

b. 1930

Successful

Texas

businessperson, political party organizer and author, Perot came into

the national spotlight in 1992 when he ran for president as a third-

arty candidate. Using

his own money to launch his campaign, Perot focused on the economy by airing half-

hour infomercials during the campaign. Perot captured 19 percent of the 1992 vote, the

highest percentage captured by a third-

arty candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

Concerned with grassroots political involvement, Perot helped establish the Reform Party

and became its presidential nominee in 1996, winning 9 percent of the popular vote.

KATE M.KENSKI

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pets

In the 1990s, American households include 60 million cats and an almost equal number

of dogs, and myriad birds, fish, lizards, spiders, pigs, wolves and others that constitute an

important symbiosis of person and animal. Domestic animals have long been part o

American life, although today’s pampered companions might be surprised to know that

they were once expected to work. Contemporary pets, however, also create a $20 billion

industry in breeding, supplies and care.

This is coupled, unfortunately, with overpopulation. Strays and the constant demands

on the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals underscore a careless

surplus of domestic animals, whether feral dog packs or unwanted kittens. These, like

problematic exotics such as overgrown Vietnamese pot-

ellied pigs and declawed tigers,

oint to the cultural definition of the pet as a cute, relatively undemanding amusement for

children

and lonely people to adopt.

Pets are treated as members of the

family

or even surrogates for family and friends.

The idealization of

suburban

domesticity created a special niche for Spot the Dog,

embedded in television and film even though cats passed dogs in popularity in the 1980s.

Yet, the convergence of surrogacy and affluence sets apart American pets. Foods grade

them by age and demands (including diets and organic foods), accessories allow owners

to spend $5,000 on a dog bed and medical services rival those provided for humans (pet

insurance is a relatively late invention). Veterinarians, adapting their history in a farming

nation, perform not only everyday tasks, but also offer kidney transplants for cats and

tumor removal for fish. Bereavement counseling and pet cemeteries create a life cycle

that eerily appropriates that of humans. Some civic groups, nonetheless, have stressed the

importance of animals as service providers (e.g. guide dogs) and as companions for the

elderly and sick when the human family has failed.

Evidently, pets are also display animals, where breeding and care echo social

differentiation. These are celebrated in registered pedigrees, whether proffered as proo

of value or tested in dog and cat shows—New York’s Westminster Kennel Club show

receives national exposure. Meanwhile, as Vicki Hearne underscores in her insightful

study of a “problem” bull terrier,

Bandit

(1991), this breed (identified as “pit bulls”) is

identified with lower classes and race antagonisms through its role as a fighter. And the

“mutt”—a mixture of breed and heritage—is often used as a symbol of the American

melting-

ot. Poodles, Afghan hounds, Siamese cats, cockatiels and koi carp have all

transmuted economic surplus into pet status. As commodities, they are also subject to

changing mores—guard dogs have risen in value in the security-conscious 1990s, while

cats become ever more exquisitely bred and even reptiles and ferrets have their “own”

magazines

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While animals in American television and film straddle the line between

nature

and

culture, American pets cross the line of animal and human in both emotions and

expenses, creating dilemmas for social critics, environmentalists and owners alike.

Further reading

Hearne, V. (1991)

Bandit,

New York: Aaron Ascher.

GARY McDONOGH

pharmaceuticals

American pharmaceutical companies have proven successful in a postwar global

marketplace, competing in the 1990s with ever-growing

multinationals

like the Glaxo

Welcome/Smith-Kline Beecham merger. Large research investments, generally well-

controlled testing and aggressive marketing have made American products household

names throughout the world. At the same time, continuing price increases have made

these companies domestic targets for healthcare reform. They have also raised ethical and

olitical questions when necessary medications are not available to the poor in the US,

much less for epidemics like

AIDS

in the Third World.

Drugs are big business—American companies like E.I.Lilly, Schering Plough, Merck,

and PfizerWarner Lambert are among the largest international producers. These

companies took to the airwaves in a new way in the late 1990s, with the FCC’s relaxation

of a longstanding ban on ads for prescription drugs. Now, $1.3 billion goes annually to

sell Claritin,

Viagra

(with former presidential candidate Bob

Dole

as spokesman), Zyban,

Rogaine and other prescription drugs in addition to Tylenol, Tums and other “over-the-

counter” (non-

rescription) drugs. In addition, manufacturers also seek to influence

opinion leaders among physicians and hospitals. Over forty new prescription drugs enter

the market annually, coming from $24 billion in research.

Yet pharmaceutical development also responds to existing markets. Hence, in 1999, 25

ercent of new developments were linked to senses and the nervous system, while

miniscule research moneys focused on tropical diseases not generally found in the US.

