Fisher's book is a remarkable study of American art today, its place in American culture, and critical reactions to it. He charts a major shift in both the theory and practice of the visual arts and does so by relating that shift to fundamental changes in our relation to the world, changes that he argues have themselves been brought about by the processes of modern technological production. The museum is the organization mediating between the realm of technology and that of art-making and consumption, and Fisher's book stresses the importance of the museum's role in the way these works of art have been perceived and in the ways that they have been made. Crucial figures in Fisher's discussion are Jasper Johns and Frank Stella, but Fisher has much to say about other artists, notably Degas, Picasso, Klee, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg.