Individual photographers Books
University of Minnesota Press Diane Arbuss 1960s
Book SynopsisTrade Review"We may think we know everything about Diane Arbus just from looking at her photographs, but Frederick Gross has challenged the usual easy readings of Arbus as a gimlet eyed ironist by exploring the artist's philosophical, journalistic and political contexts in depth, and offering many surprising insights into her multifaceted motives and carefully arrived at methods. One comes away with a much enhanced appreciation of the complexity of Arbus's vision and the heroic dimensions of her empathetic activism. Such a study is especially important now because the artist's enormous cultural influence tends to obscure accurate hindsight into her development and process." —Glenn O’Brien"Gross skillfully discusses a range of subjects (e.g., documentary photography, portraiture, the body, the social climate) and how they relate to Arbus and her work. Highly recommended for all photography and art collections as well as for photography enthusiasts." —Library JournalTable of ContentsPreface: “Sylvia Plath with a Camera”Introduction: Between Intention and Effect1. Documentary Photography and the Positivist Social Gallery2. Portraits, Pastiche, and Magazine Work3. The Body in the 1960s4. Madness, Disability, and the “Untitled” Series5. The Social Panorama in ContextRevelations: Darkness and Illumination
£17.99
University of Minnesota Press Singular Images Failed Copies
Book SynopsisVered Maimon shows that the perception of the photographic image in early nineteenth-century England was symptomatic of a crisis in the epistemological framework that had informed philosophical, scientific, and aesthetic thought for two centuries.Trade Review"Singular Images, Failed Copies offers a significant contribution to the scholarship on William Henry Fox Talbot and the scientific and philosophical climate in which he produced his photographs."—Frederick Gross, Savannah College of Art and Design "A striking new analysis of William Henry Fox Talbot’s famous ‘pencil of nature’ botanical photos as diagram rather than index, Singular Images, Failed Copies argues against familiar ideas of the photograph in relation to objectivity or impersonality. Vered Maimon revisits from a fresh angle questions about photography and its role in art, science, and society."—John Rajchman, Columbia University"Singualar Images, Failed Copies will take its rightful place as an important addition to the literature on both the history of early photography. . . and the espistemological changes of the early years of the nineteenth century."—Leonardo ReviewsTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction: The Photographic ImaginationPart I 1. Method: The Engine of Knowledge2. Imagination: The Art of DiscoveryPart II3. Time: Singular Images, Failed Copies4. History: Displaced Origins and The Pencil of NatureAcknowledgmentsAppendixesNotesIndex
£21.59
University of Minnesota Press Awakening the Eye
Book SynopsisTrade Review"While showing great assurance in talking about Robert Frank’s still photography, George Kouvaros not only gives the films due consideration on their own terms, but also in the way they reflected Frank’s overall art."—Stephen Brooke, York University"This book is a must read for those interested in Frank or avant-garde cinema."—CHOICE"This oeuvre endeavors to take its topics on their own terms, seeking to divine what lies at their heart. Awakening the Eye is the latest in George Kouvaros’s ongoing realist criticism, productively enervating Frank’s audio-visions from the inside and thereby remaking them anew for contemporary scholarship."—Screening the PastTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Awakening the Eye1. “Time and How to Note It Down”: Pull My Daisy2. He’s Not There: Me and My Brother, One Hour3. “A Better Way to Live”: Conversations in Vermont, Liferaft Earth, About Me: A Musical, Cocksucker Blues4. “The Fire of Pain”: Life Dances On . . . , Home Improvements, The Present5. Fragments Shored against My Ruins: Moving Pictures, True StoryCoda. The Circle: Paper RouteNotesIndex
£19.79
Ohio University Press Available Light
Book SynopsisAvailable Light tells the story of an activist, an artist, a uniquely South African individual, and his community and family across the second half of the twentieth century. Omar Badsha was born in Durban, on the country’s southeastern coast in 1945. His was the third generation of his Gujarati family to call South Africa home. Before he turned five, the country’s white electorate had voted to institute apartheid to strip the rights and privileges of citizenship from most of the population, including Badsha’s Indian community and especially the country’s Black majority. By the time he turned fifteen, nonviolent protest against apartheid had been quashed; by the time he turned twenty, so too had the armed struggle to dislodge white supremacy within the country. The ongoing, resilient, and oft-rebuffed struggle against apartheid was a definitive factor in Badsha’s life.Furthermore, Badsha was raised in a community where art—painting, ca
£67.15
Duke University Press Laszlo MoholyNagy
Book SynopsisMarking the centenary of the birth of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), this book offers a fresh approach to the Bauhaus artist and theorist's multifaceted life and work - an approach that redefines the very idea of biographical writing.Trade Review"A significant contribution to the emergent field of ‘New’ Art History and Criticism. This study of signature and its effects generates a new approach to biography, by redefining it not as a compilation of historical details or facts, but rather as a system of production/reproduction, a signifying economy whose terms challenge the borders of literature and the visual arts."—Dalia Judovitz, author of Dialectic and Narrative"This study addresses the question of how to write about the life and work of an artist after the ‘death of the author’ theorized in poststructuralism. I know of no other study that attempts to do with any figure what Kaplan has done with Moholy. It is a work of extraordinary originality and importance. A tour de force."—Gregory Ulmer, author of Applied Grammatology and Heuretics
£22.49
Duke University Press Correspondence Course
Book SynopsisAn epistolary history of the international avant-garde of happenings, Fluxus, and performance and conceptual art emerges from decades of correspondence between Carolee Schneemann and other artists and intellectuals.Trade Review“Correspondence Course is a book at once combative and communal, aesthetic and feminist. Schneeman chronicles a life dedicated to uncompromised artistic exploration of her own assumptions, as well as those of others, all in the name of conceptual progress.” - Trinie Dalton, Bookforum“One realizes in reading this hefty collection just how stealthily [Stiles] has made her way through the culture of her times, how she has maintained a brilliant dwelling for her creative process and psychic space, and steered a course based entirely on her own unique direction. Correspondence Course offers an ingenious view into a cultural life that does not fit neatly into the history books, if it’s there at all.” - Stephen Motika, Bomb“[A]n amazing look into the heart, soul, and psyche of a trend setting artist.” - Gypsey Elaine Teague, ARLIS/NA Reviews“A thick book of exuberant and extensive correspondence is a wonderful rarity in this era of tweets, emoticons, and Facebook updates. . . . [T]his selection provides an engaging historical document of a major segment of the American avant-garde in the last half of the 20th century. . . . Throughout her correspondence, Schneemann has the remarkable quality of being both unfailingly giving and fiercely honest.” - Kim Levin, ARTNews“Correspondence Course is many things: it is a book that encompasses an impressive amount of historical data that is of immense use to anyresearcher of late 20th-century art. It is also an archive of an extraordinary life during a time of tremendous changes in society and technology. Finally, it is a gripping story, at times difficult to put down—not your typical art historicalbook—and a tremendous achievement on the part of the editor, the artist and the publisher.” - Kathy Battista, Art Monthly“An accidental record of the way friends, enemies, the art world and ideas all crowd into an artist’s work can be found in Correspondence Course. . . . What a fascinating cacophony it is. . . . It is unusual to be given access to this kind of archive during the central figure’s lifetime. . . .” - Barry Schwabsky, The Nation“Kristine Stiles’s subtitle, An Epistolary History of Carolee Schneemann and Her Circle, suggests that like the correspondence of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, these letters will afford a privileged insight into the cultural milieu in which they were written. The first section in the book, focused on 1956–1968, may have the most historical éclat, but Schneemann’s letters are great throughout the forty-three years the book covers, and Stiles performed a careful and attentive scholarly treatment of them. This book is another brick in the edifice of modern art.”—Thomas McEvilley, author of The Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-Modernism“Not only a revelatory stroll in Carolee Schneemann’s teeming archive, Correspondence Course demonstrates that letters, no less than canvases or installations, are works of art. An exquisitely dense meditation on address, Schneemann’s revelatory letters and Kristine Stiles’s deft critical framing perform a radical reconception of art history itself. At once deeply personal and profoundly philosophical, Correspondence Course illuminates and complicates pretty much every notion I have had about the past fifty years of avant-garde art. A brilliant, breathtaking, stunning book.”—Peggy Phelan, Stanford University“Correspondence Course is a book at once combative and communal, aesthetic and feminist. Schneeman chronicles a life dedicated to uncompromised artistic exploration of her own assumptions, as well as those of others, all in the name of conceptual progress.” -- Trinie Dalton * Bookforum *“Correspondence Course is many things: it is a book that encompasses an impressive amount of historical data that is of immense use to any researcher of late 20th-century art. It is also an archive of an extraordinary life during a time of tremendous changes in society and technology. Finally, it is a gripping story, at times difficult to put down—not your typical art historical book—and a tremendous achievement on the part of the editor, the artist and the publisher.” -- Kathy Battista * Art Monthly *“[A]n amazing look into the heart, soul, and psyche of a trend setting artist.” -- Gypsey Elaine Teague * ARLIS/NA Reviews *“A thick book of exuberant and extensive correspondence is a wonderful rarity in this era of tweets, emoticons, and Facebook updates. . . . [T]his selection provides an engaging historical document of a major segment of the American avant-garde in the last half of the 20th century. . . . Throughout her correspondence, Schneemann has the remarkable quality of being both unfailingly giving and fiercely honest.” -- Kim Levin * ARTNews *“An accidental record of the way friends, enemies, the art world and ideas all crowd into an artist’s work can be found in Correspondence Course. . . . What a fascinating cacophony it is. . . . It is unusual to be given access to this kind of archive during the central figure’s lifetime. . . .” -- Barry Schwabsky * The Nation *“One realizes in reading this hefty collection just how stealthily [Stiles] has made her way through the culture of her times, how she has maintained a brilliant dwelling for her creative process and psychic space, and steered a course based entirely on her own unique direction. Correspondence Course offers an ingenious view into a cultural life that does not fit neatly into the history books, if it’s there at all.” -- Stephen Motika * Bomb *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface xi Acknowledgments xxi Introduction xxv The Letters 1956–1968 3 1969–1975 142 1976–1986 269 1987–1999 382 Index 491
