Theory of art Books

Book SynopsisTrade Review“As hard to pigeonhole as Taylor’s prolific and wide-ranging career, Seeing Silence is not exactly philosophy, or spiritual autobiography, or art theory. It is a textual antechamber leading into—or perhaps a frame surrounding—the sculpture in which the life-work of the philosopher-turned-artist lies exposed . . . Taylor leads us on a pilgrimage of revelatory encounters. . . Taylor combines the conceptual, perceptual, and affective with the concretely historical and factual, while offering something more than, and irreducible to, these aspects: a sense for the work as a moment, in each case unique, of silence becoming visible, and visible growing silent.” -- Anthony Curtis Adler * Los Angeles Review of Books *"A glowing melange of philosophy, theology, and art criticism." -- Daniel Schwartz * On the Seawall *“Based on the synesthesia between seeing and hearing, Seeing Silence is an original and fascinating meditation on the origins of human experience, art, and language. Taylor argues eloquently for the significance of silence in the contemporary world, and he shows the value of reflecting on the work of artists and thinkers who have recognized this.” -- Graham Parkes, University of Vienna“When we see silence we see the world without us. Yet Seeing Silence is not simply a book about death; it is also an invitation to rethink visual art as ‘words of silence.’ Taylor conducts us through a noiseless landscape, at once frightening and beautiful, in which Kierkegaard, Jabès, and Bergman, among so many others, are companions for the journey. Artists will delight in this new book as much as scholars will benefit from it.” -- Kevin Hart, University of Virginia“Taylor turns the cacophony of our environment, actual and virtual, toward redemptive moments of silence, all the more rich in implication for how rare they have become. Alongside deep learning in literature, philosophy, and theology, fresh attention to nonverbal cognates in architecture, painting, and sculpture carry the reader to unanticipated recognitions. From each nested instance to the next, intimations of the infinite, not to say the divine, emerge in the undisclosed, the unsayable, and the unsounded.” -- Thomas Crow, New York University“Seeing Silence succeeds wonderfully. . . . Taylor’s case starts with the claim that seeing silence grants access to reality. This makes it something of a countercultural practice in noisy times like ours when reality is presented in unlimited streaming information, ongoing notifications, and always-available chatrooms. Taylor’s book stands apart for the originality of his vision, the particularity of his thesis, and, notably, the canon of authors and artists on which he draws.” -- Jeffrey L. Kosky, Washington and Lee University“Seeing Silence begins in medias res, in the way of an intellectual history, the narrative epic of a memoirist. What happens when there is no time outside of us, when we do not exist in time? Said another way, the book begins and finishes, but has no Origin and End, as both are swathed by an encompassing Silence that somehow manages to speak. Here Taylor is at his most admirable originality. . . . This book will be of great importance to academic specialists in philosophy of religion, theology, aesthetics, and other arts. But it is so charmingly written that it should appeal as well to the ‘public intellectual,’ and to all humanistically competent readers.” -- Ray L. Hart, Boston University“Seeing Silence is indeed a book on the presence of God in art, silence being only one of the keys to understanding this presence. But going further, Seeing Silence proposes a comprehensive theology of art that uses silence to speak the name of God. . . . The book is less concerned with investigating silence as art or silence as an element in a work of art, but rather the question of what art–and the image in particular–can do to approach the elusive concept of silence.” -- Vincent Debiais * Arts et Intelligences du Silence (Translated from French) *"Readers interested in philosophical aesthetics, life writing, Continental hermeneutics, and negative or apophatic theology will find much to enjoy and ponder in Seeing Silence. Simply put, Seeing Silence is an innovative, enlightening, personal work that rewards careful reading and deep appreciation." * Reading Religion *Table of Contents0. 1. Without 2. Before 3. From 4. 5. Beyond 6. Against 7. Within 8. 9. Between 10. Toward 11. Around 12. 13. With 14. In Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisDevelops a system for teaching students to create freely constructed images on the basis of harmonic relations between lines, colors, and dark and light patterns. Greatly influenced by Japanese art, the author expounds a theory of flat formal equilibrium as an essential component of telling pictorial creation.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The hybrid practices featured in this collection speak to collaboration and participation, between disciplines and between presenters and audiences. They speak to a fluidity of working in and across scientific, artistic, and performance disciplines." * Leonardo *"...[a] welcome addition to the field of hybrid practices." * Espace *"Specialists interested in inhabiting a range of situated environments from new points of view will find many rewards in Hybrid Practices." * Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society *"This book. . . . show[s] how interdisciplinarity allowed each community to reflect and find its place in a changing world. . . .[it] is well edited and allows a relevant understanding of all the case studies." * Technology and Culture *Table of ContentsForeword Saralyn Reece Hardy and Rebecca Blocksome Introduction: Reassessing Hybrid Practice David Cateforis, Steven Duval, and Shepherd Steiner PART I: FALLOUT: CREATIVITY AND INVENTION IN, AS, OR BETWEEN ART, SCIENCE, AND GOVERNMENT 1. Launching “Hybrid Practices” in the 1960s: On the Perils and Promise of Art and Technology / Anne Collins Goodyear 2. Identity, Rhetoric, and Method in the Collaborations of Experiments in Art and Technology, the Artist Placement Group, and the Art and Technology Program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Steven Duval 3. Fallout and Spinoff : Commercializing the Art-Technology Nexus / W. Patrick McCray 4. Beyond Method and without Object: Subject as Inquiry in the Irwin-Wortz Collaboration / Dawna Schuld 5. Monuments to the Period We Live In / Craig Richardson PART II: AFFECTIVE FEEDBACK: TIME, PLAY, AND CONTAGION AS SYSTEMS OF PARTICIPATION 6. Sounding Snows: Bodily Static and the Politics of Visibility during the Vietnam War / Erica Levin 7. Contagious Creativity: Participatory Engagement in the Magic Theater Exhibition (1968) / Cristina Albu 8. Programming and Reprogramming the Institution: Systems Politics in Hans Haacke’s Photoelectric Viewer-Programmed Coordinate System / John A. Tyson PART III: THRESHOLDS OF THE VISIBLE: TECHNOLOGIES OF THE EVERYDAY 9. Technologies of Indeterminacy: John Cage Invents / Sandra Skurvida 10. Dramaturgical Devices and Stanley Milgram’s Hybrid Practice / Maya Rae Oppenheimer 11. Prostheses or Technical Extensions: Rereading the Work of Bernd and Hilla Becher / Shepherd Steiner Supplement: The Hale Experiments: Object-Oriented Ventriloquy during the Cold War An ESTAR(SER) project by the Prosopopoeia Working Group Acknowledgments List of Contributors List of Illustrations Index

