Theory of art Books
Autonomedia The Conspiracy of Art: Manifestos, Interviews,
Book Synopsis
£14.39
3DTotal Publishing Ltd Wonder
Book SynopsisEscape into the extraordinary world of Beatrice Blue, a playful illustrator with a story to tell...
£21.59
HENI Publishing What is art for
Book Synopsis
£23.99
Yale University Press The Sight of Death
Book SynopsisAddresses questions such as: Why do we find ourselves returning to certain pictures time and again? What is it we are looking for? And how does our understanding of an image change over time?Trade Review". . . as compelling as a thriller...Clark shows that this [book] really is the merest doorway to what is ultimately a truly sublime mystery."—John McEwan, The Tablet". . . an eloquent plea for a new way of experiencing and talking about art."—BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves website"What’s important about this book is simply that it takes ‘inexhaustibility’ seriously. … The Sight of Death is a characteristically mobile text – lucid, dogged, swankily sophisticated, intractably self-conscious, humorous, agonised, driven. … And the whole argument of this book, naturally, is that the thought isn’t simply there to be grasped. It unfolds through steady and repeated acts of looking. That is how pictures operate, when they do well. They ask you back."—Tom Lubbock, The Independent". . . intended as an antidote to a culture in which images thrive but are instantly consumed and forgotten. It’s almost a detective story as Clark pieces together the evidence derived from repeated looking… Clark’s account is proof that some works really do deserve this kind of scrutiny, and that close attention to things is an adventure."—Andrew Mead, Architects Journal"[An] absorbing book . . . Part (muted) autobiography, part critique of his profession as an art historian – and more than anything else a rapt account of what it is to look attentively and inattentively and still be able to think politically – Clark has written a book about loss of attention and the possibilities of its recovery. . . . There is a strange meditative suspense about what is going to be revealed by Clark’s unfussy scrutiny of the pictures. The plain subtlety of the writing and the beautiful reproductions throughout…make the experience of reading the book akin to the process Clark is describing. . . . It is not incidental that at a time when there is more visual art than ever before, most writing about the visual arts is either mind-numbingly pretentious and cliquey or boringly descriptive and without vision. Clark’s book could not be more timely."—Adam Phillips, The Observer"Part of this is a revolt against the present-day dominance of the moving image, and partly a rebuke to the so-called elitism of pure contemplation. The result is wonderfully dynamic, and . . . relevant in ways that could not have been foreseen. . . . [Clark] is as far removed from comfortable connoisseurship, with its usual signifiers, as it is possible to be, yet what is internalised and noted is rigorously true to what the painter intended the viewer to apprehend. . . . What it proves – and this is entirely acceptable – is that the best antidote to reading is looking. . . . Forget blockbuster exhibitions: this is the way to see pictures."—Anita Brookner, The Spectator"An original and outstanding book. You might think [Clark] would not have enough to say. Or that if he had, it would be about himself or his reading. But he has more than enough, and none of it is indulgently subjective or interpretively pat. . . . Without jargon, Clark records what he notices, what questions remain hanging, what stirs his sympathy and imagination. … It does not give the end away to say he reaches few conclusions. His is an open-ended back-and-forth, almost an imaginary conversation with the painter. Tidy formulas would betray the spirit of his experiment. He writes as someone who finds it urgent to bring out and show off reticent objects of love, rather than as a connoisseur or teacher. . . . The Sight of Death [is] a powerful vindication of close looking on its own terms."—Edmund Fawcett, RA Magazine"Clark's book is either the most pretentious nonsense ever written or a work of genius. But which?...he surely is right to want to debunk the old myth that images reveal themselves in a single, highly charged moment. The Sight of Death is a sustained attack on what Clark calls the 'visual flow'. The more images that come at us - be they ads, or magazine covers, or reproductions of famous paintings - the more necessary it becomes 'to suggest what is involved in truly getting to know something by making a picture of it: to state the grounds for believing that some depictions are worth retuning to."—Rachel Cooke, The Observer"A revelatory exercise in art criticism."—Matthew Sweet, The Independent on Sunday
£27.08
Orion Publishing Co Ways of Looking at Art: 50 Cards to Shift Your
Book SynopsisCLEVER AND CONTEMPORARY ILLUSTRATIONS - 50 witty illustrations by Baltimore-based illustrator, designer and educator George WylesolTHE PERFECT GIFT - Design-led, high-spec illustrated product for maximum gifting potentialLEARN ABOUT ART, YOUR WAY - These portable cards can be taken with you everywhere and encourage the development of a highly personal approach to artTEXT BY ART EDUCATOR - Accessible ideas for learning about art from practicing art educatorDISCOVER THE SERIES - Collect the series with mindfulness-based Ways of Tuning Your Senses, and wanderlust-whetting Ways of Travelling, also by Laurence KingTransform your relationship to art with 50 illustrated prompts. Rethink how you see - each card offers a different way of looking at anything from graffiti to sculpture, painting to tapestry. Have a fresh encounter with whatever artwork comes your way.
£14.81
Dorling Kindersley Ltd The Story of Painting
Book SynopsisAn original and breathtakingly beautiful perspective on how art developed through the ages, this book reveals how new materials and techniques inspired artists to create their greatest works.The Story of Painting will completely transform your understanding and enjoyment of art. Covering a comprehensive array of topics, from the first pigments and frescos to linear perspective in Renaissance paintings, the influence of photography, Impressionism, and the birth of modern art, it follows each step in the evolution of painting over the last 25,000 years, from the first cave paintings to the abstract works of the last 100 years. Packed with lavish colour reproductions of paintings and photographs of artists at work and the materials they used, it delves into the key paintings from each period to analyse the techniques and secrets of the great masters in detail.Immerse yourself in the pages of this stunning book and find yourself dazzled by new colours; marv
£22.50
Oxford University Press Contemporary Art
Book SynopsisContemporary art has never been so popular - but the art world is changing. Julian Stallabrass explores new movements in contemporary art, from the rise of super-rich private collectors, and increasing globalisation which has expanded a formerly Western-centric focus, to the advent of the artist as a 'brand'.Table of Contents1: A zone of freedom? 2: New world order 3: Consuming culture 4: Uses and prices of art 5: The rules of art now 6: Contradictions Further reading Index
£9.49
University of California Press Robert Smithson
Book SynopsisThis volume includes previously unpublished essays by Robert Smithson and gathers articles, interviews and photographs as well as a catalogue of the books in Smithson's library. Together they provide a picture of his wide-ranging views on art and culture.Trade Review"The perfect book for someone who is interested in space, time, systems, engineering, and the nitty-gritty of life as an artist in the 20th century." * Publishers Weekly *“Featuring more than 150 works including paintings, works on paper, essays, photographs, objects and films” * CAA Reviews *“Smithson’s writings transcend immediate occasions and achieve significance as the products of an original, gifted, startling mind.” * Art Journal *“Smithson read widely and used that reading to create a style of criticism that is unique and deeply personal. ‘One must remember,’ he says, ‘that writing on art replaces presence by absence by substituting the abstraction of language for the real thing.’ His own vivid and very beautiful prose often provides some equivalent for that presence.” * Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism *
£31.50
Ebury Publishing HangUps
Book SynopsisPre-eminent author and art historian Simon Schama has written widely on art for many years to great acclaim. In Hang-Ups, a personal selection of his articles from, amongst others, The New Yorker, appears in Britain for the very first time. Brilliantly and lucidly written by one of the most singular voices in non-fiction, this volume of provocative and often idiosyncratic essays makes hugely satisfying reading for lovers of both art and social history. In contains pieces on artists as diverse as David Hockney, Rembrandt and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and on such subjects as the unforgettable peculiarity of Stanley Spencer. From the author whose writing has been called sublime and whose ability to bring art and history vividly to life has earned him admiration worldwide, Hang-Ups is Schamas rallying cry for the art lover to look at familiar works of art and their artists and embrace a new way of seeing.Trade ReviewSimon Schama is a historian of remarkable gifts and achievements. * Spectator *The really appealing thing about Schama is... the stylishness of his storytelling. The master of the impressionistic aside, he can summon up a whole era with just a few choice words. * Sunday Times *Schama combines an awesome breadth of knowledge with a real ability to communicate ideas in a manner stripped of pomposity. * Daily Express *
£16.99
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Writings on Art and Politics
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£23.74
John Murray Press How to Get to Great Ideas
Book SynopsisA tangible approach to building the intangible skill of creativity, offering a simple new theory about how to have original and valuable ideas.
