The arts: general topics Books

Book SynopsisConstructs an Arendtian theory of aesthetics from the philosopher’s fragmentary writings on art and perception.Trade ReviewCecilia Sjoholm provides an original and provocative reinterpretation of the difficult and controversial philosophical issues in Hannah Arendt's studies, such as embodiment, realness, appearance, judgment, and the role of sense experience. Doing Aesthetics with Arendt is written with admirable clarity, elegance, and a sense of its own unique voice. -- Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, author of Feminist Aesthetics and the Politics of Modernism In addition to filling a significant hole in existing scholarship, Doing Aesthetics with Arendt performs a powerful double gesture with far-reaching consequences. The double entendre of the title means both cultivating an account of aesthetics in which there appeared to be none and, perhaps more fundamentally, transforming the aesthetic apertures that pre-conceptually determine how a body of work appears. Cecilia Sjoholm has truly done what appeared impossible by doing aesthetics with Arendt. -- Gabriel Rockhill, author of Radical History and the Politics of Art With its insistent references to the spaces of appearances and new beginnings, to judgment and narrative, and to perspectives and plurality, Hannah Arendt's philosophy is thoroughly and emphatically structured by aesthetic categories, which no reader could have failed to notice. Bringing these categories-and some new ones: the sense of 'realness' and the 'sounding' of the language of love-into orderly, pointed, and illuminating focus, Cecilia Sjoholm has compellingly and beautifully constructed for us Arendt's unwritten aesthetics. By allowing Arendt's aesthetic doctrine to so perspicuously come into view, Sjoholm has placed us all in her debt. -- J. M. Bernstein, New School for Social ResearchTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Sensing Space: Art and the Public Sphere 2. The Work of Art 3. The Encroachment of Others 4. Tensions of Law: Tragedy and the Visibility of Lives 5. Comedy in the Dark: Arendt, Chaplin, and Anti-Semitism Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisChallenging clichés of Japanism as a feminine taste, Bachelor Japanists argues that Japanese aesthetics were central to contests over the meanings of masculinity in the West. Christopher Reed draws attention to the queerness of Japanist communities of writers, collectors, curators, and artists between the 1860s and the 1960s.Trade ReviewIn this ground-breaking work, Reed brings eloquence, intellectual rigor, and trenchant insights to a revisionist interpretation of Japanism from its early manifestations in the circles of Edmond de Goncourt and William Bigelow in nineteenth-century Paris and Boston to its post-war reinterpretations in the work of Seattle artist Mark Tobey. Bachelor Japanists brilliantly illuminates the criticality of homosocial networks and subversion of heteronormative sexuality to the diffusion of Japanism. -- Christine Guth, author of Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting, and Japan Chris Reed's Bachelor Japanists extols the often eccentric routes that non-conformists took to escape bourgeois strictures around home and family. Mapping the homoerotic pleasures attendant upon the discovery of the Far East by the West, Reed finds that sexual difference was enabled by geographic distance and cultural (mis)translation. Never before has queer theory been brought to bear this powerfully on the Western fantasy of Japan, and vice versa, than in the three case studies-1870/80s Paris, Boston around 1900, and Seattle at mid-century-of Reed's immanently readable and now indispensible book. -- Andre Dombrowski, University of Pennsylvania Christopher Reed's luminous study offers a crucial and timely reappraisal of the Orientalism thesis. Reed shows that the early twentieth-century fascination with Japan was as a social as well as an aesthetic phenomenon. The intellectuals, curators, and makers whom Reed calls 'bachelor Japanists' challenged ideas of the West and the West's relationship to and distinctness from the East. Imagining Japan created new opportunities for fantasy, visuality, social domesticity, and collaboration. Not only an occasion for a new kind of art, Japan became an occasion for a new kind of living. -- Rebecca Walkowitz, Rutgers University Bachelor Japanists is about the queer power of the foreign, the hypo-primitive, and the hyper-civilized to unmake and remake what we think of as the self, and as the state. Beautifully written and generously, incisively critical, this is a book that not only teaches you what to think; it teaches you how to think. -- Eric Hayot, Penn State Meticulously researched and eloquently written, Bachelor Japanists brings the values of queer theory to bear on both its objects of study and the writing of art history. Focusing on how diverse japonismes provided opportunities to unlearn the West, Reed's immediately important book reconstructs and illuminates the sometimes outrageous, sometimes slyly implicit "structures of dissent" they inspired and facilitated: alternative forms of beauty, collecting, domesticity, and belonging. -- Christopher Bush, Northwestern UniversityTable of ContentsA Note on Names and Terms Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Originating Japanism: Fin-de-Siecle Paris 2. Bachelor Brahmins: Turn-of-the-Century Boston 3. Sublimation and Eccentricity in the Art of Mark Tobey: Seattle at Midcentury Conclusion: On the End of Japanism Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisChallenging clichés of Japanism as a feminine taste, Bachelor Japanists argues that Japanese aesthetics were central to contests over the meanings of masculinity in the West. Christopher Reed draws attention to the queerness of Japanist communities of writers, collectors, curators, and artists between the 1860s and the 1960s.Trade ReviewIn this ground-breaking work, Reed brings eloquence, intellectual rigor, and trenchant insights to a revisionist interpretation of Japanism from its early manifestations in the circles of Edmond de Goncourt and William Bigelow in nineteenth-century Paris and Boston to its post-war reinterpretations in the work of Seattle artist Mark Tobey. Bachelor Japanists brilliantly illuminates the criticality of homosocial networks and subversion of heteronormative sexuality to the diffusion of Japanism. -- Christine Guth, author of Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting, and Japan Chris Reed's Bachelor Japanists extols the often eccentric routes that non-conformists took to escape bourgeois strictures around home and family. Mapping the homoerotic pleasures attendant upon the discovery of the Far East by the West, Reed finds that sexual difference was enabled by geographic distance and cultural (mis)translation. Never before has queer theory been brought to bear this powerfully on the Western fantasy of Japan, and vice versa, than in the three case studies-1870/80s Paris, Boston around 1900, and Seattle at mid-century-of Reed's immanently readable and now indispensible book. -- Andre Dombrowski, University of Pennsylvania Christopher Reed's luminous study offers a crucial and timely reappraisal of the Orientalism thesis. Reed shows that the early twentieth-century fascination with Japan was as a social as well as an aesthetic phenomenon. The intellectuals, curators, and makers whom Reed calls 'bachelor Japanists' challenged ideas of the West and the West's relationship to and distinctness from the East. Imagining Japan created new opportunities for fantasy, visuality, social domesticity, and collaboration. Not only an occasion for a new kind of art, Japan became an occasion for a new kind of living. -- Rebecca Walkowitz, Rutgers University Bachelor Japanists is about the queer power of the foreign, the hypo-primitive, and the hyper-civilized to unmake and remake what we think of as the self, and as the state. Beautifully written and generously, incisively critical, this is a book that not only teaches you what to think; it teaches you how to think. -- Eric Hayot, Penn State Meticulously researched and eloquently written, Bachelor Japanists brings the values of queer theory to bear on both its objects of study and the writing of art history. Focusing on how diverse japonismes provided opportunities to unlearn the West, Reed's immediately important book reconstructs and illuminates the sometimes outrageous, sometimes slyly implicit "structures of dissent" they inspired and facilitated: alternative forms of beauty, collecting, domesticity, and belonging. -- Christopher Bush, Northwestern UniversityTable of ContentsA Note on Names and Terms Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Originating Japanism: Fin-de-Siecle Paris 2. Bachelor Brahmins: Turn-of-the-Century Boston 3. Sublimation and Eccentricity in the Art of Mark Tobey: Seattle at Midcentury Conclusion: On the End of Japanism Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisPaolo D’Angelo traces the history of concealing art—which Italian calls sprezzatura—from ancient rhetoric to our own times. Finding the precept that art must be hidden from cosmetics to interior design, politics to poetry, the English garden to shabby chic, Sprezzatura is an erudite and surprising tour of aesthetics, philosophy, and art history.Trade ReviewA brilliant and lively essay on a fundamental aesthetic concept. Broad-ranging both philosophically and historically, the author treats the wit and paradox of explaining a rhetorical and performative action of speech or art-making that must conceal its artfulness for the sake of beauty, eloquence, and grace. -- Lydia Goehr, Columbia UniversityIn Sprezzatura, Paolo D’Angelo offers a ‘history of ideas’ that is typical of the best Italian scholarship in terms of its wide‐ranging erudition and historical breadth, which are all too rare in English‐language scholarship. It is very readable—hiding, as it were, the effort with which it was written. It shows how a ‘history of an idea’ can be written with both historical and philosophical panache. -- Paul Kottman, New School for Social ResearchThis is an important and unique book on art and aesthetics that brings together classical and modern aesthetic theories, from Schelling and Kant to Danto and Dickie. D’Angelo’s study is a tour de force through some of the most seminal texts of Western poetics, rhetoric, and philosophy, and it constitutes a mine of erudition and scholarly reflection. -- Massimo Verdicchio, University of AlbertaIn this brilliant volume D'Angelo explicates a simple term. . . and follows this concept through time and place. . . . Essential. * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface to the First EditionNote to the Second Italian Edition1. Concealment2. Part of Eloquence Is to Hide Eloquence3. The Concealed Ornament4. Art or Nature?5. In the Garden6. Iki7. Those Who Cannot Dissimulate Cannot Rule Either8. True Eloquence Mocks Eloquence9. Ready-MadesNotesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisArt making as a way of mediating between inner and outer realities.Trade ReviewTo read a book by Michael Jackson is to be in his company: to hear a cultured and cosmopolitan voice relating stories that disclose how the human and universal inhabit the personal and particular. Art and religion, he avers, are transitional phenomena that facilitate links between inner experience