£31.50
Duke University Press Aunties
Book SynopsisNadia Sablin's lyrical and evocative photographs in Aunties capture the small details and daily rituals of her septuagenarian aunts in a small Russian village.Trade Review"What shines through most strongly in the book is [Sablin's] admiration for these indomitable women. The book moves effortlessly from close observation of objects–two bowls of borscht on a faded tabletop, sheets drying in a shed– to intimate documentary–an aunt bent in concentration over a crossword–and from dark interiors to almost other-worldly daylight. ... Aunties is an elegy for a way of life as much as a loving homage to the women who embody it." -- Sean O'Hagan * The Guardian *"Sablin's lyrical photos, taken over several summers, capture the small details and rituals of her aunts' dreamlike days. She quilts together a thoughtful meditation on memory, ageing, and belonging." -- Karen Kelner * The Independent *
£31.50
Duke University Press I Love My Selfie
Book SynopsisNoted cultural critic Ilan Stavans and artist ADÁL analyze the selfie and its role in contemporary life by exploring it in the context of the history of Western self-portraiture, mythology, literature, art, and philosophy.Trade Review"Rather than seeing selfies as a symptom of modern decay and pathology, Stavans encourages us to see the explosion of selfies as a kind of collective art project, in which everyone’s individualism squeezes into the frame next to everybody else’s individualism." -- Noah Berlatsky * Quartz *"A book of absolute contemporary relevance, I Love My Selfie reminds us that nothing has ever been as hard as having a self, and that perhaps to better be true to it, one has to learn to conceal it, in a game of hide and seek that here gains a political dimension." -- Carlos Fonseca * TLS *"Stavans’ key intuition that selfies might be understood in dialogue with self-portraiture is significant, as putting pressure on the definitions of selfies and self-portraiture—whether in the present moment or across the history of photography—can yield rich insights." -- Nicole Erin Morse * boundary 2 *Table of Contents1. Chillin' 1 2. The Plight of Narcissus 10 3. "Decisive Moments" 18 4. Out of Focus 28 Go F_ck Your Selfie: A Portfolio / ADÁL 39 5. Alone with Others 91 6. Rembrandt's Instamatic 98 7. Tropic Noir 113 8. And Then Comes Darkness 122 Acknowledgments 129 Index 131
£98.60
Duke University Press Test of Faith
Book SynopsisPentecostal serpent handlers, also known as Signs Followers, hold a literal interpretation of a verse in the New Testament’s Gospel of Markwhich states that, among other abilities, true believers shall be able to “take up serpents.” For more than a century members of this uniquely Appalachian religious tradition have handled venomous snakes during their worship services, risking death as evidence of their unwavering faith. Despite scores of deaths from snakebite and the closure of numerous churches in recent decades, there remains a small contingent of serpent handlers devoted to keeping the practice alive. Who are the serpent handlers? What motivates them to continue their potentially lethal practices through the generations? Documentary photographer Lauren Pond traveled to West Virginia in search of answers to these questions. There she met Pastor Randy “Mack” Wolford, one of the best-known Signs Following preachers in the region, and spTrade Review"Visually stunning.... Pond is deeply aware of the ethical quandaries of photographing a person while he is dying, which she writes about in a theologically provocative afterword. Her photographic eye is more compassionate than voyeuristic, and she captures something of the essence of Wolford’s faith even while hesitating to pin it down." * Christianity Today *"Open the book, and whether you are of faith or not, see what Pond came to see: people of faith, enduring to an end we all face. See sign followers seeking only to be obedient to their God. See people believing, loving and caring, backsliding and returning to be baptized again. And yes, dying. See people so human in their failings and need for re-baptism that a common saying among believers (however baptized) is that even the fish know who they are. Pond’s magnificent book will introduce them to you." -- Ralph W. Hood, Jr. * Reading Religion *"To move through this book is to feel the author unwind herself. We feel her taking the measure of the space in which her subjects live. Services that were once photographed as delirious frenzy are now shown as infused with calm, though no less ecstatic. We get a sense that Pond has arrived somewhere very different than where she sought to go when she began, and it also feels like the beginning of a larger story." -- Leo Hsu * Fraction Magazine *"Capturing the true essence of this type of religious phenomenon is delicate. One must balance scene with sensitivity. Pond's work in Test of Faith is a well-blanced blend of both qualities. . . . She invites viewers, through her photography and dialogue, to embark on a journey to understand more deeply the people who take on these acts of faith and who choose to live within a particular lifestyle." -- Chelsie Dubay * Journal of Appalachian Studies *Table of ContentsForeword / Peter Barberie Photographs and Text / Lauren Pond Afterword / Lauren Pond Acknowledgments About the Prize
£33.25
Fordham University Press In the Shadow of Genius
Book Synopsis
£26.99
Seagull Books London Ltd December
Book SynopsisIn the historic tradition of calendar stories and calendar illustrations, author and film director Alexander Kluge and celebrated visual artist Gerhard Richter have composed December, a collection of thirty-nine stories and thirty-nine snow-swept photographs for the darkest month of the year.
£16.14
John Libbey & Co Terrytoons
Book Synopsis
£21.59
Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology,U.S. Michael Rockefeller
Book Synopsis
£26.96
Cornell University Press Antosha and Levitasha
Book SynopsisThrough meticulous scholarship and fine writerly craft, Gregory offers a riveting story of two creative geniuses at work.? Slavonic and East European JournalAccessible and engaging, Antosha and Levitasha will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in art history, late nineteenth-century Russian culture, and biographies.Antosha and Levitasha is the first book in English devoted to the complex relationship between Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan, one of Russia''s greatest landscape painters. Outside of Russia, a general lack of familiarity with Levitan''s life and art has undermined an appreciation of the cultural significance of his friendship with Chekhov. Serge Gregory''s highly readable study attempts to fill that gap for Western readers by examining a friendship that may have vacillated between periods of affection and animosity, but always reflected an unwavering shared aesthetic.In Russia, where entiTrade ReviewThis meticulously researched and readable book is a chronological account of the contacts, friendship, common pursuits, rivalries, and professional work of Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan-two pivotal figures in Russian literature and art.... The book gives us abundant information about various aspects of the two artists' friendship and the backgrounds to their compositions. * The Russian Review *There is rich material in this study. Gregory was right to unpick this relationship. From the point of view of Chekhov studies, Levitan is too often neglected. From the point of view of Levitan studies, this is an artist whose position astride the two most significant movements in Russian painting of the late nineteenth century, 'The Itinerants' and the World of Art, is ripe for investigation and appreciation. * Slavonic and East European Review *Very compelling... The book is laid out wonderfully, and Gregory's chronological tags never fail to reinforce understanding of when we are. Gregory's focus throughout is masterful. * Inside Higher Ed *The breadth of Antosha and Levitasha is astonishing, and the biographical details brought to light by Gregory's meticulous research will prove invaluable for scholars of both Levitan and Chekhov, and their respective artistic productions. As a whole, Serge Gregory's Antosha and Levitasha stands as a rich testimony of their relationship and late nineteenth-century Russia. * H-Net Reviews *Through meticulous scholarship and fine writerly craft, Gregory offers a riveting story of two creative geniuses at work. * Slavonic and East European Journal *
£27.54
Getty Trust Publications In Focus Doris Ulmann Photographs from the J.
Book SynopsisDoris Ulmann, one of the foremost photographers in the United States in the 1930s, disappeared from public awareness until the 1970s. She is best known for her quintessentially American pictures of the rural South. A prolific creator, she died before many of her last images could be printed. The latest addition to the acclaimed In Focus series present fifty-five pictures by Ulmann from the Museum's collection. Judith Keller, associate curator of photographs, wrote the extensive accompanying captions and participated, along with William Clift, David Featherstone, Charles Hagen, Weston Naef, Ron Pen, and Susan Millar Williams, in a colloquium on Ulmann and her work. The volume includes an edited transcript of their discussion and a chronological overview of Ulman's life.
£16.14
Getty Trust Publications In Focus Eugene Atget Photographs From the
Book SynopsisParisian photographer Eugene Atget (1857-1927) set out to capture those commonplace features that were gradually disappearing from the city he loved. This volume contains 50 Atget works with comprehensive captions and an edited colloquium on his life and work by seven scholars.