£11.69
Polity Press On Tropical Grounds
Book SynopsisOn Tropical Groundsdevelops a new approach to the avant-garde and Surrealism in Caribbean and Atlantic studies. The book examines how islands and their tropical associations figure in the cultural and political imaginaries of the Caribbean and the Atlantic and identifies genealogies of local responses to continental fantasies of exotic insularity. Examining written and visual works that reflect on the Hispanic and Francophone Caribbean and the Canary Islands, as well as critical debates around discourses of insularity in island and metropolitan spaces, the book considers notions of ethnic purity, originality, imitation, appropriation, cosmopolitanism, and self-exoticism to challenge the idea that avant-garde practices were pre-eminently urban and metropolitan cultural forms.The book argues that attention to the relational dimension implicit in exchanges around ideas of anti-colonial struggle, radical social transformation, and anti-fascist resistance should inform an
£18.04
Manchester University Press Dada Bodies: Between Battlefield and Fairground
Book SynopsisThis is the first comprehensive study of bodily images in Dada. Travelling between the international centres of the movement, from Zurich to Berlin, Paris to New York, it examines a diverse range of media, including art, literature, performance, photography and film. Its overall approach is to confront Dada’s bodily images not as organic unities but as fictions that reflect on the disjunctive, dehumanised society of war-torn Europe. These fictions occupy an ambivalent space between the battlefield (in their satirical exposure of ideology) and the fairground (in their playful manipulation and joyful renewal of the body). The book features analyses of works by Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Hannah Höch, Marcel Duchamp and others, and will appeal to scholars and students of European history, cultural history, art and literature.Table of Contents1 Introduction: spare parts 2 Zurich Dada: between gas mask and carnival dance 3 Shooting the classical body 4 Hybrid bodies (I): the impossible machine 5 Hybrid bodies (II): the grotesque 6 Performance spaces: fairground, cabaret, exhibition 7 Death and rebirth: corpse or chrysalis 8 Fluid bodies, shifting identities 9 Dada’s Africa 10 Limit-bodies 11 Conclusion: exquisite corpsesIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Art and Knowledge After 1900: Interactions
Book SynopsisThis ground-breaking new history of modern art explores the relationship between art and knowledge from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Each chapter examines artistic responses to a particular discipline of knowledge, from quantum theory and theosophy to cybernetics and ethnic futurisms. The authors argue that art’s incursion into other intellectual disciplines is a defining characteristic of both modernism and postmodernism. Throughout, the volume poses a series of larger questions: is art a source of knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge? And, ultimately, can it contribute to our understanding of the world in ways that thinkers from other fields should take seriously?Table of ContentsIntroduction – James Fox and Vid Simoniti1 Modern art and spiritual knowledge – Lucy Kent2 Twentieth-century revolutions in art and science – Gavin Parkinson3 Psychoanalysis and art: a new theory of objects – Margaret Iversen4 Before the visual turn: twentieth-century historians and the uses of art – Tom Stammers5 Knowledge, truth, history: contemporary art and the problem of art-historical periodisation – Peter Osborne6 Art / Economics – Allan Antliff7 Art and cybernetics: a new ontology for art – Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra8 Art into society: organised labour, workplace sociology, and artmaking in 1970s Britain – Catherine Spencer9 Knowledge, nation, and colour in documentary photography – Julian Stallabrass10 Art and biotechnology: on the limits and potential of interdisciplinary arts – Vid Simoniti11 Ethnic futurisms and contemporary art – Alice Ming Wai Jim12 The politics and aesthetics of climate emergency – T. J. Demos13 Art and witnessing: the poetics and politics of testifying to environmental violence – Shela SheikhIndex
£76.50
David Zwirner Mad about Painting
Book SynopsisBest known for his iconic print Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as the Great Wave, Katsushika Hokusai was a revolutionary printmaker. His mastery of ukiyo-e in the nineteenth century has inspired generations of artists since, and his works exposed the world to the delicate beauty and power of Japanese woodblock technique. In addition to his remarkable artistic output, Hokusai was also a dedicated teacher who sought to pass down his deep understanding of color and painting to practicing artists through immensely detailed written tutorials. Here, for the first time in centuries, are excerpts from his manuals, many available for the first time in English. It is an invaluable insight into the psyche of a true master, and a rare personal account of an artist’s life during a fascinating period in Japan’s history. Connecting Hokusai’s prints from the Edo period to manga, author Ryoko Matsuba foregrounds Hokusai’s contributions to Japanese creative expression from the 1800s to today. Also included in this book: Vincent Van Gogh’s letter about Hokusai’s Great Wave and the contemporary artist Ikeda Manabu’s concise observations about Hokusai’s lasting influence.