and outer worlds such that human life is made more viable. To craft artworks and to engender religious cosmologies and practices is to create that artifice whereby pain may translate into comprehension and anonymity into a sense of control. Jackson is a uniquely insightful and compassionate guide. -- Nigel Rapport, author of I Am Dynamite: An Alternative Anthropology of Power Jackson's meditation on art and religion is an erudite blending of philosophy, personal biography, history, and ethnography. Full of powerful time-space juxtapositions that weave Europe, West Africa, Australia, and New Zealand into the same sentences, paragraphs, and pages, The Work of Art is a sustained inquiry into the affecting sociality of art in its making and sensuous resonance. A wonderful addition to Jackson's elegant writings on key existential themes in anthropology: between-ness, becoming, and relationality. -- Steven Feld, author of Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana Jackson's lucid, elegant, and incisive book is a laser beam piercing the murky discourse that surrounds contemporary art. His clarity restores the reciprocal relations between the work of art and our experience of it; his wisdom honors the age-old link between life, ritual, and soul-making. Most important of all, he shows again what it means to be alive in the world: bearing witness equally to joy and to pain. -- Martin Edmond, author of The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont The Work of Art is a deeply moving, inspirational, and intellectually compelling examination of the myriad ways in which art, religion, and ritual overlap. Combining phenomenological and existential insights with honest and intimate ethnographic reflection, Jackson teases out the productive and transformative implications of art practice. -- Adrian Parr, author of The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics [The Work of Art] offers intriguing insights into how we might understand art and religion as two modes of the same creative impulse. Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsPreamble Part 1 Worlds Within and Worlds Without Melbourne Now The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Art as Religion The Interplay of Coming Out and Going In Consciousness From Joyce to Beuys Production and Reproduction Axes of Bias A Visit to the Kunstmuseum Basel Part 2 The Life and Times of Paddy Jupurrula Nelson Ecstatic Professions Art and Adversity: Ian Fairweather and the Solitude of Art Transplantations: The Art of Simryn Gill My Brother's Keeper: The Art of Susan Norrie Heroic Failure: The Art of Sidney Nolan Une Vie Breve, Mais Intense The Pare Revisited A Man of Constant Sorrow: The Existential Art of Colin McCahon Part 3 Landscape and Nature Morte: The Art of Paul Cezanne Art and the Unspeakable Marina Abramovic and the Shadows of Intersubjectivity Exodus Making It Otherwise Art and the Everyday The Work of Art and the Arts of Life Notes Acknowledgments Permissions Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisMythopoetic Cinema explores how contemporary European filmmakers question the constant need to provide new identities, a new Europe, and with it a new European cinema after the fall of the Soviet Union. Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli analyzes how filmmakers question the ability of the moving image to challenge conventional ways of understanding history.Trade ReviewThis brilliant book follows European cinema into the depths of the European psyche, illuminating the mental map of Europe, rethinking the modern mythology of Europe, and exploring especially the significance of Eastern Europe for the cultural crisis of European identity that attended the conclusion of the Cold War and still traumatizes the continent in the early twenty-first century. -- Larry Wolff, Julius Silver Professor of History at New York University and author of Inventing Eastern Europe Borrowing a phrase she herself coined, one must acknowledge that Ravetto-Biagioli has written a 'vertiginous history' of the moving image. Just as she did in The Unmaking of Fascist Aesthetics, she guides us through unfamiliar perspectives, unrehearsed practices, audacious gestures, and remarkable works where cinema unthinks our certainties. An exquisite treat of great courage and clear-sightedness, Mythopoetic Cinema shows how Sokurov, Angelopoulos, Abramovic, and Godard challenge the imagined, institutional, and philosophical construction of Europe in the aftermath of extraordinary, enduring violence. Ravetto-Biagioli's readings are simply astonishing for their thoughtfulness and for the capacious vision and interpretative hospitality they offer. A vertiginous history, indeed. -- Gil Anidjar, Columbia University Drawing attention to central European cinema of the last three decades, Ravetto-Biagioli explores films that are without happy resolution-disquieting and perplexing productions in which ethics, aesthetics, and politics are tightly knit. Through refreshingly close analysis of works of four very different artists, she shows how the ideology of European 'identity,' a myth of selfhood and appurtenance to a nation or community, is questioned and becomes fractured and pulverized. Along the way the reader marvels at the care and detail Ravetto-Biagioli brings to the works she analyzes. Mythopoetic Cinema is a study that will endure. -- Tom Conley, Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor, Harvard UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Floating on the Borders of Europe: Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark 2. O Megalexandros: Falling In and Out of Dreams 3. In Balkan: Marina Abramovic and the Politics of the Suffering Body 4. Notre Musique: On the Ruins of the Divine Epilogue: The Politics of Confrontation Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisMythopoetic Cinema explores how contemporary European filmmakers question the constant need to provide new identities, a new Europe, and with it a new European cinema after the fall of the Soviet Union. Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli analyzes how filmmakers question the ability of the moving image to challenge conventional ways of understanding history.Trade ReviewThis brilliant book follows European cinema into the depths of the European psyche, illuminating the mental map of Europe, rethinking the modern mythology of Europe, and exploring especially the significance of Eastern Europe for the cultural crisis of European identity that attended the conclusion of the Cold War and still traumatizes the continent in the early twenty-first century. -- Larry Wolff, Julius Silver Professor of History at New York University and author of Inventing Eastern Europe Borrowing a phrase she herself coined, one must acknowledge that Ravetto-Biagioli has written a 'vertiginous history' of the moving image. Just as she did in The Unmaking of Fascist Aesthetics, she guides us through unfamiliar perspectives, unrehearsed practices, audacious gestures, and remarkable works where cinema unthinks our certainties. An exquisite treat of great courage and clear-sightedness, Mythopoetic Cinema shows how Sokurov, Angelopoulos, Abramovic, and Godard challenge the imagined, institutional, and philosophical construction of Europe in the aftermath of extraordinary, enduring violence. Ravetto-Biagioli's readings are simply astonishing for their thoughtfulness and for the capacious vision and interpretative hospitality they offer. A vertiginous history, indeed. -- Gil Anidjar, Columbia University Drawing attention to central European cinema of the last three decades, Ravetto-Biagioli explores films that are without happy resolution-disquieting and perplexing productions in which ethics, aesthetics, and politics are tightly knit. Through refreshingly close analysis of works of four very different artists, she shows how the ideology of European 'identity,' a myth of selfhood and appurtenance to a nation or community, is questioned and becomes fractured and pulverized. Along the way the reader marvels at the care and detail Ravetto-Biagioli brings to the works she analyzes. Mythopoetic Cinema is a study that will endure. -- Tom Conley, Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor, Harvard UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Floating on the Borders of Europe: Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark 2. O Megalexandros: Falling In and Out of Dreams 3. In Balkan: Marina Abramovic and the Politics of the Suffering Body 4. Notre Musique: On the Ruins of the Divine Epilogue: The Politics of Confrontation Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisLily Wong studies the transpacific mobility and mobilization of the sex worker figure, illuminating the intersectional politics of racial, sexual, and class structures. Transpacific Attachments examines shifting depictions of Chinese sex workers in popular media from the early twentieth century to the present.Trade ReviewI find this book engaging, inspiring, and thought-provoking. The book’s greatest accomplishments are its transpacific perspective, the focus on the subject of the sex worker, and its various theoretical approaches to lesser-known works across a broad historical span. . . . [Transpacific Attachments] is destined to be an important resource and reference. -- Sijia Yao * Modern Chinese Literature and Culture *This book should be welcomed by scholars in the field of Sinophone studies, Chinese studies, queer studies, and Asian American studies. * China Review International *Transpacific Attachments effectively infuses Sinophone studies with new theoretical energy by addressing questions of cultural identity and Chineseness through the lens of affect and sexuality. -- Andrea Bachner, Cornell UniversityAn important contribution to transpacific studies, Asian-American studies, and Chinese studies, as well as to scholarship on literature, film, and new media, Transpacific Attachments insightfully sheds new light on how the prostitute figure has worked as a symbolic medium that both produces and problematizes configurations of sexual citizenship and social mobility. -- Karen Thornber, Harvard UniversityTranspacific Attachments marshals a dazzling range of literary and audiovisual texts to unpack the figure of the Chinese sex worker and the affective politics this figure refracts. The result is a powerfully refreshing understanding of "Chineseness" as a shifting "affective structure" that defies identity politics with its familiar attachments to nation, ethnicity, and language. -- Yiman Wang, University of California, Santa CruzTranspacific Attachments elegantly and deftly traces structures of affect and sociality across the Pacific through the figure of the “Chinese” sex worker throughout the twentieth century. It offers one of the most nuanced discussions of “Chineseness” in English-language scholarship to date, registering its permutations and transformations by linking the two sides of the Pacific in their affective entanglements and disentanglements. It makes an important contribution to the interrelated fields of Sinophone studies, Chinese studies, queer studies, and Asian American studies. -- Shu-mei Shih, University of California, Los AngelesTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsA Note on TranslationIntroduction: Sex Work, Media Networks, and Transpacific Histories of AffectPart I. Pacific Crossings in the Early Twentieth Century1. Desiring