£16.14
UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press VIVA Records 19702000
Book SynopsisTraces the history and assesses the impact of VIVA! Lesbian and Gay Latino Artists, a non-profit artists' coalition founded in 1987
£15.19
Temple University Press,U.S. Artists of Wyeth Country
Book SynopsisFew artists have ever been so belovedor so controversial among art criticsas Andrew Wyeth.The groundbreaking bookArtists of Wyeth Countrypresents an unauthorized and unbiased biographical portrait of Wyeth, based on interviews with family, friends, neighborseven actress Eva Marie Saint. Journalist W. Barksdale Maynard shines new light on the reclusive artist, emphasizing Wyeth's artistic debt to Howard Pyle as well as his surprising interest in surrealism.The book is filled with brand-new information and fresh interpretations. Artists of Wyeth Countryalsocomprisesthe first-ever guidebook to the artistic world of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, center of the Brandywine Tradition begun by Howard Pyle.Six in-depth tours for walking or driving allow the reader to stand exactly where N. C. and Andrew Wyeth stood, as has never been fully possible before. As Maynard explains, Andrew Wyeth's artistic process was influenced by Henry David Thoreau's nature-worship and by his habit of walking d
£17.09
University of Texas Press Rodrigo Moya
Book SynopsisWith photographs that have never been published before, this is the first English-Spanish bilingual retrospective of a prominent Mexican photographer who has documented Latin America from revolutionary movements to timeless moments of daily life.Table of Contents Fotografía y conciencia / Photography and Conscience Essay by Ariel Arnal El nacimiento de las imágenes / The Origin of the Images Introduction by Rodrigo Moya 1. La ciudad que viví / The City I Lived In 2. Más allá de la urbe / Beyond the Metropolis 3. América Latina / Latin America 4. Entre mar y tierra / Between Land and Sea 5. Célebres y anónimos / The Famous and the Anonymous 6. La fe agnóstica / Agnostic Faith 7. Figuraciones / Chimeras Agradecimiento de Rodrigo / Acknowledgments
£45.00
University of Texas Press Nina Katchadourian
Book SynopsisThis catalogue of an exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin presents a mid-career survey of the work of Brooklyn-based artist Nina Katchadourian.Trade Review"
£25.19
University of Texas Press Antebellum
Book SynopsisThese impressionistic, rarely seen images by prominent French photographer and critic Gilles Mora evoke the disappearing culture of the Deep South.
£35.10
University of Texas Press Nathan Lyons
Book SynopsisA moving retrospective of the revered photographer whose career as a curator, educator, and critic spanned more than half a centuryand whose contributions to the craft of photography have left an enduring imprint.Trade ReviewNathan Lyons worked outside mainstream aesthetics, eschewing pomposity, while capturing wonderment amid everyday banality. * New York Times *[Nathan Lyons] offers us a look at Lyons's final work, which sends us back to the beginning to search his career again for new levels of meaning. * Photo District News *Nathan Lyons: In Pursuit of Magic details his vision and demonstrates its relevance for a new, visually sophisticated audience. * The Eye of Photography *Nathan Lyons: In Pursuit of Magic presents a compelling case for the Lyons' view of photography as a form of language. And language arts aside, it is filled with beautifully crafted photographs that capture the wonderment of the everyday world. * The PhotoBook Journal *This collection of never-before-seen color photographs pays close attention to signage, ads, street art and graffiti. It's as if Lyons were using the camera to edit the chaos of images and texts created by others into something understandable, with a meaning that's greater than the sum of its parts. * PDN Online *Table of Contents Foreword by Bruce Barnes Acknowledgments Moments in a Real World, by Jessica S. McDonald Early Works: 1957–1963 Notations in Passing: 1963–1973 (published in 1974) Both/And, Not Either/Or: Representation versus Abstraction, by Lisa Hostetler Riding 1st Class on the Titanic!: 1974–1998 (published in 1999) After 9/11: 2001–2002 (published in 2003) Return Your Mind to Its Upright Position: 1999–2009 (published in 2014) In Pursuit of Magic, by Jamie M. Allen Diptychs: 2001–2004 Color: 2013–2016 Selected Chronology by Jessica S. McDonald Selected Bibliography by Jessica S. McDonald Photography Credits About the Contributors
£40.50
University of Texas Press Keith Carter Fifty Years
Book SynopsisDubbed a “poet of the ordinary” by the Los Angeles Times, photographer Keith Carter came of age during the turbulent ‘60s and ‘70s, developing a singular, haunting style that captures both the grit and the glory of the human spirit. Showcasing a broad array of his work—which has been shown in more than one hundred solo exhibitions in thirteen countries—Keith Carter: Fifty Years spans delicate, century-old processes as well as digital-age techniques to yield an enduring vision of the world around us.The interlaced images in Keith Carter: Fifty Years feature contrasts of natural light and darkness as we explore the mythos of time and terrain, the familiar and the magical, and the varied creatures that inhabit our earth. The human form—depleted or energized, solitary or with a beloved partner—becomes a meditation on aging and loss, which have affected Carter profoundly in recent years. Yet these losses have spuTrade ReviewCarter's photographs provide a vision of Texas as we all want to imagine it to be: a hot-as-hell oasis where people lead picturesque yet complex lives, imbued with a sense of calm that can only be felt when an endless landscape extends in all directions. His work helps a transplant like me remember the state for the things that I miss rather than for the reasons I left. * The New Yorker *Photographer Keith Carter has spent his life revealing the magical in the mundane…the results, as readers of this book will see, are anything but ordinary. * The Texas Observer *Many of [Carter's] most haunting photos explore the invisible links between humans and beasts: A boy hugs his horse goodbye after it’s sold, a Mississippi man sees a litter of kittens as his family, and a distraught woman discovers that a fox found its way into her henhouse. Each portrait presents a puzzle to viewers, who must attempt to discover for themselves what it is about this certain image that makes it so poignant. * Zócalo Public Square *Fifty Years is epic in size and scale…This book holds pleasures for those who are familiar with [Carter's] work and those who aren't. * PhotoBook Journal *[Keith Carter: Fifty Years] signals another rite of passage for the artist. * Glasstire *[Keith Carter: Fifty Years] is a retrospective of a half century's worth of compelling images. Alternating between the haunting and surreal, and the tender and intimate, Carter's work amounts to visual poetry. * Pasatiempo *[Keith Carter: Fifty Years] takes readers on a visual journey through a dream world that Carter often captures in the quiet realities of daily life around his adopted east Texas hometown of Beaumont. * Digital Photo Pro *This stunning 320-page monograph includes work that spans from antiquated processes to digital techniques, all of which connect us deeper to the discovery of magic in the world surrounding us. * Black & White Photography *
£48.60
University of Texas Press Far From Respectable
Book SynopsisThe first book on the critic and essayist Dave Hickey, Far from Respectable examines the life and work of this controversial figure, whose writing changed the discourse around art and popular culture.Trade ReviewFar from Respectable is a worthy introduction to the writing of a major American critic and should instill a desire to experience Hickey’s delights firsthand. * Washington Post *[A] slender but finely crafted and brilliantly sensitive book...Far from Respectable is a wonderful book that provides the most eloquent explanation of Hickey you’ll ever have the pleasure to read. * The University Bookman *Penetrating the ruse of his subject’s impish provocations, and fully understanding the power of critical thought, Oppenheimer builds a solid argument for revisiting Hickey’s books—not only because they contain some of the best-ever Anglophone writing on art, but also because we badly need Hickey’s evaluation of the 1990s to help us survive the culture of the 2020s...Far From Respectable makes an excellent case for reading Dave Hickey again. * Athenaeum Review *[Far from Respectable] offers a coherent trajectory of a writer, from the childhood tragedy, to his lost years of drug use among the Nashville’s outlaw singers, to later-life prominence and tenure in Las Vegas (the town that best suited Hickey’s free-spirited nature). Above all, it has the salutary effect of reminding us of Hickey as an artist; instead of a gadfly, Hickey might be seen as a critical object himself, with a body of work worth experiencing. * The Nation *Oppenheimer has written a poetic distillation of Hickey's art in America, the broken cowboy, and the cowering broker...In going back to the author's initial two questions: Is Dave Hickey worth the hype, and should anyone give a hoot? Far From Respectable, like the wandering iconoclast it follows, deserves nothing but respect. * Austin Chronicle *[An] admiring but even-handed critical biography. * ArtReview *[Far from Respectable is] neither a biography, a cultural history, nor a sustained assessment, although it has elements of each. It also features reporting and literary criticism, as well as autobiographical elements. Oppenheimer employs these materials as a dioramist might, reconstructing a few specific periods—Nashville in the 1970s, the culture wars of the 1990s—to illuminate his thesis: that much of Hickey’s writing transcends criticism to approach the status of art. * Alta Journal *[Dave Hickey's] writings are a contentious takedown of the art establishment and they encourage us to rethink out relationship to beauty. [Far from Respectable] traces the history of this unique mind and his impact on art and writing. * Artnet *Far from Respectable is the first book about Hickey,...but it won’t be the last. Any book in which one author writes about another writer can quickly sour into a competition between the subject’s writing and the author’s writing about it. Oppenheimer spares readers—and himself—such indignities, bringing clear-eyed insights and a straightforward voice to his explorations and explanations of Hickey’s life and work...If there will be many more books about Hickey and his philosophy of beauty, then they’ll have to be very good to get over the high bar that Oppenheimer sets. * Burnaway *[Oppenheimer] makes a solid case for why we need to read and reread Hickey now: not only did he produce some of the best English-language essays on art and culture of the last century, but in our times those writings have proved themselves more prescient than ever. * The New Criterion *Oppenheimer...is a skilled biographer. He is unusually sensitive to the winding paths by which our private pleasures shape, resist, mar, and undo our public political and moral commitments...As he recounts his subject’s life and contemporary relevance, Oppenheimer stages his own enjoyment of Hickey with such lucid warmth that he seems to substantiate Hickey’s insistence that our enjoyment of art entangles us in other human loves...Far From Respectable succeeds in proving, through its reader’s own pleasure, the truth of Hickey’s vision of art as an experience that opens the self toward others. * Tablet Magazine *[A] loving biography of the late critic. * Fort Worth Weekly *In Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art, Daniel Oppenheimer complicates the cartoon version of [Hickey's] life that continues to shadow his reputation as a writer. * New York Review of Books *[An] engaging study of the idiosyncratic critic…[Oppenheimer] combines gumshoe reporting, interviews with figures in Hickey’s life, as well as plenty of fan service nuggets, and the result is a short book that both humanizes Hickey and burnishes the mystique. * Full Stop *Framed as a twilight reappraisal of Hickey’s life and work, [Far from Respectable's] main task is to pull Hickey’s criticism from its pigeonhole in the art world of the 1990s and into wilder, thornier, more human thickets of desire...while he praises Hickey’s writings as art, Oppenheimer also asks the pertinent question: is Hickey’s criticism still relevant? This is where the book gets relevant too...Engaging with beauty makes our lives richer—if it does anything at all—and Oppenheimer finds Hickey beautiful...there are moments when the whole thing sings. * Art in America *Far From Respectable: Dave Hickey and His Art is definitive...The book delivers insightful, detailed overviews of Hickey’s biography—from boyhood in post-war Texas, to NYC gallerist, to premiere art critic and cultural provocateur—and his career highlights: written, lauded, vilified...[Oppenheimer's] work is smart and lovely, and in service to his groundbreaking subject, while keeping readers in mind. The biographer understands art, theory, culture, craft, and Hickey, and, importantly, doesn’t punish us when we don’t. (Which is often.) * Southwest Review *Oppenheimer neatly dissects Hickey’s argument that defending provocative art against censorship by shouting 'free speech' misses the point: It’s the power of the artwork, or its 'beauty,' that should be defended because that’s what got the censors so riled up in the first place...In encouraging us to defend our loves—and by doing it himself—Hickey, along with Oppenheimer, defend our fragile, and increasingly illiberal, democracy. Hickey couldn’t be more relevant than that. * KNPR's "Fifth Street" *Table of Contents Introduction: His Blue Eden Far from Respectable, Even Now The Value of Beauty Remains Unjustified His Simple Heart Acknowledgments Notes