£10.40
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Politics of Aesthetics
Book SynopsisThe Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relationship between art and politics, reclaiming "aesthetics" from the narrow confines it is often reduced to. Jacques Rancière reveals its intrinsic link to politics by analysing what they both have in common: the delimitation of the visible and the invisible, the audible and the inaudible, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible. Presented as a set of inter-linked interviews, The Politics of Aesthetics provides the most comprehensive introduction to Rancière's work to date, ranging across the history of art and politics from the Greek polis to the aesthetic revolution of the modern age. Available now in the Bloomsbury Revelations series 10 years after its original publication, The Politics of Aesthetics includes an afterword by Slavoj Zizek, an interview for the English edition, a glossary of technical terms and an extensive bibliography.Trade Review"Jacques Rancière is one of the most important and original contemporary French philosophers. This book provides perhaps the best available introduction to his thought in English. Its main contents are two interviews with Rancière...they provide an extraordinarily concise and systematic summary by Rancière of the main themes of his recent work across its whole range. Rancière's project is promising. It is illuminating to see aesthetics as political and politics in aesthetic terms, as a form of the 'distribution of the sensible.'" -Culture Machine -- Culture Machine"[A]n excellent introduction to Jacques Rancière...Slavoj Žižek writes in his afterword: 'Rancière's thought is today more actual than ever: in our time of the disorientation of the left, his writings offer one of the few consistent conceptualizations of how we are to continue to exist.'" - London Review of Books, August 3, 2006 -- London Review of Books'Ranciere has insightful and novel things to say about the problems that beset our understanding of modernity as it applies to art.' * Modern Painters, March 2005 *'Locating the political significance of art has not only gone out of fashion, it has in recent years become a source of embarrassment. No one has argued against this repression with more precision, nuance, and undeniable force than Jacques Ranciere ... This book, with an emphatic "Afterword" by Zizek, provides a riveting and compelling outline of the central elements of Ranciere's politics of aesthetics and its relation to his demanding rethinking of the political.' -- J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research'A benchmark, this compact book shows why Ranciere is one of the most compelling thinkers and writers in France since Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.' -- Tom Conley, Harvard University, USA'This is possibly the most important essay, despite its length, since Adorno's Aesthetic Theory.' -- Adrian Rifkin, Professor of Visual Culture, Middlesex University, UK'A tour de force! Through a revitalisation of the term 'aesthetics', Ranciere is able to raise novel questions concerning the nature of history, the sense of our modernity, the relationship between work and art and between science and art, and the peculiarity of aesthetic experience (showing, in essence, that it cannot be contained but informs all our forms of life and activities).' -- Keith Ansell Pearson, Professor of Philosophy, Warwick University, UK'The readership for Ranciere's work is highly interdisciplinary. Le Partage du sensible would be obligatory reading in graduate courses in Philosophy, Aesthetics, Political Science, French Studies, Literature, and Cultural Studies, where it would be read in the context of other major thinkers of politics and aesthetics such as Walter Benjamin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Etienne Balibar, Michel Foucault, Paul Ricoeur, Jurgen Habermas, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Slavoj Zizek.' -- Kristin Ross, Professor of Comparative Literature, New York University, USATable of ContentsTranslator's preface: The Reconfiguration of Meaning Translator's Introduction: Jacques Ranciere's Politics of Perception \ The Politics of Aesthetics \ Foreword \ The Distribution of the Sensible: Politics and Aesthetics Artistic Regimes and the Shortcomings of the Notion of Modernity \ Mechanical Arts and the Promotion of the Anonymous \ Is History a Form of Fiction? On Art and Work \ Interview with Jacques Ranciere for the English Edition: The Janus-Face of Politicized Art \ Historical and Hermeneutic Methodology \ Universality, Historicity, Equality \ Positive Contradiction \ Politicized Art \ Afterword by Slavoj Zizek: The Lesson of Ranciere \ Appendix I: Glossary of Technical Terms \ Appendix II: Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources \ Index.
£19.99
Laurence King Publishing Light for Visual Artists Second Edition:
Book SynopsisThis introduction to light for students and visual artists explores the way light can be used to create realistic and fantastical effects in a wide range of media. Divided into three parts, the clearly written text explains: the fundamental properties of natural and artificial light; how to create realistic images by observing people and the environment; the creative use of light in composition and design. Updated with revised photos and artwork, as well as 15 practical exercises and new online video material, this second edition is an indispensable resource for animators, digital illustrators, painters, photographers and artists working in any medium.
£24.64
Clairview Books What is Art?: Conversation with Joseph Beuys
Book SynopsisJoseph Beuys' work continues to influence and inspire practitioners and thinkers all over the world, in areas from organizational learning, direct democracy and new money forms to new art pedagogies and ecological art practices. Here, in dialogue with Volker Harlan - a close colleague, whose own work also revolves around understandings of substance and sacrament that are central to Beuys - the deeper motivations and insights underlying 'social sculpture', Beuys' expanded conception of art, are illuminated. His profound reflections, complemented with insightful essays by Volker Harlan, give a sense of the interconnectedness between all life forms, and the foundations of a path towards an ecologically sustainable future.Trade Review'An intimate dialogue with Joseph Beuys, arguably the most important and radical artist of the late twentieth century, which takes us into the deeper motivations and understandings underlying 'social sculpture' and his expanded conception of art.' - Shelley Sacks, Artist and Director of the Social Sculpture Research Unit, Oxford Brookes University 'It is arguable that Beuys was the first artist of the twenty-first century. Like Rudolf Steiner, he was passionately concerned with the history of ideas and the points of interface between manifestations of the arts and sciences as well as philosophy, religion, economics and politics.' - Richard Demarco, OBE, Professor Emeritus, European Cultural Studies, Kingston University, Surrey 'Joseph Beuys was one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. He was one of the first German artists to engage with his country's turbulent and destructive recent history. His art embraced processes of political renewal within society, the search for an appropriate spiritual approach in our times, and a belief in the creative potential in each individual.' - Sean Rainbird, Senior Curator, Tate Collection 'Twenty years after his death, Beuys is still the most inspirational artist of modern times. No other figure has so moved people to find their own creativity and to innovative solutions to the biggest environmental threats facing our planet.' - Professor Caroline Tisdall, Oxford Brookes University 'The revolutionary artistic ideas and artwork of Joseph Beuys are still, decades later, one of the strongest influences on contemporary artists. His work bursts open the enclosed world of visual art to encompass political and social reform, environmentalism, education, economics, spiritual science, and the proposal that art is not properly an activity for "experts" but for everyone.' - David Adams, Ph.D., Art History faculty, Sierra College, California 'Joseph Beuys was the most significant artistic innovator of the twentieth century. His extended concept of art and his Social Sculpture Theory contain the seeds needed for addressing the root problems of our global society today. Harlan's book is a seminal contribution to the understanding of Beuys' work.' - Otto Scharmer, co-author, Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future, Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management
£14.24
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Cubism and Reality
Book SynopsisWhat was Cubism? How did this strange new way of making paintings and sculptures enable artists so decisively to change the trajectory of Modern Art'? In responding to these questions, distinguished art historian Christopher Green presents a bold new interpretation of the movement and three of its key protagonists. Stemming from a critical re-evaluation of the author's own first responses to Cubist artworks, as a student of the late artist and critic John Golding, Cubism and Reality challenges the commonly-held view of Cubism as either a retreat from reality into abstraction, or an invitation to convert the real into the surreal', arguing instead that Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and Juan Gris wanted, above all, to find ways of intensifying and expanding painting's capacity to give viewers more, not less, of their lived experience of the world.Lavishly illustrated and filled with rich new insights and approaches to the artwork that are the product of decades' wo
£27.54
Verso Books In the Mind But Not From There: Real Abstraction
Book SynopsisIn the Mind, But Not From There: Real Abstraction and Contemporary Art considers how the Marxian concept of Real Abstraction--originally developed by Alfred Sohn Rethel, and recently updated by Alberto Toscano--might help to define the economic, social, political, and cultural complexities of our contemporary moment. In doing so, this volume brings together noted contemporary artists, literary critics, curators, historians, and social theorists who connect the concept of Real Abstraction with contemporary cultural production. Theoretical and artistic contributions from Benjamin Noys, Paul Chan, Joao Enxuto and Erica Love, Marina Vishmidt, Sven Lütticken, and many others help to map out the relationship between political economy and artistic production in the realm of contemporary, globalized cultural exchange. This anthology places economic and social analyses alongside creative projects and visual essays to consider the many angles of contemporary art, and how inquiry into the the production of abstraction through material and social processes can be used to better understand, and hopefully change, the conditions under which art is made, seen, and circulated today.Published in collaboration with [NAME] publications.