Across the Pacific: Transnational Contact in Early Twentieth-Century Asian/American Literature2. Over My Dead Body: Melodramatic Crossings of Anna May Wong and Ruan LingyuPart II. Sinophonic Liaisons During the Cold War3. Erotic Liaisons: Sinophonic Queering of the Shaw Brothers’ Chinese Dream 4. Offense to the Ear: Hearing the Sinophonic in Wang Zhenhe’s Rose, Rose, I Love YouPart III. Dwelling Desires and the Neoliberal Order5. Dwelling: Affective Labor and Reordered Kinships in The Fourth Portrait and Seeking Asian FemaleCoda: What DwellsNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisSantiago Zabala declares that in an age where the greatest emergency is the absence of emergency, contemporary art's ability to create new realities is fundamental to democracy. He advances a new aesthetics that draws on Martin Heidegger's distinction between works of art that rescue us from emergency and those that are rescuers into emergency.Trade ReviewZabala's extraordinary book strikes at the very heart of our spiritual predicament. From austerity politics to security measures, everything is legitimized with the axiom that we live in a state of emergency. The first task of the critique of ideology today is thus to dispel this myth of emergency-something that Zabala does brilliantly, combining theoretical stringency with immense readability. -- Slavoj ZzZizek, author of Less than Nothing and Absolute Recoil Why is the absence of emergency the greatest emergency? This question is at the heart of Zabala's new book, which develops further his "ontology of remnants," i.e., what remains of Being in the twenty-first century. Art, like communism, is not an aesthetic or political subject matter for Zabala but rather an ontological event where Being emerges as remnants. This is why instead of aesthetic contemplation he calls for existential interventions meant to change the world. The art world, as well as the philosophical community, will benefit from Zabala's best book so far. -- Gianni Vattimo, author of Art's Claim to Truth and Of Reality Santiago Zabala's Why Only Art Can Save Us is a crucial publication for anyone concerned about the future and necessity of art in the twenty-first century. Its main claim is that the possibility of art lies in its aesthetics of emergency. Although we live in a time of social, political and environmental emergencies, Zabala makes the convincing case that we tend to repress the emergencies we live in. The aesthetics of emergency discloses the concealment of emergency as the essential emergency, helping us to recover the sense of emergency. This aesthetics proposes a major shift in our understanding of art, which is less about representation than existence. -- Christine Ross, James McGill Chair in Contemporary Art History, McGill University Santiago Zabala's new book is a timely and provocative exploration of art in the age of emergency. Today, the real emergency we face is not so much the populist emergencies of media spectacles that confront us ad nauseum day in and day out; rather, it is the emergency that arises from concealing the destruction and oppression that neoliberal democracy, militarism, and global capitalism inflict. It is here where art can save us. Why Only Art Can Save Us is a major contribution to political philosophy and the philosophy of art. -- Adrian Parr, author of Birth of a New Earth and The Wrath of CapitalTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Emergency of Aesthetics 2. Emergency Through Art 3. Emergency Aesthetics Afterword Notes Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisSantiago Zabala declares that in an age where the greatest emergency is the absence of emergency, contemporary art's ability to create new realities is fundamental to democracy. He advances a new aesthetics that draws on Martin Heidegger's distinction between works of art that rescue us from emergency and those that are rescuers into emergency.Trade ReviewZabala's extraordinary book strikes at the very heart of our spiritual predicament. From austerity politics to security measures, everything is legitimized with the axiom that we live in a state of emergency. The first task of the critique of ideology today is thus to dispel this myth of emergency—something that Zabala does brilliantly, combining theoretical stringency with immense readability. -- Slavoj Žižek, author of Less Than Nothing and Absolute RecoilWhy is the absence of emergency the greatest emergency? This question is at the heart of Zabala's new book, which develops further his "ontology of remnants," i.e., what remains of Being in the twenty-first century. Art, like communism, is not an aesthetic or political subject matter for Zabala but rather an ontological event where Being emerges as remnants. This is why instead of aesthetic contemplation he calls for existential interventions meant to change the world. The art world, as well as the philosophical community, will benefit from Zabala's best book so far. -- Gianni Vattimo, author of Art's Claim to Truth and Of RealitySantiago Zabala's Why Only Art Can Save Us is a crucial publication for anyone concerned about the future and necessity of art in the twenty-first century. Its main claim is that the possibility of art lies in its aesthetics of emergency. Although we live in a time of social, political, and environmental emergencies, Zabala makes the convincing case that we tend to repress the emergencies we live in. The aesthetics of emergency discloses the concealment of emergency as the essential emergency, helping us to recover the sense of emergency. This aesthetics proposes a major shift in our understanding of art, which is less about representation than existence. -- Christine Ross, author of The Past Is the Present; It’s the Future Too: The Temporal Turn in Contemporary Art and The Aesthetics of Disengagement: Contemporary Art and DepressionSantiago Zabala's new book is a timely and provocative exploration of art in the age of emergency. Today, the real emergency we face is not so much the populist emergencies of media spectacles that confront us ad nauseum day in and day out; rather, it is the emergency that arises from concealing the destruction and oppression that neoliberal democracy, militarism, and global capitalism inflict. It is here where art can save us. Why Only Art Can Save Us is a major contribution to political philosophy and the philosophy of art. -- Adrian Parr, author of Birth of a New Earth and The Wrath of CapitalWhy Only Art Can Save Us examines art that is in touch with the contemporary world, a world that, however you assess such things, is surely in crisis. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Santiago Zabala has written a profound and important work that responds to some of the most demanding issues of our day. * Singapore Review of Books *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Emergency of Aesthetics2. Emergency Through Art3. Emergency AestheticsAfterwordNotesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisFred Evans develops philosophical and political criteria for assessing how public art can respond to the fragility of democracy. He calls for considering such artworks as acts of citizenship, pointing to their capacity to resist autocratic tendencies and reveal new dimensions of democratic society.Trade ReviewProfessor Fred Evans’s closely argued book on the public object exposes the fragility of democratic discourse in its relation to image and monument. Democracy does not find a voice in public art but instead it is the public object that gives form and space to the symbolic imagination. Public art is not about the placing of a more or less beautiful object in a public space. It is instead, the struggle for space and object to find resonance with communal conversations of place and therefore the shared languages of togetherness and difference. -- Anish Kapoor, winner of the Turner PrizeThis book is a critically needed study in political aesthetics addressing complex connections between democracy, citizenship, and public art. Its systematic analysis and criticism of selected artistic projects, and ideas from such thinkers on democracy as Badiou, Derrida, Deutsche, Fraser, Lefort, Rancière, and Rawls, make this book an excellent companion to our intelligent thinking regarding the meaning and value of public art as 'acts of citizenship.' -- Krzysztof Wodiczko, recipient of the Hiroshima Art PrizeCombining stimulating commentaries on art with insightful analyses of contemporary philosophers, Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy is a major contribution to the ongoing debates about the nature of democracy. In a way that is immensely compelling, Evans shows how works of public art might (or might not) qualify as acts of citizenship in democracy. Public Art and the Fragility of Democracy is a book I wish I had written. -- Leonard Lawlor, author of From Violence to Speaking Out: Apocalypse and Expression in Foucault, Derrida, and DeleuzeIn this thought-provoking book, Fred Evans asks which public artworks constitute acts of democratic citizenship and which serve autocratic tendencies, and proposes a philosophical criterion for assessing public artworks as acts of citizenship. The field and subject of public art is in particular need of critically engaged analysis, and this book is particularly strong when Evans merges close visual and material observation of public art with close critical analysis. -- Erika Doss, author of Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in AmericaA genuine tour de force: a text at once immersed in the actual experience of public art, highly original in thought, while actively engaging the writings of others on such art. The reader comes away not only with new ways to appreciate public artworks—which are too often taken for granted by the viewing public—but with new inroads into the meaning of citizenship and democracy which these works set forth. * Philosophy Today *[An] important book [that] will interest political philosophers, art theorists, critics, and historians, but will also appeal to a broader audience of cultural theorists, sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists of different theoretical persuasions. -- Andreea Deciu Ritivoi * Radical Philosophy Review *Impressively argued and researched. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments1. Democracy’s Fragility and the Political Aesthetics of Public Art2. Voices and Places: The Space of Public Art and Wodiczko’s The Homeless Projection3. Democracy’s “Empty Place”: Rawls’s Political Liberalism and Derrida’s Democracy to Come4. Public Art’s “Plain Tablet”: The Political Aesthetics of Contemporary Art5. Democracy and Public Art: Badiou and Rancière6. The Political Aesthetics of Chicago’s Millennium Park7. The Political Aesthetics of New York’s National 9/11 Memorial8. Public Art as an Act of CitizenshipAppendix: Badiou On “Being and the Void”NotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Art of Memories, Vincent Antonin Lépinay documents the Hermitage’s curatorial practices in an innovative consideration of the museum as a cultural laboratory. Lépinay analyzes the tensions between the museum as a space of exploration of the collections and as a culture heavily invested in self-protection from the outside world.Trade ReviewLépinay's ethnographic knowledge of how the staff of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum tends its collections supports a brilliant, theoretically sophisticated analysis of the way curators maintain the meaning and historical importance of art works. Must reading if you want to understand the social processes that shape our experience of art. -- Howard S. Becker, author of Art WorldsIn this beautifully written, superbly researched, and theoretically rich book, Lépinay changes the way you will see museums in general and the Hermitage in particular. His account of the worlds of the museum—knit together through objects, people, and documents—illumines the set of complex trajectories and careers that characterize the museum. -- Geoffrey C. Bowker, Donald Bren Professor in Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, IrvineThis multiperspectival study—directing its analytic arsenal at the sociological, anthropological, and historical components of the Hermitage—is admirable in its refreshing examination of a museum’s infrastructure. Art of Memories is full of wit and intellectual surprises. -- Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, author of The Hand of the Engraver: Albert Flocon Meets Gaston BachelardAs he did so brilliantly for the back office of a bank in Codes of Finance, here Vincent Lépinay goes behind the galleries of one of the world’s greatest museums to discover its infrastructures of knowledge. He shows how, across the tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras and with various technologies of memory, the Hermitage collected and protected persons and things, curators and collections. In Art of Memories, the museum is a place of exploration, a space of science, and a cultural laboratory. -- David Stark, author of The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic LifeSheds light on the little-known history of the museum and opens the door to the reader to reveal the organizational structure of the museum as a cultural laboratory. * International Journal of Russian Studies *Theoretically rich and succinctly written, Art of Memories will be of interest to scholars of media studies, social theory, museum studies, and material culture. * Choice *In seeing the museum as a laboratory, as a box, or as an infrastructure, Art of Memories opens avenues to explore and it will be interesting to see how they will be taken up by the specialists and professionals of heritage work. * Books and Ideas *[A] bold and original study. * Russian Review *Table of ContentsPreface: Experimenting with the HermitageIntroduction: The Hermitage, a Cultural Laboratory1. Moving ObjectsInterlude 1: Art History and the Hermitage Before World War II2. Documenting the Museum3. Art History from the Collections UpInterlude 2: Mobility at the Hermitage4. The Nostalgic Modesty of Hermitage Restorers5. Guides: Taking Science Down the Galleries6. Spaces and Surprises: Technologies of Vision for a Long WinterConclusion: Secreting MemoriesAcknowledgmentsNotesReferencesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisMonique Roelofs offers a pathbreaking systematic model of the field of address and puts it to work in the arts, critical theory, and social life. Drawing on a wide array of theoretical and artistic sources and challenging disciplinary boundaries, she illuminates its significance to cultural existence and to our reflexive aesthetic engagement in it.Trade ReviewArts of Address unfolds a wondrous interconnectivity joining theory, art, and literature. It shows us how the examination of scenes of address may answer questions about their daily impact as it guides us to philosophical abstraction. I enjoy its fast paced rhythm of analysis and, above all, the freedom with which it traverses a world of rough edges and transnational implications. -- Alicia Borinsky, author of One Way Tickets: Writers and the Culture of ExileIn a text that is as much an art of address as it is about address, Monique Roelofs brilliantly intertwines the aesthetic, social identities, ways of life, as well as the pleasures and threats of art objects, with a theoretically robust analysis of address that yields a critical political aesthetics that allows for the possibility of perceiving new worlds. -- Mariana Ortega, author of In-Between: Latina Feminist Phenomenology, Multiplicity, and the SelfThere is at present no systematic work that investigates the question of address as a concept in the global way Monique Roelofs pursues in this patient, lucid, and orderly book. Arts of Address demonstrates that explicit theorizations of address in the western philosophical tradition have historically been understated, partial, localized, or overlooked. Roelofs’s book seeks to correct these oversights and gaps in the critical canon’s conceptualization of address with clarity and comprehensiveness. -- Ellen Rooney, Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence, Brown UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Addressing Address2. Kant, Hume, and Foucault as Theorists of Address3. Saying Hello and Goodbye4. Norms, Forms, Structures, Scenes, and Scripts5. Address’s Key Constituents: Philosophical Views6. Transforming Aesthetic RelationshipsAfterwordNotesIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn recent decades, a type of historical documentary has emerged that focuses on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efrén Cuevas categorizes these films as “microhistorical documentaries” and examines how they push cinema’s capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions.Trade ReviewCuevas’ monograph achieves its ambitions. It proves that investigative history can be communicated via documentary film; and it demonstrates this potential, in particular, in the case of microhistorical documentaries. Its analysis of home videos as a suitable source is especially strong, revealing how they can be integrated into film and contextualised without drawing upon expository methods. -- Stuart A. Neave, University of St Andrews * Frames Cinema Journal *Among the many books being published today on film and history, Filming History from Below stands out for the uniqueness of its approach and its excavation of a previously untapped subject. Cuevas shows how microhistorical documentaries significantly broaden our understanding of movements, moments, and people of the past and thus add to the broader discourse of history. -- Robert Rosenstone, author of History on Film/Film on HistoryIn Filming History From Below, Cuevas coins the term “microhistorical documentary,” bringing together two disciplines to examine how documentary film can contribute to a radical, more inclusive understanding of the past. He analyzes films by masters such as Jonas Mekas, Rea Tajiri, Péter Forgács, and Rithy Panh to offer a fresh take on the importance of the perspective ‘from below.’ The films’ subjects relate to burning issues like immigration, statelessness, totalitarianism, and genocide, and Cuevas makes a highly persuasive case for why microhistorical documentary matters. A challenging, original, and important book. -- Deirdre Boyle, The New SchoolCuevas makes a strong and convincing case for the emergence and significance of what he calls the microhistorical documentary. His astute theorization of this category grounds deep, contextualized studies of films by a variety of documentary filmmakers who evince a microhistorical attitude in cinema. This significant, admirably written book will be of interest to anyone concerned with documentary cinema and with representations of history on film. -- Philip Rosen, author of Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, TheoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Film and History1. Microhistory and Documentary Film2. The Archive in the Microhistorical Documentary3. Péter Forgács’s Home Movie Chronicle of the Twentieth Century: The Maelstrom, Free Fall, and Class Lot4. The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II: Something Strong Within, A Family Gathering, From a Silk Cocoon, and History and Memory5. Rithy Panh’s Autobiographical Narrative of the Cambodian Genocide: The Missing Picture6. Identities and Conflicts in Israel and Palestine: Israel: A Home Movie, For My Children, My Terrorist, My Land Zion, and A World Not Ours7. The Immigrant Experience in Jonas Mekas’s Lost, Lost, LostEpilogue: Looking to the FutureFilmographyNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn recent decades, a type of historical documentary has emerged that focuses on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efrén Cuevas categorizes these films as “microhistorical documentaries” and examines how they push cinema’s capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions.Trade ReviewCuevas’ monograph achieves its ambitions. It proves that investigative history can be communicated via documentary film; and it demonstrates this potential, in particular, in the case of microhistorical documentaries. Its analysis of home videos as a suitable source is especially strong, revealing how they can be integrated into film and contextualised without drawing upon expository methods. -- Stuart A. Neave, University of St Andrews * Frames Cinema Journal *Among the many books being published today on film and history, Filming History from Below stands out for the uniqueness of its approach and its excavation of a previously untapped subject. Cuevas shows how microhistorical documentaries significantly broaden our understanding of movements, moments, and people of the past and thus add to the broader discourse of history. -- Robert Rosenstone, author of History on Film/Film on HistoryIn Filming History From Below, Cuevas coins the term “microhistorical documentary,” bringing together two disciplines to examine how documentary film can contribute to a radical, more inclusive understanding of the past. He analyzes films by masters such as Jonas Mekas, Rea Tajiri, Péter Forgács, and Rithy Panh to offer a fresh take on the importance of the perspective ‘from below.’ The films’ subjects relate to burning issues like immigration, statelessness, totalitarianism, and genocide, and Cuevas makes a highly persuasive case for why microhistorical documentary matters. A challenging, original, and important book. -- Deirdre Boyle, The New SchoolCuevas makes a strong and convincing case for the emergence and significance of what he calls the microhistorical documentary. His astute theorization of this category grounds deep, contextualized studies of films by a variety of documentary filmmakers who evince a microhistorical attitude in cinema. This significant, admirably written book will be of interest to anyone concerned with documentary cinema and with representations of history on film. -- Philip Rosen, author of Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, TheoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Film and History1. Microhistory and Documentary Film2. The Archive in the Microhistorical Documentary3. Péter Forgács’s Home Movie Chronicle of the Twentieth Century: The Maelstrom, Free Fall, and Class Lot4. The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II: Something Strong Within, A Family Gathering, From a Silk Cocoon, and History and Memory5. Rithy Panh’s Autobiographical Narrative of the Cambodian Genocide: The Missing Picture6. Identities and Conflicts in Israel and Palestine: Israel: A Home Movie, For My Children, My Terrorist, My Land Zion, and A World Not Ours7. The Immigrant Experience in Jonas Mekas’s Lost, Lost, LostEpilogue: Looking to the FutureFilmographyNotesBibliographyIndex