Merck, to give one example, gains more than 30 percent of its sales from drugs whose

syndromes can be related to America’s problematic foodways—including cardiac issues,

hypertension and high cholesterol. Since these companies are heavily involved in the

funding of university research, their interests may influence entire areas of study This

disparity in potential consumption creates the specter of so-called orphan diseases,

dramatized in

Lorenzo’s Oil

(1992). Early money for AIDS research also was raised

outside of corporate channels.

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Consumer resistance to the power of big pharmaceuticals emerges in complaints,

through negotiations via insurance and through a turn to generics that do not carry

atented prices (although the drug industry fights to modify and repatent drugs so as to

avoid generic competition). One might also see resistance in holistic/alternative health.

Yet it is hard to fight an industry that may provide life to a loved one or even oneself.

Drug marketing in the US is controlled through the Food and Drug Administration,

which gained fame for its rigor—especially with regards to the thalidomide crisis of the

1960s. Since 1992 the FDA has developed a fast track, demanded by AIDS patients and

others looking for rapid drug approval; this twelve-month process demands that

harmaceutical companies pay $200,000 per drug. Monitoring afterwards also remains

important—four drugs have been recalled in the last decade, including the diet

combination Phen-Fen.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A favorite destination for visitors since its founding in 1682, modern Philadelphia—

America’s fifth-largest urban center—forms the hub of a regional intersection embracing

southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and northern Delaware, encompassing

some 5 million people (about 1.5 million of whom live in the city itself). Situated on the

Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, the “City of Brotherly Love” was the seat of a colony

which its founder, British

Quaker

gentleman William Penn, envisioned as a model “holy

experiment” in democratic government. The Declaration of Independence and the

American Constitution were crafted here; the area where these documents were written

continues to be a major tourist attraction. Modern Philadelphia, nonetheless, struggles

with rustbelt dilemmas of disappearing industry divided and sometimes decaying

neighborhoods, race

and

class

divisions, crime, poverty

homelessness

and drugs.

The city quickly became cosmopolitan. By 1800 there were numerous neighborhoods

and institutions to support its great diversity: Swedes, Dutch, Germans, British,

African

Americans, American Indians,

Catholics,

Jews

and a variety of

Protestants

formed

churches, community organizations and commercial enterprises suited to their specific

needs. By 1750 a college,

theater

and lending library were among the city’s many

attractions; by 1825

museums,

historical societies and scientific organizations, as well as

insurance

and banking institutions provided the foundation for technological and

intellectual leadership. Shipbuilding, dating from the city’s beginning, was joined in the

nineteenth century by factories to build railroad cars and

automobile

parts and fuel

refineries. By the mid-twentieth century textiles, steel, beer,

cigars

and heavy machinery

were among the goods exported from the thriving port to national and international

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 870

destinations. The 1950s, however, saw the steady decline in maritime trade, as

distribution by

truck

and air made it attractive for factories to relocate to where warmer

weather and non-

union

labor reduced production costs.

Since 1950, aggressive urban planning has revived the economy somewhat and the

opulation decline of the 1970s has slowed. The city whose bonds hit junk status in 1990,

has revitalized Center City under Mayor Ed Rendell, while the Delaware River

waterfront

has been developed for recreation. The region also seeks to become a center

of international investing and biotechnical development. Scores of

colleges and

universities

(including Temple and the University of Pennsylvania), six

medical schools,

more than four dozen public

library

branches, hundreds of

public schools

and

private

schools

—

education

has been a hotly debated issue in local politics—have helped to

provide a base for the area’s uncertain and uneven transition from an industrial base to

the information age.

Philadelphia is also noted for diverse contributions to American culture—from the

television classic

American Bandstand,

to the “76-ers”

basketball

team or

baseball’s

Phillies, to the worldrenowned orchestra,

museums

and numerous musicians, artists,

scientists and entrepreneurs. Its media image, however, is complex, as evidenced in

differences between movies portraying upper-class romance (

The Philadelphia Story,

1940;

Young Philadelphians,

1959), the urbane

AIDS

issues of

Philadelphia

(1993) and

the nightmarish future of

Twelve Monkeys

(1995).

Frequently described as “the city of homes,” or the “city of neighborhoods,”

Philadelphia is notable for its architecturally human scale, having few tall buildings

outside the city center. Instead, many neighborhoods of modestly priced brick or stone

row houses cluster near the Fairmount Park system, which covers 10 percent of the city—

the largest contiguous city park in the world. This neighborhood network is serviced by

an intricate public transportation system, including trolleys, subways and regional

railroads like the Main Line linking it with suburbs.