£18.99
Hatje Cantz Jari Silomäki: Atlas of Emotions
Book SynopsisJari Silomäki’s Atlas of Emotions is the result of an elaborate research process. For this, the artist—who is primarily known as a photographer—studied the stories of people who actively participate in digital discussion forums. Who are the people who hide behind alter ego names on digital platforms? Silomäki researched their backgrounds—also to find out how sometimes bizarre opinions are formed in the first place. He compiled his research in a manuscript and had actors reenact this fusion of imagination and reality in his studio, interpreting the scenes and domestic environments.
£22.50
Princeton University Press Yellow The History of a Color
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Beautifully illustrated. . . . [Pastoureau] unpicks the meanings of the colour by delving into a broad range of cultural references, from history, clothing and myth to art and etymology, and shows the different roles each colour has played in society and how they have changed."---Michael Prodger, The Times"Yellow is in part the story of gold, but that was just the beginning, Michel Pastoureau points out in the fifth of his lively, informative, brightly illustrated series about individual colours."---Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times"Pastoureau’s main aim is not simply to record how hues have been used, but to seek out the various values they have expressed and embodied in different times. . . . Yellow is worth buying as much for its sumptuous images as its scholarship."---Kevin Jackson, Literary Review"The French scholar Michel Pastoureau investigates how individual colours have been viewed and used in the past. Yellow: The History of a Colour is the successor to similar volumes on blue, green, black and red. But it turns out that yellow has had an intriguing, though chequered, time."---Martin Gayford, The Spectator Australia"Yellow: The History of a Color is the fifth such volume that Pastoureau has produced. Like its predecessors, which recount the visual and cultural histories of blue (2001), black (2009), green (2013), and red (2017), this one is elegant and engaging — as alluring to gaze at as it is compelling to read. Yellow may be an unsettling color, but this is a lovely and striking book."---Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe"Like Pastoureau’s earlier volumes, this is a beautifully produced book and an impressive work of scholarship . . . it is a fascinating and sensual celebration of our complex love-hate relationship with what Goethe called this 'joyous colour'."---Peter D. Smith, The Guardian"If you are contemplating going to a museum, or purchasing a painting for millions for your private collection, this book is going to involve less gas or less investment, and the outcome might be more nourishing."---Anna Faktorovich, Pennsylvania Literary Review"[Yellow: The History of a Color] tells the fascinating story of yellow’s evolving place in art, religion, literature and science from its sacred and symbolic status in antiquity, through its demonic associations with lawlessness when tinged with green, but in its pure state, still engendering feelings of pleasure and abundance, to its positive position in Asian societies and its lasting status as the colour of Buddhism."---Wendy and Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collection"Richly illustrated and impressively wide-ranging." * The Week *"Michel Pastoureau continues his study of colors, following up on similar works about blue, black, green and red. Pastoureau’s book, a measured and scholarly approach, is filled with images of art and artifacts as well as the color’s interesting role in world history."---Diane Cowen, Houston Chronicle"Yellow: The History of a Color takes readers on a Eurocentric tour of the color."---Alicia Eler, Minneapolis Star Tribune"Yellow is perhaps the most difficult of the colors Pastoureau has undertaken so far. Nonetheless, he handles it with the same sure hand and informed historical perspective he did its predecessors (Blue, Green, Red, and Black). . . . Visuals are handsome and accompanied by text that is both scholarly and easily readable, and that addresses subjects ranging from perception, philology, etymology, and dyes and pigments, to the artistic and symbolic use of color from antiquity onward."---R.M. Davis, Choice
£29.75
Ridinghouse Beauty In Some Recent Art
Book SynopsisThis book comprises a timely and controversial assertion of beauty as vital to the energy of contemporary art. As such it surveys work by an international group of artists who share an intense and highly individualistic focus on the processes of making, authorship and aesthetic poise. An essay by Michael Bracewell shares with its subjects the return of aesthetics to the science of feelings; to the individual as opposed to identity'; and to a sensibility in visual art that is literary, flees the stereotype and rejects sociopolitical verbiage. It is a concept of beauty in some recent art that is less about representation than it is about memoir, fictional devices, cultural connoisseurship as praxis and the profundity of human relationships.