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisCovering all aspects of production safety, this is an invaluable reference guide for the independent programme maker, freelancer, manager, producer, tutor and student filmmaker. Robin Small identifies all the major risks and gives advice on how to control and/or eliminate them. Each hazard section includes useful references to the relevant legislation, documents and licences, as well as addresses of organisations for essential advice and recommended further reading. Important information about hazard identification, risk assessment and safety policy is provided in the chapters covering legislation, health and safety management, personal protective equipment and insurance. Particular hazards are then split into individual sections for ease of reference. These hazards include:AsbestosCranesExplosives and pyrotechnicsFood and cateringManual handing and liftingVisual display screensWorking at heightsThe appendices provide comprehensive contacTable of ContentsList of acronyms; Part One - Introduction * Legislation * Health and Safety management * Personal protective equipment * Insurance * Part Two - Hazards * Appendix 1: Licences and forms * Appendix 2: Addresses of HSE offices * Appendix 3: UK Health and Safety organisations * Appendix 4: Safety books, magazines and posters * Appendix 5: European safety organisations * Appendix 6: Production Safety forms

Read more less

Book SynopsisLayers are the building blocks for working in Photoshop. With the correct use of the Layers Tool, you can edit individual components of your images nondestructively to ensure that your end result is a combination of the best parts of your work. Despite how important it is for successful Photoshop work, the Layers Tool is one of the most often misused and misunderstood features within this powerful software program. This book will show you absolutely everything you need to know to work with layers, including how to use masks, blending, modes and layer management. You'll learn professional techniques as you become completely familiar with the power of layers as an organizational, correction, and revision tool that will quickly become an essential part of your overall Photoshop workflow.Table of ContentsChapter 1 The Foundations; Chapter 2 Targeting Change with Layers; Chapter 3 Targeting Change by Isolation and Masking; Chapter 4 Applying Layer Effects and Styles; Chapter 5 Exploring Layer Modes; Chapter 6 Taking an Image through the Process; Chapter 7 Making a Composite Image;

Read more less

Book SynopsisTransform your photographs into stunning works of art with this fully updated, authoritative guide to the all-new Painter 12. Whether you are new to Painter or a seasoned pro wanting to go further with your digital art, Painter 12 for Photographers will show you how to get the most of Corel's powerful painting software.Starting with the basics and moving on to cover brushes, textures, cloning, toning, and other effects, Martin Addison will help you master the techniques needed to transform photographs into beautiful painterly images. Packed with vivid images to illustrate what can be achieved with the right skills and know-how, Painter 12 for Photographers will inspire you to get creative with your photographs.Table of ContentsChapter 1: Getting Started in Painter; Chapter 2: First Steps in Cloning; Chapter 3: Choosing Brushes; Chapter 4: Customizing Brushes; Chapter 5: Paper Textures; Chapter 6: Layers and Montage; Chapter 7: Using Color; Chapter 8: Landscape; Chapter 9: Children; Chapter 10: Portraits; Chapter 11: Special Effects; Chapter 12: Printing and Presentation; Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisYou eat with your eyes first, and no one turns a photograph of food into a culinary masterpiece like a food stylist. Food Styling for Photographers is the next best thing to having renowned food stylist Linda Bellingham by your side. Linda has worked with clients Baskin Robbins Ice Cream, McDonald''s, Tyson Foods, FritoLay, and many, many more. Professional photographer Jean Ann Bybee has worked with Harry & David, Dominos, Sara Lee, Seven-Up Company, and more. Jean Ann provides a seasoned photographer''s point of view with helpful tips throughout.If you are hungry for unique photo assignments and want to expand your portfolio, this guide provides the well-kept secrets of food styling techniques that can make your photos good enough to eat. Each chapter covers step-by-step instructions with mouth-watering photographs illustrating techniques for the creation of hero products that photographers at any level can whip up. Bon Appétit!Check out a new podcasTable of ContentsSets for Food Photography; Settings and Props; The Chilling Facts of Cold Beverages; Making a Salad for the Camera; Pasta and Sauces for Photography; Sandwiches, Burgers and Beyond; Meeting Meat Head-On; Veggie Perfect; Ice Cream for HOT Lights; How the Chips Fall and the Cookies Stack-Up; Breakfast; Garnishing Basics

Read more less

Book SynopsisAnthony Q. Artis is a 30-year veteran of the fi lm and TV industry whose features and TV shows have screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the IFP Market, as well as on MTV and the Independent Film Channel. Anthony works professionally as a producer, director, and cinematographer at MightyAntMedia.com and has taught video production at New York University for two decades now. He is the author of the bestselling Shut Up and Shoot Documentary Guide (2014), The Shut Up and Shoot Freelance Video Guide (2011), and numerous fi lmmaking courses on LinkedInLearning.com .Accessible and comprehensive, this book is a great introduction on how to make movies and video projects with limited resources, time, or experience. Artis will teach readers the âœDown and Dirtyâ filmmaking mindset, which forces fi lmmakers to be creative with their resources, do more with less, and result in a better, faster, and less expensive product.Drawing on more than 30 yeTable of ContentsINTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: COMPOSITION AND SCREEN GRAMMARCHAPTER 2: WHAT IT LOOK LIKE—CAMERAS AND IMAGE CONTROLCHAPTER 3: LENSOLOGYCHAPTER 4: SMARTPHONE FILMMAKING 101CHAPTER 5: LISTEN UP – AUDIO EQUIPMENT AND TECHNIQUESCHAPTER 6: GET YOUR SHINE ON – LIGHTING ESSENTIALSCHAPTER 7: PRODUCING AND OTHER TIPSCHAPTER 8: VIDEO PROJECT CASE STUDIES

Read more less

Book SynopsisAnimating with Stop Motion Pro is comprehensive, hands-on guide to achieving professional results with Stop Motion Pro 7.0 software. Gone are the days of stop motion guesswork and waiting to see the finalized result of your meticulous, labor intensive animations. With the push of a mouse button and the Stop Motion Pro software, animators have ten times the capability of simple camera stop motion capture. Re-visualize stop motion character movements, graph these movements and composite characters into a flawless animations with the techniques and step by step tutorials featured in Animating with Stop Motion Pro. Create professional stop motion animation immediately with detailed exercises at the companion website: www.focalpress.com/cw/sawicki-9780240812199/. Integrate classic stop motion animation techniques with the latest stop motion software features.Trade Review" I don't think I would have stuck with animation if I hadn't had the use of the SMP program that my university uses, for my first animation. The onion skinning and play back features within SMP are so easy to use that I found myself becoming quite ambitious and really getting into the production, without having to get too far into the technical side of animation too early on. I was also able to get a better understanding of what animation really is and what can be achieved. I am now at a stage where I need to use more of the technical side of SMP, and hopefully continue with a smooth learning curve. "- Jennifer Penny, an animator / filmmaker who studied at the University of the West of England (Bristol), Stop Motion Pro User." SMP has been invaluable to be able to test ideas with instant feedback and I find myself exploring the editing tools and looping functions more and more whilst I am shooting. "- Glen Hunwick, Glen Art, the studio resposible for the famous Australian Cadbury chocolate advertisements.Table of ContentsThe Camera Sees Motion; Animation Yourself with Pixelation; Animating Everyday Objects, George Pal and Replacement Animation; Jiri Trynka, Starivitch and the birth of Puppet Animation; Art Clokey, Wil Vinton and Clay Animation; Willis O'Brien, Ray Harryhausen and the birth of Dynamation; Animator as Actor; Set Construction; Camera and Lighting; Pre and Post Production; High End Techniques.

