Pace Presnell starts with Rubinoff’s premise that since the bombing of Hiroshima and the subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis, humankind has lived with the constant threat of mutually assured destruction. This, she suggests, is in fact nuclear winter. This new reality fostered the widespread conviction that there is no future and spawned an absurd culture. In response, an absurdist avant-garde art formed in the early 1960s.

This essay considers the development of the American military industrial complex in this period, exploring the parallels between technocratic society and avant-garde art. The public debut of Pop art at the 1964/5 New York World’s Fair and the rapid dissemination of Pop art to a mass audience, are examined.

Presnell extends Rubinoff’s insight on the importance of the history of art to practicing artists and considers how visual art practice, the art market, museum programming and arts education evolved to reflect the absurdist culture.