£27.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Design Thinking
Book SynopsisDesign thinking is the core creative process for any designer; this book explores and explains this apparently mysterious design ability. This new edition is a completely revised, updated and extended version of a classic text.Focusing on what designers actually do when they are designing, the book is structured around a series of in-depth case studies of the work of outstanding and expert designers, interwoven and developed with commentary and comparison. The coverage reflects the breadth of design from architecture to engineering, consumer products to communications, and from individual designing to teamwork and collaborative designing. The scale of designing ranges from Formula One racing cars to city commuting cars, locomotives to bicycles, sewing machines to litter bins and lemon squeezers. The book is based on evidence from observation and investigation of design practice, providing insights into and understanding of design thinking, and the development of design ability from novTrade ReviewI came across the first edition of this book and adopted it immediately for my instructional design course…The second edition is even richer with engaging storytelling and case studies. A must-read for future designers-to-be. * Minjuan Wang, Professor and Chair of Learning Design and Technology, San Diego State University, USA *This is the classic book on how designers think and work. While based on solid research, it is also a compelling read: the interviews, case studies and stories from design practice are lively and very accessible. There still is no better explanation. * Kees Dorst, Professor of Transdisciplinary Innovation, University of Technology Sydney, Australia *Are you looking for a book that can help you advance your ability to be a reflective designer? This straightforward book takes on the complex topic of design thinking and gives you gems to reflect on and incorporate into your own design practice. * Cynthia Atman, Professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering and Director of CELT, University of Washington, USA *Nigel Cross has been at the forefront of research in design thinking for several decades. This book elegantly encapsulates his exceptional knowledge of just what it is that makes designing such a unique and valuable activity. * Peter Lloyd, Professor of Integrated Design Methodology, TU Delft, the Netherlands *This book highlights the core characteristics of design thinking and its processes through empirical case studies on how designers generate creative designs. Nigel Cross, a pioneer in design research and methodology, analyzes design thinking with insights based on his long-standing experience, which can be of great help to design researchers, educators and students. * Kun-Pyo Lee, Dean of the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University *Design thinking has radically changed the world. Long before the concept got traction in many disciplines beyond design, Nigel already engaged deeply with the cognitive processes of designers and architects. This book is a much needed refresher on the understanding of these fascinating phenomena. As a design professor with a background in psychology, I am hugely inspired by this book. * Cees de Bont, Dean of the School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK *Table of ContentsIllustration Credits Preface Acknowledgements Introduction The Design of this Book 1. Design Ability Studying Design Ability Asking Designers About What They Do Deconstructing What Designers Do Watching What Designers Do Thinking About What Designers Do Understanding What Designers Do 2. Designing to Win Background: Formula One Designing Radical Innovation Self-adjusting Suspension Pit Stops Designing from First Principles Steering Column Analogical Thinking Integrated Design City Car Modelling Learning from Failure Design Process and Working Methods 3. Designing to Please Background: The Art of Technical Design Looking for Improvement Sewing Machine Constructive Thinking Going Beyond the Brief Locomotive Fixation Learning from Failure Design Process and Working Methods 4. How Designers Think Motivation and Attitude Other Outstanding Designers Common Features Strategic Thinking Creative Thinking Problem Framing Co-evolution 5. Designing to Use The Experiment Design in Action Systems View First Principles Designing for Clients and Users Discussion: Design strategy 6. Designing Together Teamwork in Design Roles and Relationships Planning and Changing Activities Gathering and Sharing Information Generating and Adopting Concepts Plastic Tray Persuasion Avoiding and Resolving Conflicts Discussion: Design Co-operation 7. How Designers Work Creative Working Team Working Team Leadership Design Process Structure Versus Spontaneity Collaborative Designing Creative Designing The Creative Bridge 8. Design Expertise Experts and Novices From Novice to Expert Development of Expertise Developing Design Thinking Expertise in Teamwork Design Intelligence The Designing Brain Glossary References Index
£21.36
Verso Books Viewing Velocities: Time in Contemporary Art
Book SynopsisHow have artists responded to our market-driven, tech-enabled culture of speed? Viewing Velocities explores a contemporary art scene caught in the gears of 24/7 capitalism. It looks at artists who embrace the high-octane experience economy and others who are closer to the slow movement. Some of the most compelling artworks addressing the cadences of contemporary work and leisure play on distinct, even contradictory conceptions of time. From Danh Vo's relics to Moyra Davey's photographs of dust-covered belongings, from Roman Ondak's queuing performers and Susan Hiller's outdoor sleepers to Maria Eichhorn's art strike and Ruth Ewan's giant reconstruction of the French revolutionary calendar, artists have drawn out aspects of the present temporal order that are familiar to the point of near-invisibility, while outlining other, more liberating ways of conceiving, organising and experiencing time.Marcus Verhagen builds on the work of theorists Jonathan Crary, Hartmut Rosa and Jacques Rancière to trace lines of insurgent art that recast struggles over time and history in novel and revealing terms.Trade ReviewCompelling and groundbreaking. These analyses point toward imaginative possibilities beyond the dispiriting neoliberal imperatives now increasingly imposed on us. -- Jonathan Crary, author of Scorched EarthA fine reading of contemporary art's engagements with social acceleration and the regulation of time. -- Julian Stallabrass, author of Killing for ShowOffers a lucid and capacious analysis of how contemporary art has, over the last three decades or so, addressed our society's troubled experience with the speed and pace of life under capitalism -- J.J. Charlesworth * ArtReview *Marcus Verhagen is one of the finest art critics writing today. -- Malcolm Bull
£16.14
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Aesthetic Theory
Book SynopsisTheodor Adorno (1903-69) was undoubtedly the foremost thinker of the Frankfurt School, the influential group of German thinkers that fled to the US in the 1930s, including such thinkers as Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer. His work has proved enormously influential in sociology, philosophy and cultural theory. Aesthetic Theory is Adorno's posthumous magnum opus and the culmination of a lifetime's investigation. Analysing the sublime, the ugly and the beautiful, Adorno shows how such concepts frame and distil human experience and that it is human experience that ultimately underlies aesthetics. In Adorno's formulation ‘art is the sedimented history of human misery'.Trade Review"...the fact that they [Continuum] are putting low price tags on works once published in expensive academic editions is something of which we can all be glad.." -Modern Painters, 2/05Table of ContentsTranslator's Acknowledgement \ Translator's Introduction \ 1. Art, Society, Aesthetics \ 2. Situation \ 3. On the Categories of the Ugly, the Beautiful, and Technique \ 4. Natural Beauty \ 5. Art Beauty: Apparition, Spiritualization, Intuitability \ 6. Semblance and Expression \ 7. Enigmaticalness, Truth Content, Metaphysics \ 8. Coherence and Meaning \ 9. Subject-Object \ 10. Toward a Theory of the Artwork \ 11. Universal and Particular \ 12. Society \ 13. Paralimpomena \ 14. Theories On the Origin of Art \ 15. Draft Introduction \ Editor's Afterword.