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Book SynopsisThe Painting Master’s Shame describes the remarkable circumstances of the period around 1120, when the Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings was written. Amy McNair’s translation and analysis offers a definitive argument for Liang Shicheng, not Emperor Huizong, as the catalogue’s compiler.Trade ReviewMcNair presents a convincing new interpretation of a well-known, important text. In the process, she offers an intimate sense of the ambitions and frustrations of powerful eunuch officials at the court of Emperor Huizong…An important contribution to political history and the history of art during the Northern Song. -- Christian de Pee * Journal of Chinese History *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Hal Foster’s eloquent book Brutal Aesthetics attempts to inaugurate a positive appraisal of what the author identifies as 'positive barbarism'. . . . This erudite, nearly coffee table-sized book—substantially rewarding both in historical detail and theoretical reference, with copious footnotes and voluminous glossy color plates—is fascinatingly factual and beautiful to peruse."---Joseph Nechvatal, Brooklyn Rail"Hal Foster's research sets the figures in context, compares them in an original way and skilfully manages to identify common aspects of their work. For those interested in modern art, intellectual history and politics of the cold war era, this book comes strongly recommended."---Christian Kile, Sehepunkte"In Brutal Aesthetics, Hal Foster compellingly investigates the complex dichotomies that inherently exist within brutalist art theory of the postwar period. Through the lens of five iconic figures and the transformative nature of their respective disciplines, Foster provides substantial evidence for such an examination and lays the foundation for this essential contribution to the literature around the subject. Covering an historically pivotal turning point in Western art, Foster’s research illuminates new insights into the study of brutalism to supplement mid twentieth-century avant-garde art history. . . . Brutal Aesthetics is an indispensable addition to the art library. –ARLIS/NA Reviews""A fine production, a beautiful publication, that honours the exceptionally high quality of the lectures contained within."---Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective"Highly recommended." * Choice *"An informative (and well-illustrated) overview of how intellectuals in the immediate post-war period saw primitivism as a viable remedy for art and society."---Alexander Adams, The Jackdaw

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Shortlisted for the Apollo Awards Book of the Year, Apollo Magazine""In a complex and overall highly original and learned set of narratives unfolding chronologically (1400–1960), Wood weaves together a series of subplots: relativism versus presentism, form versus content, chronologies of forms versus shapes of time, idealism versus realism, and the de- and re-enchantment of art. . . . As Wood’s rewriting of the discipline’s history according to the categories of relativism and presentism indicate, he is laying out a philosophy of history. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche, Hayden White, and Michel Foucault’s categories of history writing, he also traces a history of art history’s historical models, starting with the annalistic, or 'roll-call art history'. . . . A robust discussion of the substantive issues he raises is both merited and called for."---Evonne Levy, Art Bulletin