£18.99
University of Texas Press Friday Night Lives
Book SynopsisRobert Clark returns to the photographs of the Permian Panthers he took thirty years ago for the iconic Friday Night Lights, with a selection of his previously unpublished photos plus portraits of the players and the community as they are today.Trade Review[An] outstanding portfolio…a book that belongs in every football fan's collection. * Kirkus, Starred Review *Riveting...Thirty years after Buzz Bissinger’s bestseller chronicled the Permian Panthers’ 1988 season, these black and white photos are as compelling as ever...the grainy photographs have a grittiness suited to the hardscrabble West Texas landscape—you can practically taste the dust in the air. Clark’s images of lonely highways and abandoned downtown storefronts have a grand, cinematic feel, while his portraits of players lifting weights, brushing their hair, or getting dressed for a game are almost unbearably intimate. * Texas Monthly *[An] impressive illustrated volume…This is a fitting coda for fans of the book and show, and anyone with an interest in the rural America of a bygone era will want to take a look. * Publishers Weekly *[Clark's] images are poignant, just like Bissinger’s book about the Permian Panthers’ quest to win the state championship before ultimately failing...The photographs are a visceral reminder of the emotions the young men went through before many considered them just football-playing characters on a screen...Friday Night Lives shows the real players and place that have largely become fictionalized to audiences across the country. * Texas Highways *Through Clark's time capsule, viewers can hear the cheers of the crowd, the sounds of the locker room, the music played by the pep band, and feel the hot West Texas sun beating down on the football players during drills. * Smithsonian Magazine, "The Ten Best Photography Books of 2020" *The photos [in Friday Night Lives] further illuminate the town of Odessa and bring to life the real Boobie Miles and Coach Gaines, documenting the disparate emotions that marked the dramatic season. * Inside Hook, "The 20 Best Coffee Table Books of 2020" *Powerful...An impactful collection on the enduring popularity of Friday Night Lights, that will appeal to fans of the book, movie, or TV series. * Library Journal *The notion of time passing runs through the pages of [Friday Night Lives]...The book from UT Press is part-time capsule, showing the Panthers in their glory days. But Clark also captures how the years have had its way with the once-young Odessa heroes, having returned to West Texas to photograph the men in their current lives. * Alcalde *In black-and-white photos, Clark presents an intimate body of work that captures the innocence of life before the 21st century, as well as what came after. * BuzzFeed News *Table of Contents Foreword by Hanif Abdurraqib First Half Second Half #20 Mike Winchell #35 Boobie Miles #85 Brian Chavez #62 Ivory Christian #76 Jerrod McDougal #26 Don Billingsley Coach Gaines Afterword by Robert Clark Captions
£31.50
University of Texas Press It Can Be This Way Always
Book SynopsisA graceful and searching photographic ode to the people of the Kerrville Folk Festival, who gather annually in the Texas Hill Country to celebrate music and live an idealistic combination of nonconformity and intentional community.Trade ReviewA striking collection of black-and-white film images capturing the spirit of the festival—guitars, sandals, tents, caliche dust, and all...In the absence of the chance to gather at Quiet Valley Ranch at least until the fall, Johnson’s tribute in It Can Be This Way Always serves as both a satisfying fix for old-timers and an intriguing intro for newcomers. * Texas Highways *Johnson pays joyful homage to the 49-year-old festival…The festival…comes to life in the pages of [It Can Be This Way Always]...Johnson’s black and white photography centers attendees and volunteers instead of the musicians, capturing the spur-of-the-moment campfires, hazy summer fashion, and communal living that define Kerrville. * Texas Monthly *Johnson’s black-and-white photos take in the entire scene, a mélange of campground, be-in, jamboree, dance floor, and jam session...Recommended for its depictions of a vibrant counterculture gathering and visual evocation of the power of music. * Library Journal *As David Johnson’s photographs make clear, that ounce of difference continues to hold sway at Quiet Valley Ranch: it can be this way always. * Journal of American Folklore *Table of ContentsForeword (Mary Muse) Preface (David Johnson) Plates Roots of the Ballad Tree: Visions of Kerrville in Historical Context (Jason Mellard) List of Plates Acknowledgments
£26.59
Duke University Press Bloodflowers
Book SynopsisIn Bloodflowers W. Ian Bourland examines the photography of Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955–1989), whose art is a touchstone for cultural debates surrounding questions of gender and queerness, race and diaspora, aesthetics and politics, and the enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism. Born in Nigeria, Fani-Kayode moved between artistic and cultural worlds in Washington, DC, New York, and London, where he produced the bulk of his provocative and often surrealist and homoerotic photographs of black men. Bourland situates Fani-Kayode''s work in a time of global transition and traces how it exemplified and responded to profound social, cultural, and political change. In addition to his formal analyses of Fani-Kayode''s portraiture, Bourland outlines the important influence that surrealism, neo-Romanticism, Yoruban religion, the AIDS crisis, experimental film, loft culture, and house and punk music had on Fani-Kayode''s work. In so doing, Bourland offers new perspectives on a Trade Review"Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." -- E. Baden * Choice *“Bourland’s book is a welcome showcase and exploration of Fani-Kayode’s work, especially in these times of renewed homophobia and racism.” -- Rachel Jagareski * Foreword *"Bloodflowers is a rich and detailed study of the photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode. . . . Bourland’s bookprovides much that will be of interest to students of photography and visual culture. . . ." -- Darren Newbury * Journal of British Studies *“The real strength of Bloodflowers resides in Bourland’s descriptive capabilities and the care he gives to a Black artist who has not been granted the scholarly attention he deserves. Known for stunningly beautiful, conceptually rich photographs of Black men, Fani-Kayode created images that are at once steeped in complex symbolism while also semiotically porous in their surrealism: a contradiction that Bourland unpacks with great critical sophistication.” -- Derek Conrad Murray * Art Bulletin *“The brilliance of Bourland’s book is in the range of its learnedness. Its promise, though, lies in its wide applicability. The book should be read not simply for its bearing on Fani-Kayode. It should be engaged as a model for a deeply interdisclipinary and historically attuned art history and criticism.” -- Roderick A. Ferguson * Nka *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. Nothing to Lose 1 Exposure 1. Brixton 23 Exposure 2. Rage and Desire 58 Exposure 3. Magnolia Air 91 Exposure 4. The Queen Is Dead 146 Exposure 5. Mirror Worlds 171 Exposure 6. Night Moves 209 Epilogue. Homecoming 250 Notes 257 Bibliography 291 Index 305
£98.60
Duke University Press A Nimble Arc
Book SynopsisWhile James Van Der Zee is widely known and praised for his studio portraits from the Harlem Renaissance era, much of the diversity and expansive reach of his work has been overlooked. From the major role his studio played for decades photographing ordinary people and events in the Harlem community to the inclusion of his photographs in the landmark Harlem on My Mind exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969, Van Der Zee was a foundational Black photographer whose work illustrates the shifting ways photography serves as a constitutive force within Black life. In A Nimble Arc, Emilie Boone considers Van Der Zee's photographic work over the course of the twentieth century, showing how it foregrounded aspects of Black daily life in the United States and in the larger African diaspora. Boone argues that Van Der Zee's work exists at the crossroads of art and the vernacular, challenging the distinction between canonical art photographs and the kind of output common to commercial photography studios. Boone's account recasts our understanding not only of this celebrated figure but of photography within the arc of quotidian Black life.Trade Review“In her innovative and timely revisiting of the work of America’s most iconic Black photographer, James Van Der Zee, Emilie Boone reinvigorates the practice of this singular artist through a careful and considered unpacking of the social function his images served as quotidian objects. A Nimble Arc takes readers on a captivating journey into the social life of Van Der Zee’s photographs in ways that allow us to see iconic images anew and recognize the enduring value of photography as a community-building project that exceeds the intentions and aspirations of any individual photographer.” -- Tina M. Campt, author of * A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See *“This is a truly exceptional work. Exquisitely written, researched, and argued, A Nimble Arc is the most comprehensive study of James Van Der Zee’s practice in almost thirty years. I predict a long and fruitful life for this book.” -- Kellie Jones, author of * South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s *"A Nimble Arc broadens James Van Der Zee’s legacy amid a savvied history of twentieth-century Harlem." -- Meg Nola * Foreword Reviews *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction. To Pivot Lightly: Adding the Vernacular to Art History’s Sight Line 1 1. “More, Many More”: Van Der Zee’s World of Harlem Renaissance Studio Photographers 29 2. The Newspaper and Ubiquity: 1924 Photographs as Moving Objects of the African Diaspora 71 3. A Reframing of Value: Van Der Zee’s Restoration Work of the 1940s and Beyond 113 4. Black Quotidian Experiences: Revisiting the Met’s Harlem on My Mind Exhibition of 1969 153 Coda. To Nimbly Rewind: Fixing a New Constellation of Ideas circa 1994 199 Notes 213 Bibliography 241 Index 259
£73.95