£27.95
Princeton University Press Global Objects
Book SynopsisTrade Review"[A] remarkably insightful book. . . . [Global Objects] illustrates how the hegemony of power attributed to ‘fine art’, as distinguished from objects that have a utility in our daily lives, has resulted in a poverty of taste as well as the perpetuation of self-fulfilling prophecies about the importance of the so called ‘sublime’ in the construction of civilizations."---Donald Brackett, Critics at Large"A fascinating Tintin-esque history of many human artifacts that have truly global pedigrees. . . . An interesting read."---Jesse Russell, University Bookman"Challenging the binaries of Western versus Other and “high” versus “low” art in this book, Cooke presents a revisionist approach to global material culture that frames art objects as embodiments of social interactions across space and time. Global Objects. . .makes material culture studies digestible to individuals who seek to understand objects beyond the traditional fields of Western art history . . . [and] presents a necessary methodological revision to material culture studies in the post-colonial era."---Yasmine Yakupper, 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual – Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur"One of the great successes of Cooke’s Global Objects is it is an analysis based on a significant number of case studies, a corpus of considerable scale. The attention paid to the objects themselves and the important place they occupy in the whole of Cooke’s study, both visually and in terms of the narrative, make Global Objects a solid and handsome contribution to the history of art."---Noémie Etienne, The Art Bulletin
£27.00
Oxford University Press Postmodernism
Book SynopsisPostmodernism has been a buzzword in contemporary society for the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this Very Short Introduction Christopher Butler challenges and explores the key ideas of postmodernists, and their engagement with theory, literature, the visual arts, film, architecture, and music. He treats artists, intellectuals, critics, and social scientists ''as if they were all members of a loosely constituted and quarrelsome political party'' - a party which includes such members as Cindy Sherman, Salman Rushdie, Jacques Derrida, Walter Abish, and Richard Rorty - creating a vastly entertaining framework in which to unravel the mysteries of the ''postmodern condition'', from the politicizing of museum culture to the cult of the politically correct.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewThis VSI is a terrific book. If you've ever had doubts about post-modernism and its manifestations in art, literature and identity politics, yet wondered how intelligent people came to be influenced by it ... if you are open-minded enough to consider whether there is anything worthwhile about postmodernism rather than just be mocked or dismissed out of hand ... this VSI is the book for you. * ANZ LitLovers *Table of Contents1. The rise of postmodernism ; 2. New ways of seeing the world ; 3. Politics and identity ; 4. The culture of postmodernism ; 5. The 'postmodern condition' ; References ; Further reading ; Index
£9.49
Yale University Press Leonardo on Painting
Book SynopsisA selection of Leonardo da Vinci's writings on painting. Martin Kemp and Margaret Walker have edited material not only from his so-called "Treatise on Painting" but also from his surviving manuscripts and from other primary sources.Trade Review"Highly recommended" Apollo Magazine "Highly readable... Also included are documentary sources and letters illuminating Leonardo's career; the manuscript sources for all of Leonardo's statements are fully cited in the notes. The volume is skillfully translated and is illustrated with appropriate examples of drawings and paintings by the artist." Choice "Easier to read and more convenient than previous compilations." Charles Hope, New York Review of Books "A chaotic assemblage of Leonardo da Vinci's writings appeared in 1651 as Treatise on Painting... Kemp successfully applies order to the chaos." ArtNews
£18.04
Manchester University Press AfterAffectsAfterImages Trauma and Aesthetic
Book SynopsisIn closely-read case studies, we encounter artworks by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ana Mendieta, Louise Bourgeois, Alina Szapocznikow, Anna Maria Maiolino, Vera Frenkel, Sarah Kofman and Chantal Akerman to explore trauma and bereavement, fatal illness, Holocaust experience, migration, exile and the encounter with political horror and atrocity.Trade ReviewIn Griselda Pollock’s brilliantly-staged encounters between contemporary art and psychoanalysis, the aesthetic emerges as the space in which we can be responsive to the traces of trauma and live with its after-effects. Through incisive and carefully-articulated theoretical insights and reparative acts of close reading, Pollock offers us new ways of thinking about painful aftermaths as well as a new vocabulary for feminist visual studies.Marianne Hirsch, William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature in the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia UniversityIn this powerful latest book, Griselda Pollock brings her writing on her key concept of `the virtual feminist museum’ to a new phase. What are the legacies of trauma in visual space? How might they be gendered? And is there a psychic realm to which women are closer that allows for a generative creativity equal to the horrors of our times? Once again, the meticulous, detailed respect she shows towards her chosen women artists is matched by a sustained theoretical scrutiny, both of which have become the hallmark of her unique feminist intervention into our understanding of images.Jacqueline Rose, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London -- .Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: Trauma and artworkingI Sounds of subjectivity1. Gasping at violence: Daphne’s open mouth and the trauma of gender2. Seduction, mourning and invocation: The geometry of absence in work by Louise Bourgeois3. Being and language: Anna Maria Maiolino’s gestures of exile and connectionII Memorial bodies4. Traumatic encryption: The sculptural dissolutions of Alina Szapocznikow5. Fictions of fact: Memory in transit in Vera Frenkel’s video installation worksIII Passage through the object6. Deadly objects and dangerous confessions: The tale of Sarah Kofman’s father’s pen7. ‘… that, again!’: Pathosformula as transport station of trauma in the cinematic journey of Chantal AkermanBibliographyIndex
£22.80
Shambhala Publications Inc Art Is a Way of Knowing: A Guide to
Book SynopsisAn expert in art therapy offers this “wonderful” guide “for anyone, artistic or not, who is interested in using art to know more about himself or herself” (Library Journal) Making art—giving form to the images that arise in our mind''s eye, our dreams, and our everyday lives—is a form of spiritual practice through which knowledge of ourselves can ripen into wisdom. This book offers encouragement for everyone to explore art-making in this spirit of self-discovery—plus practical instructions on material, methods, and activities, such as ways to: • Discover a personal myth or story • Recognize patterns and themes in one''s life • Identify and release painful memories • Combine journaling and image making • Practice the ancient skill of active imagination • Connect with others through sharing one''s art worksInterwoven with this guidance is the intimate story of the author''s own journey as a student, art therapist, teacher, wife, mother, and artist—and, most of all, as a woman who discovered a profound and healing connection with her soul through making art.
£17.09
Reaktion Books Towards a Philosophy of Photography
Book SynopsisWith an introduction by Hubertus von Amelunxen Media philosopher Vilem Flusser proposed a revolutionary new way of thinking about photography. An analysis of the medium in terms of aesthetics, science and politics provided him with new ways of understanding both the cultural crises of the past and the new social forms nascent within them. Flusser showed how the transformation of textual into visual culture (from the linearity of history into the two-dimensionality of magic) and of industrial into post-industrial society (from work into leisure) went hand in hand, and how photography allows us to read and interpret these changes with particular clarity.Trade ReviewA relatively little-known but significant text. -- Lindsay Smith, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural StudiesTable of ContentsWith an introduction by Hubertus von Amelunxen
£16.95
Whitechapel Gallery Oceans
Book Synopsis
£17.06
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Is Architecture Art
Book SynopsisIs architecture an art, like literature or music? Or is it more akin to science or engineering? Can buildings be artworks, just like paintings and sculptures, or does their fundamentally functional nature mean they cannot be considered pure works of art? Questions of architecture, art, and aesthetics do not allow for simple answers. But by asking such questions, we can usefully reveal the ways in which the concepts and meanings of architecture have changed over the centuries, and how they continue to change in the contemporary era. Is Architecture Art? explores the key conceptual questions about the aesthetic appreciation of architecture and its persistently contested status as an artform. It engages the work of thinkers ranging from Hume and Kant to Adorno, Tafuri, and Rancière, and draws on accessible and thought-provoking accounts of historical and contemporary architectural and art theory. Taking novel approaches to issues that will be familiar t
£23.74
HarperCollins Publishers The Imaginary Museum
Book SynopsisJoin the art critic Ben Eastham on a private tour of an extraordinary museum. Let him walk you through a building constructed from memory and filled with a series of bewildering art works, while he delivers a guide comprised of personal experience, professional expertise and sympathy.In this stunningly original book, an introduction to contemporary art is combined with the author''s own memories and reflections on what art means. With the help of a cast of interfering security guards, pretentious curators, sceptical visitors, angry protestors and elusive ghosts, Eastham proposes that the art of today offers a way of understanding our increasingly strange and complex times.Eastham doesn''task you to like the artworks in his imaginarymuseum, but offers the tools for you to formulate and express yourown opinion of them.He argues that art should be judged by the feelings it provokes and theconversations it generates: in talking about art, we learn to talk about ourselves and the world in wTrade ReviewPraise for Ben Eastham “A terrific, ferociously self-effacing writer” Wall Street Journal
£7.59
Vintage Publishing Art Objects
Book SynopsisJeanette Winterson CBE was born in Manchester. She published her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, at twenty-five. Over two decades later she revisited that material in her internationally bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. Winterson has written thirteen novels for adults and two previous collections of short stories, as well as children's books, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London.Trade ReviewCourageous... Her writing is spirited and insouciant in its fusing of love of words and sensual desire * Scotsman *Winterson is in fine form in these essays about art * Observer *Flashes of sly wit have an epigrammatic power... On Joyce, Woolf, Conrad, Dickens and the development of English literature she is acute and always interesting...covetable, infuriating, stimulating * Independent *
£11.69
Penguin Books Ltd Lives of the Artists Lives of the Architects
Book SynopsisFrom world-renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects offers a unique opportunity to learn about the lives and creativity of the world''s leading artistsHans Ulrich Obrist has been conducting ongoing conversations with the world''s greatest living artists since he began in Switzerland, aged 19, with Fischli and Weiss. Here he chooses nineteen of the greatest figures and presents their conversations, offering the reader intimacy with the artists and insight into their creative processes. Inspired by the great Vasari, Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects explores the meaning of art and artists today, their varying approaches to creating, and a sense of how their thinking evolves over time. Including David Hockney, Gilbert and George, Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois, Rem Koolhaas, and Oscar Niemeyer, this is a wonderful and unique book for those interested in modern art.