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"There are books aplenty on painting and art, but this is the first to explain seriously what makes painting an art, and it is our good luck to have it from a notable philosopher who is also on an intimate footing with the tradition of Western painting and who knows how to stand in front of a painting and spin tales that sparkle with truth. . . . Wollheim's interpretations are bold, revisionary and cogent. Only a philosopher of his rare gifts, and a connoisseur with his command of the art-historical tradition, could possibly have the confidence to bring off his feat of virtuoso interpretation."---Flint Schier, New York Times Book Review"It is one of the achievements of Richard Wollheim's superb book that it offers an extremely subtle sense of the mind's functioning, while providing a theory of critical relevance: it shows how psychological and cultural factors enter a painting's content, and how arguments on relevance can be conducted in difficult cases."---Michael Podro, Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisIn this study an art theorist explores a conception underlying the history of art. His basic idea is that the rigour of linear perspective cannot encompass all of visual experience and that it could be said to generate an oppositional factor with which it interacts dialectically: the cloud.Trade Review“First published in 1972, this book is perhaps the first and in many ways still one of the most challenging attempts to apply a consistent semiotic theory to the development of perspectival art from the Renaissance to the present day. By no means a period piece, it is a brilliant and systematic interaction that touches some of the most crucial features of the Western tradition.”—Stephen Bann, University of BristolTable of ContentsContents 1 2 3 4 5

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Book SynopsisThe first English collection of writings by Henry van de Velde, one of the most influential designers and theorists of the twentieth century. Belgian artist, architect, designer, and theorist Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) was a highly original and influential figure in Europe beginning in the 1890s. A founding member of the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil movements, he also directed the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, Germany, which eventually became the Bauhaus under Walter Gropius. This selection of twenty-six essays, translated from French and German, includes van de Velde's writings on William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts movement, Neo-Impressionist painting, and relationships between ornament, line, and abstraction in German aesthetics. The texts trace the evolution of van de Velde's thoughts during his most productive period as a theorist in the artistic debates in France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Katherine M. Kuenzli expertly guides readers to see how van de Velde's writings reconcile themes of aesthetics and function, and expression and reason, throughout the artistic periods and regions represented by these texts. With introductory discussions of each essay and full annotations, this is an essential volume for a broad range of scholars and students of the history of fine and applied arts and ideas.Trade Review"A key figure of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century architecture and design, Henry van de Velde's seminal role and thought has yet to emerge fully from under the shadow, notably, of those who continued his work in Weimar with the creation of the Bauhaus. This volume is a triumph of textual sleuthing, providing a generous selection of van de Velde's writings that allows scholars and students alike to witness the many facets of this cosmopolitan designer's interaction with turn-of-the-century reform movements in Belgium, Germany, and France. A figure long reduced to a small set of designs in survey books is here revealed in all his complexity and even contradictions."-Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History, Columbia University; "Writing and speaking fueled the modernist persona and the international career of designer Henry van de Velde. This volume, an essential companion to the existing literature, makes a case for why-and how-he emerged as one of the most significant, and difficult, figures of the twentieth century."- Amy F. Ogata, Professor of Art History, University of Southern California

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Book SynopsisBlack is Beautiful identifies and explores the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life, providing a long-overdue synthesis and the first extended philosophical treatment of this crucial subject. The first extended philosophical treatment of an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of art Takes an important step in assembling black aesthetics as an object of philosophical study Unites two areas of scholarship for the first time philosophical aesthetics and black cultural theory, dissolving the dilemma of either studying philosophy, or studying black expressive culture Brings a wide range of fields into conversation with one another from visual culture studies and art history to analytic philosophy to musicology producing mutually illuminating approaches that challenge some of the basic suppositions of each Well-bTrade Review"The greatest contribution of the book to analytic aesthetics is that by examining the black aesthetic tradition, Taylor invites us to rethink how aestheticians and philosophers of art have approached the aesthetic tradition in general." - Adriana Clavel-Vazquez, University of Hull - The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 59, Issue 2, April 2019 Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments vii 1 Assembly, Not Birth 1 1 Introduction 1 2 Inquiry and Assembly 3 3 On Blackness 6 4 On the Black Aesthetic Tradition 12 5 Black Aesthetics as/and Philosophy 19 6 Conclusion 26 2 No Negroes in Connecticut: Seers, Seen 32 1 Introduction 33 2 Setting the Stage: Blacking Up Zoe 35 3 Theorizing the (In)visible 36 4 Theorizing Visuality 43 5 Two Varieties of Black Invisibility: Presence and Personhood 48 6 From Persons to Characters: A Detour 51 7 Two More Varieties of Black Invisibility: Perspectives and Plurality 58 8 Unseeing Nina Simone 63 9 Conclusion: Phronesis and Power 69 3 Beauty to Set the World Right: The Politics of Black Aesthetics 77 1 Introduction 77 2 Blackness and the Political 80 3 Politics and Aesthetics 83 4 The Politics–Aesthetics Nexus in Black; or, “The Black Nation: A Garvey Production” 85 5 Autonomy and Separatism 87 6 Propaganda, Truth, and Art 88 7 What is Life but Life? Reading Du Bois 91 8 Apostles of Truth and Right 94 9 On “Propaganda” 98 10 Conclusion 99 4 Dark Lovely Yet And; Or, How To Love Black Bodies While Hating Black People 104 1 Introduction 105 2 Circumscribing the Topic: Definitions and Distinctions 107 3 Circumscribing the Topic, cont’d: Context and Scope 109 4 The Cases 110 5 Reading the Cases 115 6 Conclusion 129 5 Roots and Routes: Disarming Authenticity 132 1 Introduction 132 2 An Easy Case: The Germans in Yorubaland 134 3 A Harder Case: Kente Capers 136 4 Varieties of Authenticity 138 5 From Exegesis to Ethics 144 6 The Kente Case, Revisited 151 6 Make It Funky; Or, Music’s Cognitive Travels and the Despotism of Rhythm 155 1 Introduction 156 2 Beyond the How‐Possible: Kivy’s Questions 157 3 Stimulus, Culture, Race 159 4 Preliminaries: Rhythm, Brains, and Race Music 162 5 The Flaw in the Funk 168 6 (Soul) Power to the People 172 7 Funky White Boys and Honorary Soul Sisters 174 8 Conclusion 177 7 Conclusion: “It Sucks That I Robbed You”; Or, Ambivalence, Appropriation, Joy, Pain 182 Index 186