Philadelphia politics have always been complex, with ethnicity, race and class often

leading to tension and rioting around elections, through the nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries. Perhaps a low point was reached in 1985 when a black mayor, Wilson Goode,

ombed the headquarters of the radical group MOVE, burning nearby African American

homes as well. Nonetheless, the city has been a leader in social-service development,

from early hospitals, orphanages and social-work schools to women’s banks, community

colleges and AIDS support networks. In the 1990s, the diverse population, which is

approximately 50 percent white and 40 percent African American, has built

neighborhoods representative of virtually every country in the world. Despite the

blemishes and challenges common to aging cities, the city remains vigorous.

Philadelphia has been the subject of classic historical and sociological studies from

W.E.B.

Du Bois’

The Philadelphia Negro

(1899) to many present-day studies.

Further reading

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Warner, S. (1987)

The Private City

Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania.

Adams, C.

et al.

(1991)

Philadelphia: Neighborhoods, Division and Conflict in a Post-

Industrial City,

Philadephia: Temple University

EMMA LAPSANSKY

philosophy

Philosophy in American academia went through two

hases after the Second World War.

The first was influenced and shaped by the ideas of the Vienna Circle and a small

collection of thinkers from Oxford and Cambridge and lasted from the 1940s to the mid-

1960s. Although there were notable exceptions, this approach, loosely known as analytic

hilosophy dominated academic philosophy and largely displaced previously influential

systems such as Neo-Hegelianism, transcendentalism and pragmatism. Analytic

hilosophers focused on areas that had achieved prominence in the first part of the

century: symbolic logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and language

analysis. There was a marked skepticism about ethics and political theory and an

increasing disconnection between academic philosophers and mainstream society.

The second phase, which had no single dominant system, arose partly because o

dissatisfaction with the analytic movement, both from analytical philosophers themselves

and from those who felt that it did not adequately address a number of important social

issues. From within the movement, writers like W.V.O.Quine (“Two Dogmas o

Empiricism”), Edmund Gettier (“Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”) and Thomas

Kuhn (

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,

1962) all challenged fundamental tenets o

the analytic approach. Kuhn’s work, moreover, had profound impact outside

colleges and

universities,

introducing the notion of a paradigm into popular culture.

Concurrently the

Civil Rights movement,

the

women’s movement,

debate over

Vietnam, environmental activism and advances in medical technology were only a few o

the social forces that an increasing number of philosophers felt were being inadequately

addressed. The desire to grapple with these, coupled with the publication of John Rawls’

influential

A Theory of Justice

(1971), led to a resurgence of interest in social political

philosophy and ethics. Ethics, in turn, further branched into a series of sub-specialties:

medical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics,

engineering

ethics and legal

ethics—each of which gave rise to its own association, conferences and journals. Far

from being disengaged from everyday concerns, many of these applied ethicists became

consultants to governments, hospitals and businesses, and developed influential

think

tanks

and centers throughout the country (e.g. the Hastings Center).

In addition to these reactions against the analytic approach, at least three other trends

emerged: contemporary continental philosophy

feminism

and pragmatism. The first

came about in the 1960s as the work of existentialists like Jean Paul Sartre, Simone De

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 872

Beauvoir and Albert Camus reignited interest in non-Anglo European philosophy This

continued into the 1970s and 1980s with the growing popularity of deconstructionism,

and other variations of

postmodernism

by authors like Michel Foucault and Jacques

Derrida. As the number of women in the field grew, feminism became increasingly

influential, although academic philosophy remained heavily dominated by white males.

Feminist texts, articles and conferences on everything from science and logic to business

and politics became increasingly common. Finally, pragmatism, due in large part to the

work of Richard Rorty

(Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature),

was revived and ceased

being exclusively the province of historians.

Further reading

Baynes, K., Bohman, J. and McCarthy, T. (1987)

After Philosophy,

Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press.

RODGER JACKSON

Phoenix, AZ

State capital and

Sunbelt

success story The largest metropole of the

Southwest,

Phoenix

literally bloomed from the desert after the Second World War—so much so that new

landscapes have forced pollen and allergies on those who once escaped there for their

health. The urban population increased twelvefold from 1950 to 1999 (1,198,064 census

estimate)–20 percent in the 1990s alone.

The area has been especially popular for retirees—the

retirement

complex, Sun City,

developed nearby—and those escaping perceived urban crises in the East and

California

Politically, it was the home of conservative thinker and 1964 presidential candidate Barry

Goldwater

. Later, sports (

basketball’s

Suns), cultural facilities and resorts have

expanded in the city and nearby Scottsdale and Tempe. Yet, in the 1990s, growth

confronted the conservative, casual city with critical issues of sprawl, automobile

dependency and maintenance of open spaces, recreation and agriculture.