£13.49
Oxford University Press Modern Art
Book SynopsisAs public interest in modern art continues to grow, as witnessed by the spectacular success of Tate Modern and the Bilbao Guggenheim, there is a real need for a book that will engage general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining its contemporary relevance and history. This book achieves all this and focuses on interrogating the idea of ''modern'' art by asking such questions as: What has made a work of art qualify as modern (or fail to)? How has this selection been made? What is the relationship between modern and contemporary art? Is ''postmodernist'' art no longer modern, or just no longer modernist - in either case, why, and what does this claim mean, both for art and the idea of ''the modern''?Cottington examines many key aspects of this subject, including the issue of controversy in modern art, from Manet''s Dejeuner sur L''Herbe (1863) to Picasso''s Les Demoiselles, and Tracey Emin''s Bed, (1999); and the role of the dealer from the main Cubist art dealer Kahnweiler to Charles Saatchi.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION
£9.49
Penguin Books Ltd The UpsideDown World
Book SynopsisThe Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer turns his eye to the seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age Twenty years ago, Benjamin Moser followed a love affair to an ancient Dutch town. In order to make sense of this new place, he threw himself into the Dutch museums. Soon, he found himself unearthing the strange, inspiring and sometimes terrifying stories of the artists who shaped one of the most luminous moments in the history of human creativity, the Dutch Golden Age.As he explored the hidden world of the Dutch Masters (and one Mistress), Moser met a crowd of fascinating personalities: the stormy Rembrandt, the intimate Ter Borch, the mysterious Vermeer. Through their art, he got to know their country, too: from Pieter Saenredam''s translucent churches to Paulus Potter''s muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch''s cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael''s tragic trees. Over the years, Moser found himself on increasingly intimate terms with these centuries-dead artists, and found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions he was. Why do we make art? What is art, anyway - and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail?The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. It is a brilliant, colourful and learned book for anyone, whether lifelong scholar or curious tourist, who has ever felt the lure of the Dutch galleries. It shows us art, and artists, as we have never seen them before.Trade ReviewA deeply personal, lyrical and philosophical introduction to the Dutch masters. Ben Moser looks deeply and reads widely, with fascinating insights and revelations -- Jerry Brotton * Financial Times *Moser writes with insight and sympathy about his 18 painters and their pictures, many of which are handsomely reproduced in his pages * The Times *Moser considers individual lives, life in general and the fragility of all biographies. Unknowns make the knowns shine brighter… Moser relishes strange facts and is attuned to the charisma of his subjects… a meditation on belonging, how we strive to adopt a nation through its art, how we fall in love with a place, its past and foreignness… an excellent guide * Prospect *A personal and stirring guide to the great Dutch painters … The Upside-Down World is an excellent companion to the Dutch galleries: conversational and congenial, essayistic and elevating * Washington Post *In The Upside-Down World, Benjamin Moser confronts the world through the eyes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals and others. He is an exemplary museumgoer, the kind we should all aspire to be … Here, Moser interweaves personal memoir with observations he has gleaned from years of faithful looking at Dutch paintings * Wall Street Journal *Benjamin Moser's way of looking is sharp, original, penetrating, generous and nourished by knowledge and study. His book is an essential guide to the Dutch painters, but, more than that, it is an engaging conversation with a well-stocked mind -- Colm TóibínBenjamin Moser's fascinating study of Dutch art and artists is more than the sum of its extraordinary parts. Part memoir, part critical and historical analysis, the book also offers a superb commentary - one of the best I've ever read - on what it means to be displaced in a never entirely whole world, and what it means to see between the cracks. I learned so much reading this fine book, and so will you -- Hilton AlsA museum, Benjamin Moser writes, has an aura. It promises improvement, elevation. Walking through galleries of Dutch art was at once calming and exciting; it raised questions, stimulated curiosity, the quantity as well as the quality of the art astonishing him. How did such a small country achieve so much? … Moser’s excitement at what he’s found, along with the desire to know more, lends a particular aura to this book … Richly illustrated, the writing is conversational yet erudite, threaded with autobiographical anecdotes -- Norma Clarke * Literary Review *In a luminous, splendidly illustrated melding of art history and memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, translator, and essayist Moser pays homage to 17th-century artists whose works he discovered when he first settled in the Netherlands 20 years ago ... He sets artists' lives in the context of violence and upheaval, as well as personal loss, poverty, grief, and longing ... A graceful meditation on art * Kirkus Reviews *The Upside-Down World sketches out the lives and work of preeminent figures, such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals, alongside those less well known … While many an art historian has delved into the private lives of artists for the purposes of adding colour to the criticism, Moser’s book is a treatise on ambition … asking what catalyses people to write (or make art), and to write (or make art) the way they do -- Oliver Basciano * ArtReview *The most agreeable of companions in his encompassing yet highly personal tour of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, Benjamin Moser delivers fresh insights that will delight the expert and the casual museum-goer alike, in prose as precise and intimate as a Vermeer - and as luminous -- Jim HoltI always dreamed of living in the rooms of my favorite paintings. Finally! A book that animates these rooms, their light, the people in them - that evokes their character and emotions and places them in the context of their culture. Profound and intensely alive, Benjamin Moser's writing describes them both as living beings and as works of art, and connects his own life as a writer to these deep insights into the meaning of art -- Laurie AndersonNo country may be read through its art as clearly as the Netherlands. Benjamin Moser's enchanting survey of the Dutch Masters offers a salutary reminder that the pantheon is never locked and that neglected artists may deserve a reappraisal. In all, he gives us a loving portrait of the country he decided to call home, and valuable lessons along the way about how to create and how to be -- Hugh Aldersey-WilliamsA delight. It is incredibly difficult to teach the act of looking and nearly impossible to describe how to find what one needs from a painting. Moser’s book is a beautifully gentle guide. Both wise and charismatic, it demonstrates and questions, rather than explains. It shows us how the Dutch Masters’ magic persists across time, shooting us right in the soul when we need