University of Nebraska Press The Grass Shall Grow
Book SynopsisThe Grass Shall Grow is a succinct introduction to the work and world of Helen M. Post, who took thousands of photographs of Native Americans during a brief period of intense activity in the late 1930s and early years of World War II.Trade Review"This book is full of such keen insights and information and excellent photographic reproductions. It is an excellent and needed addition to the scholarship on Helen Post—whose work deserves greater recognition—and twentieth-century photographs of Native Americans in the American Southwest."—Devorah Romanek, New Mexico Historical Review"Gidley's book brings to light important work by a talented photographer who has been largely lost to history until now. It is a valuable addition to scholarship on photography of Native Americans, the Great Plains, and the New Deal era."—Cara A. Finnegan, Great Plains Quarterly"The Grass Shall Grow will be interesting to a wide variety of readers, with an accessible narrative a fascinating images."—Rachel McLean Sailor, South Dakota History"Scholars whose work touches on photographic representation, the New Deal era, or the federal-tribal relationship will find much useful information in this work."—Angela Parker, Native American and Indigenous Studies"I just finished reading The Grass Shall Grow: Helen Post Photographs the Native American West, and I am delighted with Mick Gidley’s interpretation of my mother’s work. It really cements Helen Post’s place in twentieth century photographic history. I am a very special audience for this book, because I am deeply personally invested in the documentation of my mother’s place in photography, and because I know so much about many of the characters and history embodied in it. But my knowledge is incomplete, it is like a big jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. I have gleaned much of the history of her assignments photographing Native Americans from the surviving prints, negatives and paper records, the bulk of which I gave to the Amon Carter Museum, and from her fragmentary reminiscences told over the years. Yet I could never have assembled it into a coherent whole as Dr. Gidley did with his extensive research. For that I am deeply grateful. I will recommend it to all our friends who remember Helen and are interested in her work. Congratulations on the publication of a very welcome work! And I might add, it is very well written and was a pleasure to read."—Peter Modley, son of Helen Post (Modley)“The Grass Shall Grow resurrects the work of photographer Helen Post, an important if little-known photographer, whose work in Indian Country during the late 1930s and early 1940s complements the better known-work by photographers connected to the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Focusing on sites overlooked by the FSA, Post pictured communities from Arizona to Montana. In Gidley’s book she finally gets her due as an independent woman, well informed about Indian policy, who sought to capture a respectful and empathetic image of Native life during the Great Depression.”—Martha A. Sandweiss, professor of history at Princeton University and author of Print the Legend: Photography and the American WestTable of ContentsList of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments A Note on the Figures Prologue 1. Introducing Helen Post 2. Creating a Read-and-See Book 3. Peopling Post’s Pictures 4. Photographing a New Deal for the Indians Conclusion Notes Photograph and Figure Credits Index
£35.10
University of Nebraska Press Clitso Dedman Navajo Carver
Book SynopsisRebecca Valette’s Clitso Dedman, Navajo Carver is the first biography of artist Clitso Dedman (1876–1953), one of the most important but overlooked Diné (Navajo) artists of his generation. Dedman was born to a traditional Navajo family in Chinle, Arizona, and herded sheep as a child. He was educated in the late 1880s and early 1890s at the Fort Defiance Indian School, then at the Teller Institute in Grand Junction, Colorado. After graduation Dedman moved to Gallup, New Mexico, where he worked in the machine shop of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway before opening his first of three Navajo trading posts in Rough Rock, Arizona. After tragedy struck his life in 1915, he moved back to Chinle and abruptly changed careers to become a blacksmith and builder. At age sixty, suffering from arthritis, Dedman turned his creative talent to wood carving, thus initiating a new Navajo art form. Although the neighboring Hopis had been carving Kachina dollsTrade Review“Rebecca Valette’s history of the life of the early to mid-twentieth-century Diné trader, architect, and master wood carver Clitso Dedman is a fascinating work—well written and beautifully illustrated. Empathetically written in consultation with descendants, it also uses an amazing array of print and archival sources, which would-be writers of poorly documented Indigenous life histories will appreciate. The book’s thorough inventory of Dedman’s carvings and their dispositions will interest students of Indigenous art marketing and collecting as well.”—Klara Kelley, coauthor of Navajoland Trading Post Encyclopedia“Although Clitso Dedman’s artistic career spanned only about thirteen years, his carved figures are instantly recognizable and highly prized by collectors and dealers alike. As the first detailed account of Dedman’s life, this book is an important contribution to the literature and allows a deeper appreciation for his work. Weaving together a wealth of obscure facts about the artist’s life, Rebecca Valette gives a wonderful account of how one man bridged two cultures, a problem that continues to challenge nearly every Native American today. Equally important, Valette establishes a guide to dating Dedman’s work, the majority of which still remains in private collections.”—Russell Hartman, former anthropology collections manager at the California Academy of Sciences and former director-curator of the Navajo Nation Museum“Rebecca Valette has uncovered long-hidden information about one of the most important artists of the Navajo Nation. This book reveals for the first time the early life of Clitso Dedman and his relationship with Indian traders on the Navajo Nation, which encouraged his wood carvings of participants in ceremonial life of the Diné people, particularly the Nightway ceremony. Additionally, Valette reveals the known locations of Dedman’s carvings—single carvings, sets of four carvings, and his magnificent and rare complete sets containing sixteen carvings. Because of Valette’s diligent work, the works of this Diné artist are documented and available for the first time ever.”—Alexander E. Anthony Jr., owner and director of Adobe Gallery, Santa Fe, New MexicoTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsMap: Navajo Reservation, 1934PrefaceAcknowledgments Chapter 1. Early Years in Chinle Chapter 2. Boarding School Chapter 3. Railroad Apprentice Chapter 4. Trading Post Years Chapter 5. From Wagon to Automobile Chapter 6. An Unanticipated Career Shift Chapter 7. Back to Chinle Chapter 8. Woodcarver Chapter 9. A Forgotten Artist Epilogue. A New Navajo ArtAppendix. Inventory of Clitso Dedman CarvingsBibliographyEndnotesIndex
£27.90
Cornell University Press The Borscht Belt
Book SynopsisA beautiful series of visual compositions designed to evoke the experience of America''s early Jewish communities which rose from the immigrant ghettos of New York City to enjoy the mobile lifestyles so popular at the height of the modern era.? NEW YORK HISTORYToday the Borscht Belt is recalled through the nostalgic lens of summer swims, Saturday night dances, and comedy performances. But its current state, like that of many other formerly glorious regions, is nothing like its earlier status. Forgotten about and exhausted, much of its structural environment has been left to decay. The Borscht Belt, which features essays by Stefan Kanfer and Jenna Weissman Joselit, presents Marisa Scheinfeld’s photographs of abandoned sites where resorts, hotels, and bungalow colonies once boomed in the Catskill Mountain region of upstate New York. The book assembles images Scheinfeld has shot inside and outside locations thTrade ReviewIn New York's Catskill Mountains a party began in the twentieth century that lasted decades. Party pictures filled thousands of scrapbooks—but now the party’s over and the guests are gone, never to return. Enter Marisa Scheinfeld, whose camera finds profound eloquence in the silence that remains and hope in new life emerging from the ruins. This story was already ancient when Shelley penned "Ozymandias": that all things grand eventually fall. But Scheinfeld’s work is all the more moving because these things are ours now. -- Alan Weisman * Countdown and The World without Us *Photographer Marisa Scheinfeld has documented the end of the great resorts in The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America's Jewish Vacationland, which features page after page of photos of waterless, cracking pools, dirt-caked floors, weathered and withered wooden cottages, gashed ceilings and gushing insulation, graffiti-bedecked walls, rows of bereft beach emptiness where there had once been fullness. Scheinfeld’s photos remind one of the old Catskills’ theme of nature despoiled, a contemporary counterpart to the desolate final painting in Cole’s The Course of Empire. -- Neal Gabler * Jewish Review of Books *Those structures that haven't been repurposed as meditation centers or rehab facilities have fallen into that beguiling realm neither humanity nor nature can produce alone, with wild vegetation blurring, bending, and breaking the rigid geometries of civilization. The book notes Woody Allen's quip, no doubt delivered at some point from a Borscht Belt stage: 'Eighty percent of success is showing up.' Some might say that Scheinfeld arrived half a century too late, but her photos reveal that she showed up just in time to discover mutable beauty in tumbledown dreams. -- R. C. Baker * Village Voice *All of the photographs in The Borscht Belt are remarkable, but I find myself agreeing with [essayist] Jenna Weissman Joselit that one thing they make clear is that 'Mother Nature has the last laugh' (25). Whether it is a tree growing through a bench, or the grass growing over what was once luxurious wall-to-wall carpet, or snowdrifts inside walls built to keep weather out, Scheinfeld's collection proves that in the end, nature will find a way. Where once there was so much life, now there is death, seen through the bones and feathers that mark the nests of small predators. But even that is a sign of new life in its own way, and Scheinfeld beautifully illustrates that death and life are never far apart, -- Jennifer Caplan * Reading Religion *A beautiful series of visual compositions designed to evoke the experience of America's early Jewish communities which rose from the immigrant ghettos of New York City to enjoy the mobile lifestyles so popular at the height of the modern era. * NEW YORK HISTORY *
£26.59
University of Pennsylvania Press Horatio Greenough: The First American Sculptor