Read more less

Book SynopsisBeing a successful editor is about more than just knowing how to operate a certain piece of software, or when to make a certain transition. On the contrary, there are many unwritten laws and a sense of propriety that are never discussed or taught in film schools or in other books.Based on their own experiences, first as upcoming assistant editors, then as successful Hollywood editors, the authors guide you through the ins and outs of establishing yourself as a respected film and video editor.Insight is included on an array of technical issues such as script breakdown, prepping for sound effects, organizing camera and sound reports, comparison timings, assemply footages and more. In addition, they also provide first-hand insight into industry protocol, providing tips on interviewing, etiquette, career planning and more, information you simply won''t find in any other book.The book concludes with a chapter featuring Q+A sessions with various establishedTrade Review"A thorough guide to becoming an indispensable assistant editor.- Alan Heim, Vice President, A.C.E.; Professional film editor (Network, Grey Gardens, American History X, Alpha Dog)"Make the Cut explains the postproduction editing workflow with utmost clarity and illustrates with abundant examples. Priceless! The book reflects a great depth of knowledge, that clearly has come from years of experience and accumulated wisdom. This book inspires excellence and will provide any aspiring editor with a huge leg up."- Howard E. Smith, A.C.E.; Professional film editor (Snakes on a Plane, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Abyss)"This is terrific preparation for anyone who wants to be an assistant editor. I teach editing at USC and I will certainly have this on my class' reading list. I will also give it to anyone I hire as an assistant."- Tina Hirsch, A.C.E."Where was Make the Cut when I started out. [T]his is a must-read.. My biggest frustration is that there wasn't a book like this when I started editing. If there was I wouldn't have made the same political missteps or fumbles, so if you're trying to get into the editing world this book should find a home on your bookshelf."- Guillotine website"Make The Cut is an excellent read and a vital manual to keep in your bag when embarking on your first few assisting jobs. (..) Throughout the book it is made abundantly clear that attention to detail, tenacity and personality are all key to becoming a successful assistant editor. Make the Cut is an absolute must read for anyone seeking to begin, or develop their career in film editing."- Jonny ElwynTable of ContentsPart 1 Getting Started; Chapter 1 On Your Way; Chapter 2 Before Your First Day on the Job; Chapter 3 Your First Day; Chapter 4 Your Second Day; Chapter 5 Edit and Distribute the Cut; Chapter 6 Get Ready to Online; Chapter 7 Assisting Protocols for Documentaries; Chapter 8 Assisting Protocols for Reality Shows; Chapter 9 First Day Observations in the Editing Room; Part 2 Protocol; Chapter 10 The Unwritten Rules of the Editing Room; Chapter 11 Personality; Chapter 12 Navigating the Room; Part 3 Make the Cut; Chapter 13 Approaching Your Career; Chapter 14 Plan Ahead and Move Up; Chapter 15 On the Brink of Editing; Part 4 Commonality; Chapter 16 Editors Panel Discussion;

Read more less

Book SynopsisAre you into photography not photomanipulation?Frustrated that you are spending too much time in front of the screen and not enough behind the lens?Feel like you are not getting the most out of the powerful processing functions of Apple Aperture? This straightforward, inspiring guide is aimed at photographers whose goal is to use the software to bring out the best in their photographs. Professional photographer and educator Corey Hilz leads you through a highly effective, professional''s workflow with Aperture, from importing your photos from your camera and making image adjustments, to labelling each photo with metadata and keywords for effective organization and searching, and finally outputting your images for print or social media. He focuses on the vital aspects for photographers such as correcting tone and color, targeted adjustments, metadata, and managing a fast expanding library. Focus On Apple Aperture is packed with stunning phoTrade Review"Focal Press, well known for great how to books has 3 new offerings that will make you not just a better photographer, but a great photo editor with PhotoShop. They are part of the "Focus on Fundamentals" line called: Focus on Adobe Photoshop; Focus on Apple Aperture; Focus on Photoshop Elements. All of the books are geared with Mac OS in mind. You can in theory learn a little about the PC versions of Photoshop or Photoshop elements, but Apple Aperture is strictly Mac OS. All of the books are clearly well written with several sidebars that explain points that may be more advanced. The books are written with all user levels in mind, from novice to experienced, but even the more experienced areas are easy to understand. All of the books have prime examples including walking you through all menu options. They show examples of before and after changes were made as well. I was very impressed with the hands on style of writing in the books. Between the pictures, the sidebars and step by step guidance's. They are all very well laid out and the Focal Press does well at explaining all aspects of each software package. The books don't just compliment the manuals that come with each package, they down-right put them to shame and can easily replace them."--Examiner.com Table of ContentsImporting and the Basics of Organizing Files; Editing and Adjusting; Metadata and Keywords; Final Steps

Read more less

Book SynopsisComics industry insider Tyler Weaver teaches you how to expand your story, panel by panel. Make your transmedia storyworld come alive with the gems in this book: you'll find history, interviews with comics luminaries, and spotlights on comics we all know and love, all in this key guide and website.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION WHAT IS TRANSMEDIA? COMICS: THE CREATION EVOLUTION OF A MEDIUM . The Pre-Golden Age. The Golden Age (1938-1956) . The Silver Age (1956-1970). The Bronze Age: (1970 - 1985). The Future CONVERGENCE: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER . Mythologies, shared continuities, and story exploration. Integration of Comics into Your Storyworld. Fan immersion fan culture - how do comics grab their fans? What is it about them that creates such a following? CONCLUSION

Read more less

Book SynopsisLearn how to create historically accurate costumes for Elizabethan period productions with Elizabethan Costume Design and Construction! Extensive coverage of a variety of costumes for both men and women of all social classes will allow you to be prepared for any costuming need, and step-by-step instructions will ensure you have the know-how to design and construct your garments. Get inspired by stunning, hand-drawn renderings of costumes used in real life productions like Mary Stuart as youâre led through the design process. Detailed instructions will allow you to bring your designs to life and create a meticulously constructed costume. Table of ContentsTable of ContentsPart I: The Design ProcessIntroductionChapter 1: Collaboration and Initial ConversationsChapter 2: Collecting & Working with ResearchChapter 3: The Costume SketchChapter 4: Fabric SelectionChapter 5: Developing the Design Through FittingsPart II: ConstructionIntroductionChapter 6: Construction BasicsChapter 7: The Female BodiceChapter 8: The Female SleeveChapter 9: The Skirt Basque & SkirtChapter 10: Female Undergarments & AccessoriesChapter 11: The Male DoubletChapter 12: The Male SleevesChapter 13: The Male Breeches

Read more less

Book SynopsisControversial questions about beauty in artistic depictions of the HolocaustTrade Review"Unwanted Beauty is a significant contribution not only for scholars of the Holocaust, but also for those interested in the interplay between aesthetics, witnessing, and historical violence."--Women's Study Quarterly

Read more less

Book SynopsisHow one set of anthropological sculptures deeply influenced modern racial perceptionsTrade Review"A provocative new study. . . . Kinkel shows how the images contributed to a contentious and mutating discourse on race through the end of the twentieth century."Art in America"Kinkel's original research brings to light much archival material, and the amply footnoted text is generously illustrated. . . . Touches on broad themes of racial politics in America."--Library Journal"Covers every detail concerning Malvina Hoffman'sRaces of Mankind--from the artist's career through her extensive preparation to the creation of work and its reception. . . . Recommended"--Choice"'Races of Mankind' staged some strange scenes from a marriage of arts and anthropology."--Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute"Elegantly written and eminently readable, this work deals with an important and very current topic: the history of the social construction of race. Through the case study of Malvina Hoffman's Races of Mankind sculptures, Marianne Kinkel gives us a compelling example of how race has been imaged in art and in museum displays."--Mary Jo Arnoldi, curator of African ethnology and arts at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution"Sculpture, by virtue of its intimate connection with the human body, was given an authoritative place in the history of racial science, and Hoffman's project is perhaps the single most important example of that peculiar intersection of art and science. This is a fascinating study that reveals much about the persistence and contradictions of racial science in its final phase before genetics would transform biology and demolish race as a scientifically viable category."--Kirk Savage, author of Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monument in Nineteenth-Century AmericaTable of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Initial Plans for a Physical Anthropology Display 21 2. Malvina Hoffman as Professional Artist 34 3. Producing the Sculptures and Building Consensus 48 4. The Hall of the Races of Mankind 82 5. Life beyond the Field Museum: Exhibiting Statuettes during the 1930s 124 6. Deploying the Races of Mankind Figures during the 1940s 144 Conclusion: Retraction and Redeployment of the Sculptures in Chicago 183 Abbreviations 201 Notes 203 Bibliography 245 Index 263

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn essential guide to building new exchanges and connections in the dynamic worlds of African and global art. Read to explore the reframing of African art through case studies of museums and galleries in the United States, Europe, and Africa.Trade Review"At just under 400 pages, this splendid and impressively researched book has eight chapters that divide thematically into three parts. . . . The main themes centre around artworks, artists, museum exhibits and others, while interviews with artists and curators close each chapter." --Theory, Culture, and Society"The authors' enthusiasm for their analytical approach is admirable . . . very timely and insightful work." --Ethnic and Racial Studies​"Jules-Rosette and Osborne succeed in their intention to illustrate a historical reconstituting of public perception of the African object--from ethnographic curiosity, to influence on other artistic movements, to embrace of the gamut of creative expression." --Choice"African Art Reframed is a qualitative study of the circulation and exhibition of African art in ethnographic and art museums and galleries in Europe, Africa, and the United States. Drawing on years of ethnographic observations, interviews with museum professionals and artists, and extensive archival and visual materials such as museum catalogs, Jules-Rosette and Osborn examine how African art is created, framed, and reframed in museums across three continents." --Symbolic Interaction​”An important intervention featuring new approaches to 'unmixing' in the exhibitionary complex of African and African American Art. It features interviews with French and US-based curators and museum directors engaged in emerging contexts and legacies of ethnographic display.”—Peter J. Bloom, author of French Colonial Documentary: Mythologies of Humanitarianism"African Art Reframed is a masterwork that interweaves theoretical innovations and critical analyses of the power dynamics in museum displays of African art." --Journal of African American History”This book is nothing less than a major breakthrough in museum studies. It is the first to systematically connect museum display practice to the recalibration of 'ethnic identity' that happens after colonialism. Its focus is on the global display of art and crafts from Africa and the African diaspora. But it is essential reading for anyone who wonders about what we want to hear from our forebears as we compel them to speak from behind glass, standing on plinths, and hanging on walls.”—Dean MacCannell, author of The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure ClassTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Foreword by Simon Njami Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Reframing African Art PART I: ENTERING MUSEUMS AT THE THRESHOLD CHAPTER 1. Lost and Found: Postcolonial Reflections on Colonial Museums CHAPTER 2. Revisiting the Storeroom: Collections and Cultural Surplus CHAPTER 3. Reaching Out: Museums, Audiences, and the Public Sphere PART II: DIALOGUES ON MUSEUM PRACTICES AND ART WORLDS CHAPTER 4. Museums Speak Out: Curators' Dialogues CHAPTER 5. Agitating African Art: Artists' Voices and Audience Responses PART III: UNMIXING AFRICAN ART AND REMIXING THE RESULTS CHAPTER 6. The Theory and Method of Unmixing CHAPTER 7. Remixing the Results and Looking Ahead CHAPTER 8. Personal Journeys and Reflections on African Art Chronology Notes Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisDocuments the search for the origins of the iconic femme fatale who was depicted as a dangerous, depraved, and deadly woman. This book argues that the evolution of the femme fatale, with both literary and visual links to the biblical Eve figure, came as a response to increasing feminism and the desire by men to halt its spread.Trade Review"An invaluable first collection of fascinating images from the periodical press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century."--H-France Review

Read more less

Book SynopsisRe-examining some of the most important western architecture of the twentieth centuryTrade Review"La Marche's assertions are challenging, his bibliography impressive, and his citations thoughtful."--Azure“The topic of The Familiar and the Unfamilar in Twentieth-Century Architecture is an important and provocative one that has not been fully explored in architecture. The book is well written, clear, articulate, and logically organized. . . . Jean La Marche’s use of language is fresh and without jargon.”--Dana Cuff, author of Architecture: The Story of Practice

Read more less

Book SynopsisA student's personal identity constantly changes as part of the lifelong human process to become someone who matters. Art educators in grades K-16 have a singular opportunity to guide important phases of this development. How can educators create a supportive space for young people to work through the personal and cultural factors influencing their journey? Laura Hetrick draws on articles from the archives of Visual Arts Research to approach the question. Juxtaposing the scholarship in new ways, she illuminates methods that allow educators to help students explore identity through artmaking; to reinforce identity in positive ways; and to enhance marginalized identities. A final section offers suggestions on how educators can use each essay to engage with students who are imagining, and reimagining, their identities in the classroom and beyond. Contributors: D. Ambush, M. S. Bae, J. C. Castro, K. Cosier, C. Faucher, K. Freedman, F. Hernandez, L. Hetrick, K. Jenkins, E. Katter, M. Lalond

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction and How to Use this BookBasics of Creating Works of ArtThe Thematic Units1. Lessons in Drawing RealisticallyLesson 1: Shading Rounded Objects Lesson 2: Drawing Elliptical Shapes Lesson 3: Facial Proportions Lesson 4: A Mirror Image Face Lesson 5: An Extended PhotographLesson 6: Drawing Hands Lesson 7: Body Proportions Lesson 8: The Figure in ActionLesson 9: Inspired by da VinciLesson 10: A -View PortraitLesson 11: Foreshortening Lesson 12: A Portrait of a Shoe Lesson 13: Looking at Details Lesson 14: Drawing Trees Lesson 15: Drawing AnimalsLesson 16: Drawing Hair Lesson 17: Drawing Shiny and Transparent Objects Lesson 18: Shadows in a Triptych Lesson 19: Grid Magic Lesson 20: A Bestiary Creature Lesson 21: Shading Flat Objects Lesson 22: Drawing in One-Point Perspective Lesson 23: Drawing in Two-Point Perspective Lesson 24: A Remodeled HouseLesson 25: Architectural Design Lesson 26: A Dramatic Mood CityscapeLesson 27: A Crowd Scene2. Lesson in Color and PaintLesson 28: Color StudiesLesson 29: Color Match Collage Lesson 30: Mood Expressions Lesson 31: Matisse, Music, & DesignLesson 32: Light and LeavesLesson 33: Microscopic World Lesson 34: A Watercolor Landscape Lesson 35: Near and Far Spaces Lesson 36: Painting an Interior Lesson 37: A Victorian House Lesson 38: Inspired by CloseLesson 39: In an Impressionist Style Lesson 40: In the Style of the Expressionists Lesson 41: Mood Portraits Lesson 42: Inspired by van GoghLesson 43: Inspired by O'KeeffeLesson 44: Color Shading Rounded Objects Lesson 45: Reflective and Transparent Surfaces Lesson 46: A Landscape in Inclement WeatherLesson 47: Light and Water Lesson 48: Water ResistsLesson 49: Paint and Imagination3. Decorative and Graphic DesignLesson 50: Animal Symbols Lesson 51: Thinking About Advertising Art Lesson 52: Advertising Art as Persuasion Lesson 53: Visual Illusions Lesson 54: Tessellation Play Lesson 55: Tessellation Design Lesson 56: Complex to Simple Lesson 57: A Decorative Alphabet Lesson 58: Zentangle Delight Lesson 59: Imagic Letters as Graphic Design Lesson 60: A Visual Pun Lesson 61: A Camouflaged AlphabetLesson 62: Machines and Structural Devices Lesson 63: Poetic Weaving Lesson 64: Maori Design–Kowhaiwhai Lesson 65: Papunya Dot Paintings Lesson 66: Adinkra Stamped Cloth Lesson 67: A Design Sketchbook Lesson 68: Carried Away by Design Lesson 69: Futuristic Transportation Lesson 70: Designing a Logo Lesson 71: Package Design 4. Art and Narrative ImaginationLesson 72: Fantastic Jungle Lesson 73: Fantasy Art Lesson 74: Surreal Imagination Lesson 75: Surrealistic Fun as Antidote to Fear Lesson 76: An Image of CatastropheLesson 77: Contemplating Old Age and Death Lesson 78: Role-play as Visual Story Lesson 79: Bust of a Story Character Lesson 80: Illustrating Tales Other Cultures Lesson 81: Persian Miniatures Lesson 82: Manga IllustrationsLesson 83: Making a Storyboard Lesson 84: Graphic Stories as Histories or Social Commentaries Lesson 85: Be a Storyteller Lesson 86: A Tunnel Book Lesson 87: Images of Everyday Life Lesson 88: One Story from Differing Viewpoints Lesson 89: A Photographic Essay Lesson 90: A Poetic Photo Album Lesson 91: A Stab Bound BookLesson 92: Shadow Puppets Lesson 93: A Full and Empty Composition Lesson 94: A Triptych of Abstract Word Images5. Exploring Self and Others through ArtLesson 95: Mapping Symbols & Legends Self Lesson 96: An Identity Map Lesson 97: Mapping Places & SpacesLesson 98: A Geography of Self Lesson 99: A Postcard Travelogue of My Day Lesson 100: Metaphor of Self Lesson 101: Yin and Yang Lesson 102: A Woven Portrait Lesson 103: Cataloguing an Inner World Lesson 104: Collaborative Images Lesson 105: A Spirit Doll Lesson 106: Doll-making Inspired by Ringgold Lesson 107: The Arts and Crafts of Local Community Lesson 108: Looking at Sculpture in Community Lesson 109: Women as Artists Lesson 110: Visiting a Museum Lesson 111: Native American Artists Lesson 112: Visual Poetry in Myth Lesson 113: Wind Horses: Tibetan Prayer Flags Lesson 114: A Papier Mâché Alebrije Lesson 115: A Retablo Lesson 116: Out of Africa Lesson 117: A Mardi-Gras MaskLesson 118: Art of Ancient Egypt Lesson 119: A Cultural Fusion Mandala Lesson 120: Architecture Influenced by C. Greece & Rome 6. Media PlayLesson 121: Designing an Imaginary House Lesson 122: Art in Nature's Time Lesson 123: A Botanical Journal Lesson 124: Cataloguing an Outer World Lesson 125: Mono-Printmaking Lesson 126: Easy Printing Lesson 127: Color CollagraphyLesson 128: Multi-color Block Printing Lesson 129: Camouflage in Nature Lesson 130: Camouflage in ArtLesson 131: An Appliqué Wall HangingLesson 132: Stitching with Yarn Lesson 133: Stitchery ArtLesson 134: Pieced Patchwork Art Lesson 135: A Mola Lesson 136: Clothing or Costume DesignLesson 137: An Assemblage - Anthropomorphic Transformation Lesson 138: A Steampunk Assemblage Lesson 139: Wire Sculpture Armature Manikin Lesson 140: Kinetic SculptureGlossary

