Open Systems examines how international artists rethought the object of art in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Connecting with the increasingly urgent political developments of the decade, artists began to make their work more responsive to the world around them. Open Systems offers a way into this complex and highly diverse period.<BR>Building on the principles of 1960s avant-garde movements such as Fluxus, Minimalism and Neo-concretism, artists moved from focusing on the object to wide-ranging experiments in dance, performance and, most notable, film and video. One widely shared characteristic of their work was their adoption of experimental aesthetic 'systems' to generate their art - in particular in relation to the cube - a development that was to have a profound influence on artists for decades to come.<BR>Featuring the works of prominent international artists working in Britain, Europe, South America and the United States, Open Systems reproduces a wide range of sculpture, painting, film, video, and photography. The book includes newly commissioned essays by Johanna Burton, Donna De Salvo, Mark Godfrey, and Boris Groys, as well as a selection of seminal texts from the period.