Book SynopsisThis is the first full-length biography of Horatio Greenough. Aside from a short fifty page account published in 1853, no one up to now has attempted to write the complete story of his life. Greenough, who lived from 1805 to 1852, was the first American to devote himself from the outset of his career to the profession of sculpture and the first to set forth at any length the concept of functionalism in architecture. He was generally forgotten after his death, chiefly because the heroic, classical tradition in sculpture to which he was committed gave place to the realistic depiction of subjects in the dress of their times. On the other hand, his architectural theory, for which he was far in advance of his time, made little impression on his contemporaries. In recent years he has been hailed as a forerunner of the architectural functionalists while his sculpture has been disparaged. Actually, his achievement in both these areas is considerable and highly significant in the history of American culture. In this book Greenough's life is examined with a broad, historical, American-culture point of view rather than the specialized view of the art critic. Especially interesting and informative are the discussions of his virtual founding of the American colony in Florence; his association with such notable contemporaries as James Fenimore Cooper, Samuel F. B. Morse and Ralph Waldo Emerson; and his dealings with the United States government in the execution of two major works. One was the controversial "Washington," intended for the rotund. of the Capitol but, widely objected to because the figure was half-nude, now in the Smithsonian Institution; the other was "The Rescue," consisting of a pioneer restraining an Indian from killing a pioneer woman and child, a group which stood on the east front of the Capitol until its recent remodeling. This book contains liberal quotations from previously unpublished letters of Greenough and accounts of nineteenth-century American travelers in Italy. In addition, there is a catalogue of the artist's sculpture and fifty plates (with seventy-eight individual illustrations), including photographs or drawings of most of his sculptures and photographs of representative specimens of his drawings, the majority of which are being published for the first time.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations PART I 1. Boston Boy: 1805-1825 2. Student Abroad and Critic at Home: 1825-1828 3. Art Colonist: 1828-1836 PART II 4. Spokesman for the Nation PART III 5. Florentine American: 1837-1851 6. Yankee Philosopher: 1851-1852 Notes Index (Including a catalogue of sculpture)
£79.20
University of Minnesota Press Robert Heinecken and the Art of Appropriation
Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive study of the artist Robert Heinecken and his critical views on the culture of mass media This is the first book-length study dedicated to the artist Robert Heinecken, whose innovative photographic practices sought to interrogate how mass media imagery facilitated the construction of individual and collective identities. Appropriating, rephotographing, and layering pictures culled from newspapers, advertisements, pornography, and television, Heinecken recombined and transformed the ubiquitous images of mass culture to encourage viewers to critically reflect on their sense of self. From the 1960s through the late 1990s, Heinecken’s controversial art continually challenged inherited ideas around consumerism, the facticity of reportage, and visual culture’s relationship to gender and identity politics. Embodying the evolution of contemporary art toward increasingly hybrid and conceptual approaches, his oeuvre includes examples of painting, sculpture, photomontage, performance, installation, time-based media, and artist’s books, all of which collectively exploit photography’s reproducibility to subvert society’s dominant ideologies and stereotypical modes of representation.Author Matthew Biro presents an exhaustive look at Heinecken’s life and art, locating him within a lineage that encompasses the activities of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes and the postmodern strategies of the Pictures Generation artists. Assessing his career within the specific political and historical contexts from which he gleaned his material, and illustrated throughout with vibrant full-color reproductions of his art, this in-depth examination demonstrates Robert Heinecken’s significance as a key figure of twentieth-century art and an incisive commentator on modern life in America. Trade Review"With crystalline prose and impressively illustrated throughout, Robert Heinecken and the Art of Appropriation brings long overdue attention to one of the most innovative photographers of the twentieth century. Matthew Biro’s immaculate research and careful consideration of the different phases of Heinecken’s practice offer a most welcome recalibration of his many achievements and their reverberations throughout American culture at large."—James Nisbet, author of Second Site"Matthew Biro’s book provides a thorough critical analysis of an artist who has been neglected for far too long. The inquiry, however, does far more than achieve this already important work of recuperation. By placing Heinecken within his context with such care, both by way of geography and time, Biro uses the artist to rewrite our understanding of American art from the 1920s through the 1990s."—Andrés Mario Zervigón, author of Photography and GermanyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Art, Photography, and the Consumption of Identity1. Artist and Educator: Criticizing the American Family Ideal through 35mm Photography2. Documents of Manufactured Experience: Appropriation and the Photogram in the 1960s3. The Photographic Object: Heinecken’s Materialism4. Magazine Work: American Disaster and Identity5. Art, Pornography, Painting: Heinecken’s Relationship to Feminism6. The Polaroid Experience: Instantaneous Photography and the Performance of Identity7. Surrealism on TV: Ronald Reagan and the Newscasters8. Appropriation in the 1980s and 1990s: History and the Body at the End of the Analog EraCoda: Heinecken’s SignificanceAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex
£30.60
University of Minnesota Press Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert
Book SynopsisAn expansive and revelatory study of Robert Smithson’s life and the hidden influences on his iconic creations This first biography of the major American artist Robert Smithson, famous as the creator of the Spiral Jetty, deepens understanding of his art by addressing the potent forces in his life that were shrouded by his success, including his suppressed early history as a painter; his affiliation with Christianity, astrology, and alchemy; and his sexual fluidity. Integrating extensive investigation and acuity, Suzaan Boettger uncovers Smithson’s story and, with it, symbolic meanings across the span of his painted and drawn images, sculptures, essays, and earthworks up to the Spiral Jetty and beyond, to the circumstances leading to what became his final work, Amarillo Ramp.While Smithson is widely known for his monumental earthwork at the edge of the Great Salt Lake, Inside the Spiral delves into the arc of his artistic production, recognizing it as a response to his family’s history of loss, which prompted his birth and shaped his strange intelligence. Smithson configured his personal conflicts within painterly depictions of Christ’s passion, the rhetoric of science fiction, imagery from occult systems, and the impersonal posture of conceptual sculpture. Aiming to achieve renown, he veiled his personal passions and transmuted his professional persona, becoming an acclaimed innovator and fierce voice in the New York art scene.Featuring copious illustrations never before published of early work that eluded Smithson’s destruction, as well as photographs of Smithson and his wife, the noted sculptor Nancy Holt, and recollections from nearly all those who knew him throughout his life, Inside the Spiral offers unprecedented insight into the hidden impulses of one of modern art’s most enigmatic figures. With great sensitivity to the experiences of loss and existential strife that defined his distinct artistic language, this biographical analysis provides an expanded view of Smithson’s iconic art pilgrimage site and the experiences and works that brought him to its peculiar blood red water.Trade Review "Only someone who has immersed themselves in the life and art of Robert Smithson for forty years could have written a biography as deep and engaging as Inside the Spiral. Suzaan Boettger illuminates the artist’s religious thought, examines the complexities of his gender identity, and takes a psychoanalytic lens to his sources and esoteric symbolism, bringing coherence to our understanding of this remarkably complicated artist, his body of work, and his writings. A monumental achievement."—Jonathan Fineberg, University of the Arts, author of Modern Art at the Border of Mind and Brain "Suzaan Boettger’s long-awaited Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson is the first biography of this 'enantiomorphic' artist, whose oeuvre encompassed geological and sacred time alongside the moment of the snapshot, the 'dematerialized' theorizing and mapping of the non-site alongside the absolute site-specificity—viewable from outer space—of the Great Salt Lake. Boettger reveals fascinating and hitherto unexplored aspects of Smithson’s earliest formation, including his status as a 'replacement child' for a dead older brother, while her fearless exploration of the artist’s Christological bent, his hermeticism, and his difficult navigation of sexuality yields nuanced psychological insight. Unburdened by academic jargon, the work is supported by extensive reference to Smithson’s writings, notes, interviews, library, and other records, of which Boettger has long been recognized as the foremost scholar."—Judith Rodenbeck, University of California, Riverside "This book sheds important new light on Robert Smithson. Meticulously researched and wide-ranging in scope, it explores the intricate connections between Smithson’s personal history and his art. While revealing a great deal of new information about Smithson’s life and psychology, Suzaan Boettger also engages with his art in a focused and detailed way and writes about individual works with great perceptiveness. Readers will come away from this book with a fresh and enlarged understanding of Smithson’s life and art."—Jack Flam, editor of Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings"[An] extensive biography of an artist I have stood by for some fifty years which is impossible not to consider definitive, particularly in its investigation of the artist’s unconscious as well as conscious motives."—Joseph Masheck, The Brooklyn Rail "That his art appears larger after reading Inside the Spiral is as much credit to his own capacious imagination as it is to Boettger’s ingenious attempts to contain it."—Artforum"Inside the Spiral is one of the most informative and well written biographies I have ever had the pleasure of reading. To use the American vernacular, Suzaan Boettger can write like 'hot-damn'!" —Robert Maddox-Harle, Leonardo Reviews
£26.99
University of North Texas Press The FiftyYear Texas Road Trip
Book Synopsis
£32.40
WW Norton & Co Dogs in Cars
Book SynopsisFirst we had dogs underwater, then dogs shaking off water... and now dogs soaking up the exhilarating no-holds-barred pleasure of a ride in a car. Photographer Lara Jo Regan began her pet project as a calendar but the response was overwhelming and absolute: her photographs of the cruising canines, taken from incredible perspectives, with tongues hanging and ears flapping, became a global Internet sensation. The energy of the photographs is impressive and visceral. In order to get these shots, Regan built a special light, which jutted out over the roof of the car, a harness that allowed her to lean out of the window and various other contraptions to make the images come to life. Dogs In Cars will have the reader laughing out loud.Trade Review"The energy of the photographs is impressive and visceral...Dogs In Cars will have the reader laughing out loud." -- K9 Magazine
£13.38
Getty Trust Publications Julius Schulman′s Los Angeles
Book SynopsisThis title presents a pictorial history of the "City of the Future" throughout the 20th century. The celebrated architectural photographer Julius Shulman (1910-2009) is one of the few image makers to have documented, as well as witnessed, nearly an entire century of Los Angeles history. His captivating photographs serve as a visual record of the dramatic evolution of this diverse metropolis. Shulman's best-known images consist of mid-century views of Modernist domestic interiors, notably the iconic Case Study House Number 22 of 1960. Not as well known but equally powerful are Shulman's images of Union Station and downtown's vintage office buildings, the region's eclectic coffee shops and movie theatres, and the panoramic vistas of the "City of the Future" under construction. This volume presents 60 stunning images and an informative essay exploring Shulman's exceptional talent.
