作者迈克尔·弗雷德（Michael Fried, 1939-），美国当代最杰出的艺术史家和艺术批评家之一。弗雷德作为批评家的名声主要建立在对美国后抽象表现主义艺术的诠释，以及对极简主义艺术的批评之上。正是他，开启了现代主义与后现代主义长达几十年的论战，他本人也因此成为晚 期现代主义理论的杰出代表。其批评文本被他本人汇编为《艺术与物性：论文与评论集》（1998）。他的艺术史代表作则有《聚精会神与剧场化：狄德罗时代的绘画与观众》（1980）、《库尔贝的现实主义》（1990）、《马奈的现代主义》（1996）、《卡拉瓦乔的时刻》（2010）等。近年来，他又回到当代艺术的研究，著有《作为艺术的摄影为何空前重要》（2008）、《四位诚实的法外之徒：萨拉、雷、马里奥尼、戈登》（2011）。

译者沈语冰，浙江大学教授、博士生导师，浙江大学美学与批评理论研究所所长。长期从事西方现代美学、现代艺术史与艺术批评史的教学和研究，著有《20世纪艺术批评》（获教育部二等奖）。译有罗杰弗莱的《塞上及其画风的发展》、《弗莱艺术批评文选》，格林伯格的《艺术与文化》、列奥施坦伯格《另类准则》（合译）等。主编“艺术与观念译丛”、“艺术理论与批评译丛”、“艺术学经典文献导读书系”、“艺术学学科导论书系”等。

译者张晓剑，浙江大学美学与批评理论研究所博士。主要关注西方艺术哲学和艺术批评，发表论文若干，译作有蒂埃里•德•迪弗的《杜尚之后的康德》（合译，江苏美术出版社即出），另有译文若干。

Michael Fried's often controversial art criticism defines the contours of late modernism in the visual arts. This volume contains 27 pieces, including the introduction to the catalogue for "Three American Painters," the text of his book "Morris Louis," and "Art and Objecthood." Originally published between 1962 and 1977, the essays continue to generate debate today. These are uncompromising writings, aware of their transformative power during a time of intense controversy about the nature of modernism and the aims and essence of advanced painting and sculpture. Ranging from brief reviews to extended essays, and including major critiques of Jackson Pollock, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella, and Anthony Caro, these writings establish a set of basic terms for understanding key issues in high modernism: the viability of Clement Greenberg's account of the infralogic of modernism, the status of figuration after Pollock, the centrality of the problem of shape, the nature of pictorial and sculptural abstraction, and the relationship between work and beholder. In a number of essays Fried contrasts the modernist enterprise with minimalist or literalist art, and, taking a position that remains provocative to this day, he argues that minimalism is essentially a genre of theatre, hence artistically self-defeating. For this volume Fried has also provided an extensive introductory essay in which he discusses how he became an art critic, clarifies his intentions in his art criticism, and draws crucial distinctions between his art criticism and the art history he also wrote.