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn exploration of the unsettling collisions of art and culture in Georges Bataille's revolutionary journal and a new consideration of twentieth-century masterpieces by Picasso, Miró, Dalí, and others against the canvas of their renegade times.In the Paris art world of the 1920s, Georges Bataille and his journal DOCUMENTS represented a dissident branch of surrealism. Bataille—poet, philosopher, writer, and self-styled enemy within surrealism—used DOCUMENTS to put art into violent confrontation with popular culture, ethnography, film, and archaeology. Undercover Surrealism, taking the visual richness of DOCUMENTS as its starting point, recovers the explosive and vital intellectual context of works by Picasso, Dalí, Miró, Giacometti, and others in 1920s Paris. Featuring 180 color images and translations of original texts from DOCUMENTS accompanied by essays and shorter descriptive texts, Undercover Surrealism recreates and recontextualizes Bataill

Read more less

Book SynopsisHow the creative abundance of today's media culture was made possible by the decline of elitism in the arts and the rise of digital media.Media culture today encompasses a universe of forms—websites, video games, blogs, books, films, television and radio programs, magazines, and more—and a multitude of practices that include making, remixing, sharing, and critiquing. This multiplicity is so vast that it cannot be comprehended as a whole. In this book, Jay David Bolter traces the roots of our media multiverse to two developments in the second half of the twentieth century: the decline of elite art and the rise of digital media. Bolter explains that we no longer have a collective belief in “Culture with a capital C.” The hierarchies that ranked, for example, classical music as more important than pop, literary novels as more worthy than comic books, and television and movies as unserious have broken down. The art formerly known as high takes its place in

Read more less

Book SynopsisReports from America's political crisis, exposing a new “iconopolitics,” in which words and images lose their connection to reality.The political crisis that sneaked up on America—the rise of Trump and Trumpism—has revealed the rot at the core of American exceptionalism. Recent changes in the way words and images are produced and received have made the current surreality possible; communication through social media, by design, maximizes attention and minimizes scrutiny. In Co-Illusion, the noted writer on art, photography, and politics David Levi Strauss bears witness to the new “iconopolitics” in which words and images lose their connection to reality. The collusion that fueled Trump's rise was the secret agreement of voters and media consumers—their “co-illusion”—to set aside the social contract. Strauss offers dispatches from the epicenter of our constitutional earthquake, writing first from the 2016

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe creative collaborations of engineers, artists, scientists, and curators over the past fifty years.Artwork as opposed to experiment? Engineer versus artist? We often see two different cultural realms separated by impervious walls. But some fifty years ago, the borders between technology and art began to be breached. In this book, W. Patrick McCray shows how in this era, artists eagerly collaborated with engineers and scientists to explore new technologies and create visually and sonically compelling multimedia works. This art emerged from corporate laboratories, artists' studios, publishing houses, art galleries, and university campuses. Many of the biggest stars of the art world—Robert Rauschenberg, Yvonne Rainer, Andy Warhol, Carolee Schneemann, and John Cage—participated, but the technologists who contributed essential expertise and aesthetic input often went unrecognized.Coming from diverse personal backgrounds, this roster of engineers and scientist

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe history and controversial roots of the social design movement, explored through the life and work of its leading pioneer, Victor Papanek.In Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World, Alison Clarke explores the social design movement through the life of its leading pioneer, the Austrian American designer, theorist, and activist Victor Papanek. Papanek's 1971 best seller, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change has been translated into twenty-two languages and never fallen out of print. Its politics of social design, anti-corporatism, and environmental sustainability have found renewed pertinence in the twenty-first century and dominate the agendas of design schools today. Drawing extensively on previously unexplored archival sources, Clarke uncovers and contextualizes the movement's controversial origins and contradictions.

Read more less

Book SynopsisExamining the work of contemporary Black artists who are dismantling the white gaze and demanding that we see--and see Blackness in particular--anew.In A Black Gaze, Tina Campt examines Black contemporary artists who are shifting the very nature of our interactions with the visual through their creation and curation of a distinctively Black gaze. Their work--from Deana Lawson's disarmingly intimate portraits to Arthur Jafa's videos of the everyday beauty and grit of the Black experience, from Kahlil Joseph's films and Dawoud Bey's photographs to the embodied and multimedia artistic practice of Okwui Okpokwasili, Simone Leigh, and Luke Willis Thompson--requires viewers to do more than simply look; it solicits visceral responses to the visualization of Black precarity. Campt shows that this new way of seeing shifts viewers from the passive optics of looking at to the active struggle of looking with, through, and alongside the s

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisHow East German artists made their country’s experimental art scene a form of (counter) public life.Experimental artists in the final years of the German Democratic Republic did not practice their art in the shadows, on the margins, hiding away from the Stasi’s prying eyes. In fact, as Sara Blaylock shows, many cultivated a critical influence over the very bureaucracies meant to keep them in line, undermining state authority through forthright rather than covert projects. In Parallel Public, Blaylock describes how some East German artists made their country’s experimental art scene a form of (counter) public life, creating an alternative to the crumbling collective underpinnings of the state.             Blaylock examines the work of artists who used body-based practices—including performance, film, and photography—to create new vocabularies of representation, sharing their projects through

Read more less

Book SynopsisAn intimate look at American artist Sol LeWitt’s masterpiece of conceptual art, drawn on the walls of a medieval tower in Italy.In 1976, Sol LeWitt made a large group of pencil drawings on the internal walls of the Vecchia Torre, a medieval tower in the Umbrian town of Spoleto, Italy. These fragile drawings, made on walls that are susceptible to degradation, have rarely been seen and never been documented, yet they represent one of LeWitt’s major works and a milestone in American conceptual art. This groundbreaking volume brings together an extended essay on LeWitt’s work by art historian Rye Dag Holmboe and a series of 60 photographic plates of the drawings by artist Joschi Herczeg, giving readers an intimate experience of this singular, site-specific work.A visual archive, this book situates LeWitt’s provisional, material, bodily, and highly personal drawings in their historical, biographical, and theoretical contexts. The result is noth

Read more less