£10.99
Getty Trust Publications This is the Day – The March on Washington
Book SynopsisThis title offers a superb collection of emotionally charged photographs that document a poignant day in American history. "This Is the Day" is a stirring photo-essay documenting the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of August 28, 1963, the historic day on which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. This book commemorates the 50th anniversary of the historic march that ultimately led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Never before published in book form, the 75 photographs in this volume were chosen from among the hundreds of images that Freed captured - before, during, and after the march. These images not only present us with stunning wide-angle views of hundreds of thousands of marchers overflowing the National Mall but also focus on small groups of people straining to see the speakers and on individual faces, each one filled with hope and yearning, epitomized by the beautiful young woman who throws her entire being into singing "We Shall Overcome."
£23.75
Getty Trust Publications Japans Modern Divide The Photographs of Hiroshi
Book SynopsisOffers an illustrated overview of the evolution of two very different strains of modern Japanese photography. This book explores these two divergent paths through the work of two remarkable figures: Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto.
£42.75
Getty Trust Publications The Thrill of the Chase - The Wagstaff Collection
Book SynopsisWith more than 26,000 works, the Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr. collection of photographs is the largest single group of artworks in any medium at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Wagstaff (1921-1987) amassed his extraordinary collection between 1973 and 1984, recognizing early that photography was an undervalued art form on which he might have a profound impact as a collector. He was mainly attracted to photographs that stimulated his imagination, and his taste ran toward the idiosyncratic-images that surprised him chiefly because he had never seen them before.In choosing the 147 works reproduced in this volume, Paul Martineau selected masterpieces as well as images from obscure sources: daguerreotypes, cartes-de-visite, and stereographs, plus mug shots, medical photographs, and works by unknown makers. The latter category contains some of the most outstanding objects in the collection, demonstrating Wagstaff's willingness to position unfamiliar images alongside works by established masters as well as underrepresented contemporary artists of the time, including Jo Ann Callis, William Garnett, and Edmund Teske.This book is published to accompany an eponymous exhibition on view at the J.Paul Getty Museum from March 15 to July 31, 2016; at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT, from September 10 to December 11, 2016; and at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, ME, from February 1 to April 30, 2017.
£47.50
Getty Trust Publications Eye Dreaming: Photographs by Anthony Barboza
This richly illustrated book is the first monograph to explore the prolific career of the celebrated photographer Anthony Barboza. Anthony Barboza (b. 1944) is a celebrated artist and writer who has made thousands of photographs in the studio and on the street since 1963. A member of the Kamoinge collective of photographers in New York, Barboza is largely self-taught and has an inimitable, highly intuitive vision that he refers to as "eye dreaming," or "a state of mind that's almost like meditation." Throughout the years he has made countless commercial images, including celebrity portraits, advertisements, and album covers. His personal photographic projects illuminate his deep investment in the art and concerns of Black communities, not only in the United States but also around the globe. This lavishly illustrated volume follows Barboza's prolific career from his youth in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to his formative years in New York in the 1960s, to the present day. An introduction by renowned author and critic Hilton Als underscores Barboza's importance and impact. An essay by curator Aaron Bryant contextualizes Barboza's life and career as they map against major civil rights events in the United States. In an intimate interview between the artist and curator Mazie M. Harris, Barboza offers astute, humorous, and intimate musings on his long career, foundational influences, and artistic legacy. This monograph, the first on the artist, will appeal to aficionados of photography and Black art and culture.
£33.25
Getty Trust Publications Arthur Tress: Rambles, Dreams, and Shadows
Book SynopsisArthur Tress (b. 1940) is a singular figure in the landscape of postwar American photography. His seminal series, The Dream Collector, depicts Tress's interests in dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and the unconscious and established him as one of the foremost proponents of magical realism at a time when few others were doing staged photography. This volume presents the first critical look at Tress's early career, contextualizing the highly imaginative, fantastic work he became known for while also examining his other interrelated series: Appalachia: People and Places,; Open Space in the Inner City,; Shadow,;and Theater of the Mind. James A. Ganz, Mazie M. Harris, and Paul Martineau plumb Tress's work and archives, studying ephemera, personal correspondence, unpublished notes, diaries, contact sheets, and more to uncover how he went from earning his living as a social documentarian in Appalachia to producing surreal work of "imaginative fiction." This abundantly illustrated volume imparts a fuller understanding of Tress's career and the New York photographic scene of the 1960s and 1970s. “Along with several others of his cohort, Arthur Tress spearheaded the resurgence of the directorial mode in the 1970s, as well as his generation's engagement with previously taboo subject matter. With his unique blend of documentary and surrealist approaches, he has made a major contribution to his medium.”—A. D. Coleman, photography critic and historianTable of ContentsForeword - Timothy Potts The Photograph as Magical Image - Arthur Tress Arthur Tress, Dreams and Variations, 1968-1978 - James A. Ganz Crossroads: Arthur Tress in Appalachia - Mazie M. Harris Open Space in the Inner City - James A. Ganz The Dream Collector - James A. Ganz The Enigma of the Shadow - Paul Martineau All the World Is a Stage - Paul Martineau Plates Postscript - Arthur Tress Plate List Bibliography Acknowledgments Biographical Notes Index
£45.00
University of South Carolina Press Into the Flatland
Book SynopsisCapturing the rich contrasts of the land and the intimate history of generations in the Mississippi Delta, Into the Flatland, by Kathleen Robbins, is a series of photographs documenting the terrain, people, and culture of her ancestry. The photographer returned to her childhood farm in Bell Chase as an adult in 2001 after completing graduate studies in New Mexico. She and her brother then lived on their family farm for nearly two years, breathing life back into family properties that had been long dormant.In this series, which won the Photo-NOLA prize in 2011, Robbins highlights the diversity of the landscape of the Delta, from expansive, dusty cotton fields to green, vibrant swamps. Her photographs capture the people and the architecture that are present on the land and also reminiscent of a time long past, before the mechanization of farming and the exodus of her people from their native soil. The presence of Robbins’s family in some of her photographs brings an intimacy to her portrait of the Delta and shows the tension between past and present. Including a short story by a National Endowment for the Arts recipient, Cynthia Shearer, Into the Flatland transports the reader into the rich history of Mississippi. At turns both colorful and gray, the photographs capture not only the Delta landscape, but also the stark and rugged images of people and buildings that sink as deeply into the land as the roots of the trees in the woods and swamps. As large masses of birds flock to the vast blue sky, Robbins remains fixed on the ground, her lens trained on the home and the landscape of her past.