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Book SynopsisDeborah Ascher Barnstone is Professor and Head of Architecture at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is co-editor of the Visual Cultures and German Contexts series. Donna West Brett is Associate Professor and Chair of Art History at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is author of Photography and Place: Seeing and Not Seeing Germany After 1945 (2016); and co-editor with Natalya Lusty of Photography and Ontology: Unsettling Images (2019).

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Book SynopsisAlison Bancroft is a writer and cultural critic. She specialises in interdisciplinary approaches to modern and contemporary art and visual culture, and is committed to working across all media and contexts. Her research interests include visual culture and theory, psychoanalytic thought, and sexualities. She was awarded her PhD by the University of London in 2010. This is her first book.Table of ContentsIntroduction One: Fashion Photography and the Myth of the Unified Subject Two: Inspiring Desire: The Case for Haute Couture Three: Queering Fashion, Dressing Transgression Four: Fashion, Text, Symptom Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisBorn in Bern, Switzerland in 1933, Harald Szeemann was a crucial force in identifying, exhibiting, and writing about the important new movements in postwar contemporary art. This collection of seventy-four texts from the curator's vast body of written work-which includes essays, lectures, studio notes, reviews, interviews, correspondence, and transcripts-introduces the depth of his method, insight, and inclusive artistic interests. The pieces have been translated from German and French and collected in an informed, authoritative edition, making this the first time Szeemann's work is accessible in English. The first two sections of this volume republish Szeemann's anthologies "Museum der Obsessionen" (1981) and "Individuelle Mythologien" (1985). The final part assembles important writing from 1986 until his death in 2005 to represent the later years of his career and round out a record of his contribution to and dialogue with later twentieth century art and artists. The book's publication coincides with the opening of the Getty Research Institute's exhibition Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions, as well as a satellite show that recreates on Szeemann's "Grandfather exhibition" at the Institute of Contempoary Art, Los Angeles.

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Book SynopsisDrawing on unpublished archival sources, this book reconstitutes the experiences of a wide range of American artists, critics, and writers working in Rome in a charged environment of Cold War cosmopolitanism.After the Second World War, American artists flocked to Rome in record numbers, even as the United States shored up Italy as a bulwark against the spread of Communism. While the market for modern art in Rome was less vigorous as those in Paris and New York, numerous galleries, artist-run spaces, and other institutions acted as important catalysts, making Rome an international artistic hub. The city attracted now canonical figures Lee Bontecou, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Thek, and Cy Twombly, along with less well-known artists, such as Eugene Berman, Gene Charlton, Carlyle Brown, Peter Chinni, William Congdon, Claire Falkenstein, Marcia Hafif, John Heliker, James Leong, Beverly Pepper, and Laura Ziegler, among many others.Rather than focusing

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Book SynopsisSince its first appearance in 1931 Herbert Read''s introduction to the understanding of art has established itself as a classic of its kind. It provides a basis for the appreciation of paintings, sculpture and art-objects of all periods by defining the elements that went into their making. A compact survey of the world''s art, from primitive cave-drawings to Jackson Pollock, The Meaning of Art explains the persistence of certain principles and aspirations throughout the history of art, and summarizes the essence of such movements as Gothic, Baroque, Impressionism, Expressionism and Surrealism.This new Faber Modern Classics edition features a brand new foreword by Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor.

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Book SynopsisArthur C. Danto is professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University. He is the art critic for the Nation and has served as president of the American Philosophical Association.Table of ContentsThe Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, by Jonathan Gilmore The Appreciation and Interpretation of Works of Art Deep Interpretation Language, Art, Culture, Text The End of Art Art and Disturbation Philosophy as/and/of Literature Philosophizing Literature Art, Evolution, and the Consciousness of History

