<P>Emerging from New York's East Village art scene of the 1980s, the so-called neo-geoartists were a loosely associated group that included the painters Ashley Bickerton, Peter Halley,Sherrie Levine, Allan McCollum, Philip Taaffe, and Meyer Vaisman and the sculptors Jeff Koons andHaim Steinbach. Labeled neo-geo for the abstract geometric motifs that characterized only some oftheir work, the movement was also known variously as simulationism, neoconceptualism, neo-pop,neominimalism, and postabstraction. In this, the first in-depth study of the group, Amy Brandtargues that neoconceptualism is the most precise name for their work. Brandt sees it as an art aboutart history, characterized by ironic adaptations of past artistic movements and styles, a tendencytoward visual interplay, and a theoretical impulse driven by postmodern concerns withintertextuality, deconstruction, and poststructuralism. Brandt investigates the East Village artscene of the 1980s and argues that the neoconceptualists' theoretical orientation distinguished themfrom other artists of the era. She traces the divergence in art critics' responses to the group'swork and charts their market success. Brandt examines in detail the references to art history foundin the work; she explores the group's formal connections to pop, minimalism, and conceptualism; andshe investigates the relationships between the neoconceptual artists and another loosely connectedgroup of artists, the Pictures generation. </P>