£26.96
Purdue University Press Photographing America's First Astronauts: Project
Book SynopsisFeaturing more than 600 photos, Photographing America's First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub is the most complete photographic account of Project Mercury ever published. Previous Project Mercury books largely have relied on the relatively limited number of photos released by NASA. This book, however, showcases hundreds of never-before-seen images of America's first manned space program by NASA's first staff photographer, Bill Taub. Taub went everywhere with the Mercury astronauts, capturing their daily activities from 1959 to 1963. As a result, his photos provide a unique and intimate behind-the-scenes look at the people and operations of Project Mercury in real time.Drawing on Taub's recently discovered archive of thousands of black-and-white and color prints, slides, and transparencies, this is the first book to comprehensively visually document Project Mercury. No previous book has devoted as many images to each of the Mercury Seven astronauts and their pioneering spaceflights. Other chapters cover astronaut selection and training, NASA management, and facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Each image is accompanied by a detailed caption. The foreword is by legendary NASA Flight Director Eugene Kranz.Table of Contents Foreword by Eugene Kranz Introduction About the Photography Acknowledgments 1. Steps to Space 2. The People of Mercury 3. Alan Shepard/Mercury-Redstone 3 4. Gus Grissom/Mercury-Redstone 4 5. John Glenn/Mercury-Atlas 6 6. Deke Slayton/Destiny Delayed 7. Scott Carpenter/Mercury-Atlas 7 8. Wally Schirra/Mercury-Atlas 8 9. Gordon Cooper/Mercury-Atlas 9 10. Beyond Mercury Abbreviations Bibliography About Bill Taub About the Authors
£35.06
New Village Press Divining Chaos: The Autobiography of an Idea
Book SynopsisA spirited memoir by artist Aviva Rahmani, offering a relatable narrative to discuss trigger point theory and the importance of eco-art activism. Divining Chaos is an intimate personal memoir of unparalleled transparency into the moments in Rahmani's life that shaped her as an artist and activist. Detailing the history that led her to two seminal projects—Ghost Nets, restoring a coastal town dump to flourishing wetlands, and The Blued Trees Symphony, which applied her premises to challenge natural gas pipelines with a novel legal theory about land use—Rahmani shares the decisions that shaped her life’s work and thinking. Her discussions about trigger point theory argue for how to predict, confront, and determine outcomes to the ecological challenges we face today.Trade ReviewRahmani brings us to the place where her art (which speaks of the urgency of action and the lack of time to make change) is refracted through her reflections of her life—moments in time as a process through time. -- Hilary Robinson, Professor of Feminism, Art, and Theory, Loughborough University, UK; editor of Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2014In Divining Chaos Aviva Rahmani nails her own heart to the Earth’s gallery wall and invites us to examine it, a daunting experience of critical life-moments revealing the complex dialectic of violation. Yet, to fight ecocide and regain the symphony of life, we must 'read' and 'listen' to her beautiful, beating heart, an avatar of harmonia mundi. -- Glenn Albrecht, environmental philosopher; author of Earth Emotions and SolastalgiaAviva Rahmani offers a memoir of anti-capitalist, anti-ecocidal storytelling imbued with a deep and abiding faith that people and art can interrupt and reinvent the status quo. In twinning deep scientific and theoretical knowledge with her art, she manages a near-impossible task of rendering the world as it is—precarious, violent, dangerous, beautiful. -- Laura Raicovich, writer and curator; author of Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest and former director of the Queens Museum of ArtAviva Rahmani’s remarkable Divining Chaos is part bildungsroman, part eco-action guidebook, part pandemic diary, and part portrait of a turbulent time in American art and history. With searing honesty, Rahmani presents her complex multidisciplinary thinking as it has evolved through the twists and turns of a tumultuous life. This is the story of a life in art that is also a life in politics, science, and environmental- ism. And, in our dark times, it is also a story of what we may still be able to do to save our planet. -- Eleanor Heartney, art critic and curator; author of Art & Today and Doomsday DreamsDivining Chaos is a compelling and courageous memoir of historical importance, written by a central figure in the emergence of ecofeminist art. Aviva Rahmani makes clear that the same entrenched systems of power enable the abuse of women and the abuse of nature. Her personal experiences of trauma might well have defeated her. Instead, they seemingly empowered her to become a strong and persistent advocate for ecological issues through her artwork, and to challenge the status quo in innovative and effective ways. -- Julie Reiss, PhD, editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the AnthropoceneIn Divining Chaos she nails her own heart to the Earth’s gallery wall and invites us to examine it, a daunting experience of critical life-moments revealing the complex dialectic of violation. -- Glenn Albrecht, environmental philosopher; author of Earth Emotions and SolastalgiaAviva Rahmani offers a memoir of anti-capitalist, anti-ecocidal storytelling imbued with a deep and abiding faith that people and art can interrupt and reinvent the status quo. In twinning deep scientific and theoretical knowledge with her art, she manages a near-impossible task of rendering the world as it is—precarious, violent, dangerous, beautiful. -- Laura Raicovich, author of Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest and former director of the Queens Museum of ArtAviva Rahmani’s remarkable Divining Chaos is part bildungsroman, part eco-action guidebook, part pandemic diary, and part portrait of a turbulent time in American art and history. With searing honesty, Rahmani presents her complex multidisciplinary thinking as it has evolved through the twists and turns of a tumultuous life. -- Eleanor Heartney, art critic and curator; author of Art & Today and Doomsday DreamsDivining Chaos is a compelling and courageous memoir of historical importance, written by a central figure in the emergence of ecofeminist art. Aviva Rahmani makes clear that the same entrenched systems of power enable the abuse of women and the abuse of nature. -- Julie Reiss, PhD, editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene
£23.39
New Village Press Divining Chaos: The Autobiography of an Idea
Book SynopsisA spirited memoir by artist Aviva Rahmani, offering a relatable narrative to discuss trigger point theory and the importance of eco-art activism. Divining Chaos is an intimate personal memoir of unparalleled transparency into the moments in Rahmani's life that shaped her as an artist and activist. Detailing the history that led her to two seminal projects—Ghost Nets, restoring a coastal town dump to flourishing wetlands, and The Blued Trees Symphony, which applied her premises to challenge natural gas pipelines with a novel legal theory about land use—Rahmani shares the decisions that shaped her life’s work and thinking. Her discussions about trigger point theory argue for how to predict, confront, and determine outcomes to the ecological challenges we face today.Trade Review"Rahmani brings us to the place where her art (which speaks of the urgency of action and the lack of time to make change) is refracted through her reflections of her life—moments in time as a process through time." -- Hilary Robinson, Professor of Feminism, Art, and Theory, Loughborough University, UK; editor of Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2014"In Divining Chaos Aviva Rahmani nails her own heart to the Earth’s gallery wall and invites us to examine it, a daunting experience of critical life-moments revealing the complex dialectic of violation. Yet, to fight ecocide and regain the symphony of life, we must 'read' and 'listen' to her beautiful, beating heart, an avatar of harmonia mundi." -- Glenn Albrecht, environmental philosopher; author of Earth Emotions and Solastalgia"Aviva Rahmani offers a memoir of anti-capitalist, anti-ecocidal storytelling imbued with a deep and abiding faith that people and art can interrupt and reinvent the status quo. In twinning deep scientific and theoretical knowledge with her art, she manages a near-impossible task of rendering the world as it is—precarious, violent, dangerous, beautiful." -- Laura Raicovich, writer and curator; author of Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest and former director of the Queens Museum of Art"Aviva Rahmani’s remarkable Divining Chaos is part bildungsroman, part eco-action guidebook, part pandemic diary, and part portrait of a turbulent time in American art and history. With searing honesty, Rahmani presents her complex multidisciplinary thinking as it has evolved through the twists and turns of a tumultuous life. This is the story of a life in art that is also a life in politics, science, and environmental- ism. And, in our dark times, it is also a story of what we may still be able to do to save our planet." -- Eleanor Heartney, art critic and curator; author of Art & Today and Doomsday Dreams"Divining Chaos is a compelling and courageous memoir of historical importance, written by a central figure in the emergence of ecofeminist art. Aviva Rahmani makes clear that the same entrenched systems of power enable the abuse of women and the abuse of nature. Her personal experiences of trauma might well have defeated her. Instead, they seemingly empowered her to become a strong and persistent advocate for ecological issues through her artwork, and to challenge the status quo in innovative and effective ways." -- Julie Reiss, PhD, editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene"In Divining Chaos she nails her own heart to the Earth’s gallery wall and invites us to examine it, a daunting experience of critical life-moments revealing the complex dialectic of violation." -- Glenn Albrecht, environmental philosopher; author of Earth Emotions and Solastalgia"Aviva Rahmani offers a memoir of anti-capitalist, anti-ecocidal storytelling imbued with a deep and abiding faith that people and art can interrupt and reinvent the status quo. In twinning deep scientific and theoretical knowledge with her art, she manages a near-impossible task of rendering the world as it is—precarious, violent, dangerous, beautiful." -- Laura Raicovich, author of Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest and former director of the Queens Museum of Art"Aviva Rahmani’s remarkable Divining Chaos is part bildungsroman, part eco-action guidebook, part pandemic diary, and part portrait of a turbulent time in American art and history. With searing honesty, Rahmani presents her complex multidisciplinary thinking as it has evolved through the twists and turns of a tumultuous life." -- Eleanor Heartney, art critic and curator; author of Art & Today and Doomsday Dreams"Divining Chaos is a compelling and courageous memoir of historical importance, written by a central figure in the emergence of ecofeminist art. Aviva Rahmani makes clear that the same entrenched systems of power enable the abuse of women and the abuse of nature." -- Julie Reiss, PhD, editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene
£64.00
Texas Tech Press,U.S. Rain in Our Hearts: Alpha Company in the Vietnam
Book SynopsisWith words and photographs, Rain in Our Hearts takes readers into Alpha Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 196th LIB, Americal Division in 1969–1970. Jim Logue, a professional photographer, was drafted and served as an infantryman; he also carried a camera. "In order to take my mind off the war," he would say, "I took pictures." Logue's photos showcase the daily lives of infantrymen: setting up a night laager, chatting with local children, making supply drops, and "humping" rucksacks miles each day in search of the enemy. His camera records the individual experiences and daily lives of the men who fought the war. Accompanying Logue's over 100 photographs is the narrative written by Gary D. Ford. Wanting to reconstruct the story of Alpha Company during the time in which Logue served, Ford and Logue trekked across America to meet with and interview every surviving member whom they could locate and contact. Each chapter of Rain in Our Hearts focuses on the viewpoint and life of one member of Alpha Company, including aspects of life before and after Vietnam. The story of the Company's movements and missions over the year unfold as readers are introduced to one soldier at a time. Taken together, Rain in Our Hearts offers readers a window into the words and sights of Alpha Company's Vietnam War.
£36.71
Bodleian Library Through the Lens of Janet Stone: Portraits,
Book SynopsisJanet Stone’s photograph albums feature informal portraits from the mid-twentieth century of many of the leading cultural figures and personalities of the day. The wife of the distinguished engraver Reynolds Stone established a kind of literary salon in the idyllic setting of the Old Rectory at Litton Cheney in West Dorset. Here their wide circle of friends could visit, work and flourish as Janet photographed them. Included between these pages are portraits of Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, John Piper, Iris Murdoch, John Bayley, C. Day-Lewis, Jill Balcon, Kenneth Clark, Freya Stark, Siegfried Sassoon, Willa Muir, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Frances Partridge as well as Janet’s husband Reynolds and her family. Although not a technical photographer, Janet instinctively knew the best moment to click the shutter, thus often capturing her subjects off-guard and at their most informal. In this way we see picnics by the tennis court, John Bayley trying on a headscarf, or a young Daniel Day-Lewis dressed up as a knight. Others are portrayed reading or relaxing in the gardens, drink in hand. These unique portraits give a beguiling insight into a special set of circumstances: an idyllic place and time and a group of people drawn together by two contrasting but complimentary personalities, the shy genius of Reynolds and the outgoing style and glamour of Janet Stone.
£19.00