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Book SynopsisA must-read book on David Pye''s theory of craftsmanship and design.In this thoroughly mechanised age, what is the point of craft? Does it make any sense to work with hand tools when machines can do the same job faster, and in many cases better? What visual richness do we lose by embracing a mass-produced world? The Nature and Art of Workmanship explores the meaning of skill and its relationship to design and manufacture. Cutting through a century of fuzzy thinking, David Pye proposes a new theory of making based on the concepts of ''workmanship of risk'' and ''workmanship of certainty''. And he shows how good workmanship imparts all-important diversity to our visual environment.No-one who works with tools and materials, or who designs things for others to make, can afford to be without this penetrating book. This newly revised edition includes an illustrated foreword by John Kelsey, former editor of Fine Woodworking magazine, on David Pye''s own turned and carved vessels of wood beautiful, insightful pieces that embody the truth of Pye''s ideas.Table of ContentsForeword: Apostle of workmanship 1. Design proposes. Workmanship disposes 2. The workmanship of risk, the workmanship of certainty 3. Is anything done by hand? 4. Quality in workmanship 5. The designer's power to communicate his intentions 6. The natural order reflected in the work of a man 7. Diversity 8. Durability 9. Equivocality 10. Critique of 'On the Nature of Gothic' 11. The aesthetic importance of workmanship, and its future Index

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Book SynopsisThe first major survey of photography's place in recent art history.Trade Review"Presented thematically, with succinct texts that are both readable and informative, the book meets both academic and general needs, without ever compromising the images in display."—Pictured "Imagine the best group show of photographers you've ever seen. Now imagine it's a book. Campany skillfully curates the leading lights of post-1960 into a thematically arranged form with tempting essays by Barthes and Baudrillard into the bargain. It's a timely survey that aspires to be the document of record for the most exciting, universal and accessible art form we've got."—i-D "Art and Photography... charts the acceptance of photography as an art form. Originally considered a mechanical process, photography is now one of the most widely practiced arts. Exploring developments from the Sixties to the present day, this beautiful book covers every major school, style and name, and includes work by the likes of Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky and Gillian Wearing. The perfect family album."—Vogue "Phaidon's Themes and Movements series seeks to provide the late 20th-century art history books of the future."—Art Monthly

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Book SynopsisDebra Bricker Balken offers the first ever complete biography of Harold Rosenberg's brilliant, fiercely independent life and the five decades in which he played a leading role in US cultural, intellectual, and political history.Trade Review"[This] book is a thoroughgoing, well-researched biography of Harold Rosenberg, but it’s also really an intellectual history of New York City, over six decades." * Brooklyn Rail *"Balken’s insightful and admiring biography seeks to reclaim Rosenberg for the pantheon. Through an intellectual history, Balken skillfully recounts the range and depth of this unusual man, who sustained commitments to a panoply of subjects—art, aesthetics, criticism, poetry, Marxism—without ever succumbing to any party line. . . . Balken’s book gives a panoramic view of Rosenberg’s complex arguments, and does so unimpeded by jargon." * Dissent *"This biography is a formidable attempt at offering us some insight into a figure who lived in a city that, after the Second World War, was on fire with ideas, power, ambition, and art." * Hyperallergic *“[A] perfect compendium of the convoluted social and political history of the 20th century. . . As Balken’s biography beautifully illustrates, [Rosenberg's] critical insights and writing, like the virtues of painters whose work he extolled, was crafted as romantic and heroic exploration of the mysteries of personal identity, private meaning, and public commitment in action.” * Critics at Large *"The most extensive study of the critic to date." * New York Review of Books *"An exceptional achievement, the book is both fact-filled and nuanced." * Art & Object *"The author's ability to decipher the entanglements of a cultural milieu that emerged from this intellectual hotbed is remarkable, and her historical precision alongside some 15 years of research is especially noteworthy. Ms. Balken's writing is compelling and evenhanded, illuminating some of the last century's most conspicuous intellectual scuffles, social convolutions, and cultural progress with stunning lucidity." * The East Hampton Star *"Harold Rosenberg: A Critic’s Life is a highly enjoyable read and will become a valuable reference work for any study of the New York School." * The Critic *"Debra Bricker Balken has published the first complete biography of a New York intellectual usually associated with the promotion of abstract expressionism, for decades a presence in the city’s cultural life . . . The son of a modest Jewish tailor and a law graduate who never practiced, Rosenberg reconciled his Marxist convictions with an independence that distanced him from New York’s progressive elite, finding his best conversation companions in the world of artists." * Living Architecture *"Well-researched. . . . Balken paints Rosenberg as an outsider by design, and recreates the people, places, and intellectual movements that influenced the fiercely independent thinker from his native Brooklyn to bohemian, leftist Manhattan in the 1930s." * Publishers Weekly *“This thoroughly researched biography of Harold Rosenberg, America’s greatest art critic, vividly captures the Rosenberg I knew as an intellect and a friend—I couldn’t put it down.” * Jonathan Fineberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign *“In her mesmerizing, tough-minded, and prodigiously researched intellectual biography of Harold Rosenberg, Balken tracks the legendary art critic’s extraordinary intellectual journey through almost every major esthetic and political development—and battle—in the US and France from 1930 through the 1960s. This welcome book challenges readers to consider what it is about Rosenberg that we still need and whether there might ever be another prominent working critic with his independence, culture, and engaged and poetic imagination.” * Michael Brenson, art critic and art historian *“A most impressive achievement, Balken’s exhaustively researched biography of Harold Rosenberg constitutes a significant contribution to our knowledge of American intellectual and artistic life during this unusually fertile period.” * Charles W. Haxthausen, Williams College *Table of ContentsPrologue 1 Never had any dreams: Borough Park 2 In the landscape of sensibility: East Houston Street 3 A capacity for action: Poetry: A Magazine of Verse and The New Act 4 We write for the working class: The American Writers’ Congress 5 You would have to be recluse to stay out of it: Art Front 6 American Stuff 7 Myth and History: Partisan Review 8 Partisans and Politics 9 A Totally Different America: Washington, DC 10 The Profession of Poetry: Trance above the Streets 11 Death in the Wilderness: The OWI and the American Ad Council 12 Notes on Identity: VVV and View 13 Possibilities 14 Les Temps modernes 15 An explanation to the French of what was cooking: “The American Action Painters” 16 Guilt to the Vanishing Point: Commentary Magazine 17 A Triangle of Allegiances: Arendt and McCarthy 18 The Tradition of the New 19 Pop Culture and Kitsch Criticism 20 Play Acting: Arshile Gorky 21 Problems in Art Criticism: Artforum 22 Location Magazine and the Long View 23 The New Yorker 24 The Professor of Social Thought Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