GARY McDONOGH

CINDY WONG

photography

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Contemporary photography can be traced to the 1930s and 1940s with a burgeoning

documentary

style exemplified by Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans’ Great Depression

photographs of rural Americans. The work of Ansel

Adams

too, though not strictly

documentary, allowed Americans to view their country through a new lens that saw detail

and beauty in the American landscape and photography itself.

The American cityscape was also important. In

New York,

photographers like Helen

Levitt documented

neighborhood

life, Berenice Abbot photographed the city view-by-

view and Margaret Bourke-White chose to focus on the art-deco

architecture

of the city.

Crime photographers like Weegee (Arthur Fellig) exposed a more lurid side of the city

Robert Capa, meanwhile, became known as a photographer of the human faces of war

until he himself was killed by a landmine in Vietnam in 1954.

Beginning in the 1940s, the combination of photographic and textual material was

popularized with

Life

magazine and photo-essayists like W. Eugene Smith, the photo

agency Magnum Photos, fashion photographers like Irving Penn and the publication o

many author/photographer collaborations, such as James Agee’s and Walker Evans’

Us Now Praise Famous Men

(1941). In the 1990s, this combination of image and text has

een adopted by photographers Carrie Mae Weems, Duane Michals and Martha Rosler to

create vastly differing political and personal statements.

In the 1950s,

beat-generation

photographers saw a country poised on the edge of the

civil-rights struggles and the social upheaval of the 1960s. In reaction, photographer

Robert Frank published

The Americans

(1969), a series of images that subverted the

comfortable, politically promoted vision of the USA. While Frank’s work attracted

criticism, his contemporaries, Roy De Carava and Lee Friedlander, further developed this

hotographic commentary on the social landscape. In the 1960s, photographer Diane

Arbus continued this work with an eye for the peculiar. She and others, like William

Eggleston and Garry Wino-grand, photographed with irony and cultural criticism.

Moving into the 1970s and 1980s, a highly staged and newly controversial

hotography emerged. Richard Avedon brought celebrity and fashion into the equation.

Robert

Mapplethorpe’s

male nudes attracted acclaim and criticism. His critics, including

several congresspersons, lambasted the work for being “pornographic,” and questioned

the

National Endowment for the Arts’

funding policies. Not quite as politically

controversial, Cindy Sherman’s work takes a feminist look at roles and disguises.

Sherman’s

Untitled Film Stills

(1990) cast her as the main character in imagined

filmstrips.

In the 1990s, Nan Goldin and Sally Mann departed from the staged image, returning to

photography’s documentary aspect. Goldin’s color images of her friends, many of them

showgirls and drag queens, contrast with Mann’s black-and-white images of her nude

children

. Both Goldin and Mann explore issues of gender and sexuality while expressing

an understanding of the construction of familial and community relationships.

There are many important image-makers who cannot be included in this narrow

overview, and the medium of photography incorporating video, digital, installation and

photo-collage work is in a state of continuous redefinition.

Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture 874

Further reading

Szarkowski, J. (1989)

Photography Until Now,

New York: Museum of Modern Art.

Rosenblum, N. (1994)

A History of Women Photographers,

New York: Abbeville.

GABRIELLE BENDINER-VIANI

physical fitness

An issue of federal concern since the early 1960s when concerns about the obesity and

poor health of many Americans prompted President

Kennedy

to create the President’s

Council on Physical Fitness. Numerous publications highlighting the relationship

between exercise and the prevention of heart disease bolstered commitment to the “work

hard, play hard” ethic.

Running

and other forms of workout became popular in the

1970s, especially with the success of Jane

Fonda’s

exercise video, which prompted many

other celebrities (Victoria Principal, Arnold Schwarzenegger) to develop their own

rofitable exercise regimens. By the late 1980s, videos had been produced to tone and

sculpt every part and muscle on the

body

(abs and buns of steel) and

cable

providers had

developed full-time exercise channels. Building on their own tradition of muscular

Christianity

YMCAs

increasingly became preoccupied with acquiring exercise

equipment, competing with the new health spas cropping up in every

mall,

and trying to

draw those who wanted partial reimbursement on their health insurance. By the 1990s the

new gym culture had become prominent in depictions of single social life from afternoon

soaps

to commercials, and President

Clinton,

a burger-eating

Kennedy

Democrat,

appointed his own President’s Council on Physical Fitness, headed by Florence Griffith

Joyner.

ROBERT GREGG

physicians

American Medical Association; medicine; medical shows, television

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