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Book Synopsis"A curator, a paintings conservator, a photographer, and a conservation scientist walk into a bar." What happens next? In lively and accessible prose, color science expert Roy S. Berns helps the reader understand complex color-technology concepts and offers solutions to problems that occur when art is displayed, conserved, imaged, or reproduced. Berns writes for two types of audiences: museum professionals seeking explanations for common color-related issues and students in conservation, museum studies, and art history programs. The seven chapters in the book fall naturally into two sections: fundamentals, covering topics such as spectral measurements, metamerism, or color inconstancy; and applications, where artwork display, painting materials, and color reproduction are discussed. A unique feature of this book is the use of more than 200 images as its main medium of communication, employing color physics, color vision, and imaging science to produce visualizations throughout the pages. An annotated bibliography complements the main text with suggestions for further reading and more in-depth study of particular topics. Engaging, incisive, and absolutely critical for any scholar or student interested in color science, Color Science and the Visual Arts is sure to become a key reference for the entire field.Trade Review"Berns delivers . . . by providing novel and clear explanations of how colour is perceived in and around an artwork. [This book] provides an excellent introduction for students of conservation or any field dealing with the presentation of art objects. It is also a valuable source for anyone wishing to review or update their understanding of (mostly) painted surfaces, their display and reproduction. The text is intended to be an accessible, go-to source and succeeds." --Art Libraries Journal "Bridging the gap between chemistry, mathematics, psychology, art conservation, art history, and the fine arts, Color Science and the Visual Arts provides an unparalleled look at the way these discipline intersect and how the science of color relates to the display, creation, and reproduction of works of art."--Art Libraries Society, North America

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Book SynopsisTraces the lineage of moving-image installation through architecture, painting, sculpture, performance, expanded cinema, film history, and countercultural film and videoTrade Review[A] wild ride of a book... Elwes has made an admirable assault on the field and I am sure this book will influence generations of students. Art Monthly Fascinating. Cinema TechnologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Architecture 2. Painting 3. Sculpture 4. Performance 5. Film History 6. Film as Film 7. Structural Film: Detractions and Revisions 8. The Dialectics of Spectatorship 9. Expanded Cinema 10. Sound 11. Video Installation 12. Closing Thoughts Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisProvides lesson after valuable lesson to anyone wishing to know what it means and what it takes to be an artist today. In this book the author gives practical advice and insights gained from his own professional highs and lows. It is a mix of reminiscence, personal philosophy.

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Book SynopsisUsing many examples, this title considers the factors that determine the overall organization of visual form in works of painting, sculpture, and architecture.Trade Review"Arnheim was a distinguished psychologist, philosopher and critic whose work explored the cognitive basis of art—how we interpret it and, by extension, the world." * Cabinet *"It is the balance between the precision of [Arnheim's] specific analyses and their participation in a larger order of principles that makes Power of the Center such a satisfying book." * ARTnews *Table of ContentsIntroduction I. TWO SPATIAL SYSTEMS A master key to composition. Centricity and eccentricity. Vectors and their targets. Interaction of the systems. II. CENTERS AND THEIR RIVALS Geometric and dynamic. The pull of gravity. The visual center underneath. Varieties of weight. Sculpture and the ground. Matisse under pressure. III. THE VIEWER AS A CENTER Self-centered vision. Various positions in space. A slab in suspense. Seeing the world sideways. The viewer as an influence. Looking into depth. IV. LIMITS AND FRAMES Enclosures spread energy. Tampering with the range. The functions of frames. Framed space not quite closed. Rectangular formats. Challenges to the middle. Perspective creates a center. V. TONDO AND SQUARE Floating shapes. Tondi stress the middle. The role of eccentricity. Disks inside. The oval. Squares balance the coordinates. Albers's nests of squares. Mondrian overrides centricity. A square by Munch. VI. CENTERS AS HUBS Providing stability. Tension through deviation. Dynamics of the human figure. Saltimbanques and Guernica. VII. CENTERS AS DIVIDERS Bipolar composition. The necessary latch. Diagonals. Noli me tangere. VIII. VOLUMES AND NODES Volumes and vectors interacting. Kinds of nodes. Nodes of the body. Faces and hands. Singing man. IX. SPACE IN DEPTH Perceiving the third dimension. Objects behaving in space. Enclosures replacing frames. The added view of projection. Continuity of space. What perspective contributes. Time in space. The symbolism of the frontal plane. X. CENTERS AND GRIDS IN BUILDINGS Grids prevail. Design in elevation. Design on the ground. Coping with full space. XI. FURTHERMORE Composition in time. Are there exceptions? A physical foundation. Composition carries meaning. Glossary Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

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Book Synopsis"First published in Germany under the title Faces: Eine Geschichte des Gesichts."Trade Review"A compelling study."--ApolloTable of ContentsIntroduction: Defining the Subject 1 I Face and Mask: Changing Views 1 Facial Expression, Masks of the Self, and Roles of the Face 17 2 The Cult Origin of the Mask 32 3 Masks in Colonial Museums 42 4 Face and Mask in the Theater 48 5 From the Study of the Face to Brain Research 63 6 Nostalgia for the Face and the Death Mask in Modernity 77 7 Eulogy for the Face: Rilke and Artaud 84 II Portrait and Mask: The Face as Representation 8 The European Portrait as Mask 91 9 Face and Skull: Two Opposing Views 106 10 The "Real Face" of the Icon and the "Similar Face" 118 11 The Record of Memory and the Speech Act of the Face 126 12 Rembrandt's Self-Portraiture: Revolt against the Mask 135 13 Silent Screams in the Glass Case: The Face Set Free 150 14 Photography and Mask: Jorge Molder's Own Alien Face 157 III Media and Masks: The Production of Faces 15 The Consumption of Media Faces 175 16 Archives: Controlling the Faces of the Crowd 192 17 Video and Live Image: The Flight from the Mask 205 18 Ingmar Bergman and the Face in Film 211 19 Overpainting and Replicating the Face: Signs of Crisis 221 20 Mao's Face: State Icon and Pop Idol 229 21 Cyberfaces: Masks without Faces 239 Acknowledgments 247 Notes 249 Literature Cited 263 Index of Names 267

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Book SynopsisHow do objects that have lost their value become valuable once again?Trade Review'Original, insightful, and entertaining' -- Ian Stewart, author of Seventeen Equations that Changed the World (Profile Books, 2012)'Witty and wide-ranging scholarly scholarly study ... a fascinating contribution to cultural theory' -- The Guardian'A remarkably original and creative book, far ahead of its time. Thompson's analysis is not only a major contribution to the anthropological theorising of waste and value, but it is also highly relevant for the contemporary dilemmas of growth and environmental destruction' -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen, author of Overheating (Pluto, 2016)'Highly recommended' -- CHOICETable of ContentsForeword by Joshua O. Reno Preface Introduction to the New Edition 1. The Filth in the Way 2. Stevengraphs - Yesterday’s Kitsch 3. Rat-infested Slum or Glorious Heritage? 4. From Things to Ideas 5. A Dynamic Theory of Rubbish 6. Art and the Ends of Economic Activity 7. Monster Conservation 8. The Geometry of Credibility 9. The Geometry of Confidence 10. The Needle’s Eye Afterword (co-authored by M. Bruce Beck) Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThis beautiful book offers a striking and unusual view of a wide array of Indian art. It highlights close up and in colour outstanding examples of design, workmanship and craft in dramatic sculptures of metal, stone and wood as well as sumptuous paintings and textiles.Table of ContentsWhat is Indian art? • Gods • Heroes • Devotion • Courtly and village life • Further reading • Glossary • Index

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Book SynopsisSince its publication in 1936, Walter Benjamin's Artwork essay has become a canonical text about the status and place of the fine arts in modern mass culture. Benjamin was especially concerned with the ability of new technologiesnotably film, sound recording, and photographyto reproduce works of art in great number. Benjamin could not have foreseen the explosion of imagery and media that has occurred during the past fifty years. Does Benjamin's famous essay still speak to this new situation? That is the question posed by the editors of this book to a wide range of leading scholars and thinkers across a spectrum of disciplines in the humanities. The essays gathered here do not hazard a univocal reply to that question; rather they offer a rich, wide-ranging critique of Benjamin's position that refracts and reflects contemporary thinking about the ethical, political, and aesthetic implications of life in the digital age.Trade Review"Mapping Benjamin not only distinguishes itself in format, scope, and tone from the mass of Benjamin books published each year, it provides an up-to-date snapshot of the humanities. This lucidly written book uses Benjamin to chart the parameters of a force field of contemporary intellectual efforts, across disciplines and other divides." -Eva Geulen,New York UniversityTable of ContentsContents BAECKER DIRK BOLZ NORBERT SIEGERT BERNHARD BARCK KARLHEINZ GILGEN PETER SHIFF RICHARD MOSER WALTER SCHMIDT SIEGFRIED J. HENNION ANTOINE LATOUR BRUNO LINK JURGEN CHARTIER ROGER LINK-HEER URSULA WATERS LINDSAY ZUMTHOR PAUL ASSMANN ALEIDA ASSMANN JAN HULLOT-KENTOR ROBERT BEHNKE KERSTIN WEIMAR KLAUS RITTER HENNING WENZEL HORST LEWIS PERICLES WERBER NIELS DE CASTRO ROCHA JOAO CEZAR NICHOLS STEPHEN G. NEVILLE BRIAN READINGS BILL FEINSTEIN JOSHUA MENOCAL MARIA ROSA SARLO BEATRIZ HARRISON ROBERT P. BANN STEPHEN

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Book SynopsisFree Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.             An international bestseller and beloved classic, Free Play is an inspiring and provocative book, directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured, and how finally it can be liberated—how we can be liberated—to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. Stephen Nachmanovitch, a pioneer in free improvisation, integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity, drawing on unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecd

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Book SynopsisThe first collection in English of the writings of Russian conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov, a leading figure in the avant garde in the 1960s and ’70s and a major influence on artists today.

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Book SynopsisIn the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum between the binary extremes of black and white it’s not gray, as you might expect, but green. And within green’s bandwidth there are more tonal variations than any other colour can make. Maybe this is why - envy, naivete, and money aside - green is generally synonymous with good. Green is paradise for Islam, luck for the Irish, and a healthy planet for environmentalists. Whereas the industrial past was grey, the future is green. LA+ Green explores the green spectrum from plants to politics and from art to science, with contributions from: Noam Chomsky; Robert D. Bullard; Kassia St. Clair; Neil M. Maher; Rob Levinthal; Sonja Dümpelmann; Peder Anker; Robert Mcdonald; Parker Sutton; Tamara Toles O’Laughlin; Nicholas Pevzner; Michael Marder; Shannon Mattern; Michael Geffel; Brian Osborn; Julian Bolleter; Cristina Ramalho; Robert Freestone; Richard Weller; Michael Geffel; Brian Osborn; Julian Raxworthy.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"An excellent study . . . Tsai works chronologically through case studies that variously illuminate the changing terms of Moholy’s utopian humanism and its abiding relationship to technology and pedagogical technique." * Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments / vii Plates / xi Introduction / 1 1. New Vision / 12 2. Painting Productivity / 52 3. Sorcerer’s Apprentice / 85 4. Painting after Photography / 113 Conclusion: Homecoming / 142 Postscript / 163 Archive Abbreviations / 168 Notes / 169 List of Illustrations / 197 Index / 201

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Book SynopsisIn four decades of abstract art practice, Lynda Benglis has not merely challenged the status quo. She has tied it in knots, melted it down and poured it across the floor, cast it in glass, clay and bronze. Daring and sometimes outrageous, her intense and provocative practice has produced some of the most iconic pieces of art from the late twentieth century. Richmond gives serious critical attention to work often dismissed as trivial and rootless, recovering the themes that link the different phases of the artist''s quest to capture the ''frozen gesture''. Whether challenging popular tastes and definitions of art with her 1970s abstract knotwork or mocking puritanical aesthetics of gender with her colourful latex pourings and their allusions to corporeal topographies, Benglis never failed to provoke. Her sculptures commemorate and celebrate the processes of creation themselves, combining architectonic abstraction and feminized sensuality in a haunting, visceral theme of the strangenTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Boundless Forms and Continuous Imagery 2. Flesh and Physicality 3. Video Input and Output 4. Questioning Taste 5. Iterations and Expansions

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Book SynopsisA queer theory of visual art - based on extensive readings of art works Queer Art traces the question of how strategies of denormalization initiated by visual arts can be continued through writing. In the book's three chapters art theoretical debates are combined with queer theory, post-colonial theory, and (dis-)ability studies, proposing the three terms radical drag, transtemporal drag, and abstract drag. The works discussed include those by Zoe Leonard, Shinique Smith, Jack Smith, Wu Ingrid Tsang, Ron Vawter, Bob Flanagan, Henrik Olesen, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sharon Hayes, and Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz.Trade Review"An exciting read for those invested in queer theory and gender studies as well as for those with an interest in the fine arts and performance art." Gloria Höckner, fiber [German magazine for feminist and pop-cultural issues, appears twice a year], 21 (2012) "A very complex book that manages to be comprehensive - and infectious at the same time." Persson Perry Baumgartinger, Stimme [quarterly magazine published by the Austrian 'Initiative Minderheiten' ('Initiative Minorities')], 85 (2012) "Renate Lorenz focuses on a description of the appearance of the 'freak' as a cultural practice that not only offers alternatives to conventional relations of social power through interventions and images but also constitutes more than a simple critique or subversion of social norms. What is special about her work is that her theory links poststructuralist approaches with typical elements of the freak show [...] and thereby generates innovative intersections that go beyond what has been so far characteristic of the queer. Lorenz thus adds new aspects to the academic field." Silke Förschler, sehepunkte [German monthly Open Access review journal for historiography and art studies], 13 (2013)

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