it - and when we are willing to see its alchemy at work -- Christine CoulsonThe Upside-Down World reminds us that every artist is only a human and starts from obscurity … The book is a blend of immigration memoir and an artist’s reflection on finding his way to success in a creative pursuit * Houston Public Media *A deeply personal, lyrical and philosophical introduction to the Dutch masters. Ben Moser looks deeply and reads widely, with fascinating insights and revelations -- Jerry Brotton * Financial Times *Moser writes with insight and sympathy about his 18 painters and their pictures, many of which are handsomely reproduced in his pages * The Times *Moser considers individual lives, life in general and the fragility of all biographies. Unknowns make the knowns shine brighter… Moser relishes strange facts and is attuned to the charisma of his subjects… a meditation on belonging, how we strive to adopt a nation through its art, how we fall in love with a place, its past and foreignness… an excellent guide * Prospect *A personal and stirring guide to the great Dutch painters … The Upside-Down World is an excellent companion to the Dutch galleries: conversational and congenial, essayistic and elevating * Washington Post *In The Upside-Down World, Benjamin Moser confronts the world through the eyes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals and others. He is an exemplary museumgoer, the kind we should all aspire to be … Here, Moser interweaves personal memoir with observations he has gleaned from years of faithful looking at Dutch paintings * Wall Street Journal *Benjamin Moser's way of looking is sharp, original, penetrating, generous and nourished by knowledge and study. His book is an essential guide to the Dutch painters, but, more than that, it is an engaging conversation with a well-stocked mind -- Colm TóibínBenjamin Moser's fascinating study of Dutch art and artists is more than the sum of its extraordinary parts. Part memoir, part critical and historical analysis, the book also offers a superb commentary - one of the best I've ever read - on what it means to be displaced in a never entirely whole world, and what it means to see between the cracks. I learned so much reading this fine book, and so will you -- Hilton AlsA museum, Benjamin Moser writes, has an aura. It promises improvement, elevation. Walking through galleries of Dutch art was at once calming and exciting; it raised questions, stimulated curiosity, the quantity as well as the quality of the art astonishing him. How did such a small country achieve so much? … Moser’s excitement at what he’s found, along with the desire to know more, lends a particular aura to this book … Richly illustrated, the writing is conversational yet erudite, threaded with autobiographical anecdotes -- Norma Clarke * Literary Review *In a luminous, splendidly illustrated melding of art history and memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, translator, and essayist Moser pays homage to 17th-century artists whose works he discovered when he first settled in the Netherlands 20 years ago ... He sets artists' lives in the context of violence and upheaval, as well as personal loss, poverty, grief, and longing ... A graceful meditation on art * Kirkus Reviews *The Upside-Down World sketches out the lives and work of preeminent figures, such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals, alongside those less well known … While many an art historian has delved into the private lives of artists for the purposes of adding colour to the criticism, Moser’s book is a treatise on ambition … asking what catalyses people to write (or make art), and to write (or make art) the way they do -- Oliver Basciano * ArtReview *The most agreeable of companions in his encompassing yet highly personal tour of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, Benjamin Moser delivers fresh insights that will delight the expert and the casual museum-goer alike, in prose as precise and intimate as a Vermeer - and as luminous -- Jim HoltI always dreamed of living in the rooms of my favorite paintings. Finally! A book that animates these rooms, their light, the people in them - that evokes their character and emotions and places them in the context of their culture. Profound and intensely alive, Benjamin Moser's writing describes them both as living beings and as works of art, and connects his own life as a writer to these deep insights into the meaning of art -- Laurie AndersonNo country may be read through its art as clearly as the Netherlands. Benjamin Moser's enchanting survey of the Dutch Masters offers a salutary reminder that the pantheon is never locked and that neglected artists may deserve a reappraisal. In all, he gives us a loving portrait of the country he decided to call home, and valuable lessons along the way about how to create and how to be -- Hugh Aldersey-WilliamsA delight. It is incredibly difficult to teach the act of looking and nearly impossible to describe how to find what one needs from a painting. Moser’s book is a beautifully gentle guide. Both wise and charismatic, it demonstrates and questions, rather than explains. It shows us how the Dutch Masters’ magic persists across time, shooting us right in the soul when we need it - and when we are willing to see its alchemy at work -- Christine CoulsonThe Upside-Down World reminds us that every artist is only a human and starts from obscurity … The book is a blend of immigration memoir and an artist’s reflection on finding his way to success in a creative pursuit * Houston Public Media *
£999.99
MIT Press Ltd After Eating
Book SynopsisAn exploration of food, ingestion, and digestion in the emerging field of the metabolic arts.Food appears everywhere in the arts. But what happens after viewers carry food away in the intestinal networks activated by social practice art, the same way digestion turns food into a body? Exploring the emerging field of metabolic arts, After Eating claims digestion and metabolism as key cultural, creative, and political processes that demand attention. Taking an artist-centered approach to nutrition, Lindsay Kelley cultivates a neglected middle ground between the everyday and the scientific, using metabolism as a lens through which to read and write about art.Divided into two parts and full of playful chapter titles such as “Food Babies” and “Poop Circus,” After Eating investigates multiple facets of the sociocultural implications of body image and body process in body art from the 1970s to the present. By engaging the notion of “after” as an artistic homage or tribute, metabolism moves beyond the cell to transform into a method for responding to the most difficult cultural, philosophical, and political challenges of the contemporary moment. Metabolic reading rethinks feminist, queer, bioart, installation, and performance projects, providing artists, students, and teachers new pathways into art theory.
£34.20
Dover Publications Inc. Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Book Synopsis
£11.24
Princeton University Press Blue
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A miracle of poetry in the midst of academic rigidity." * Télérama *". . . a rich volume, intelligently illustrated. . . . With sure-footed scholarship, trenchant opinions, Michel Pastoureau goes beyond a perfunctory visit: he makes us realize the importance of this material and avoids the errors of a number of other historians." * Le Monde *". . . a delicious mix of erudition and lighthearted fun." * Livres *"Pastoureau's text moves us through one fascinating area of activity after another. . . . The jacket, cover and end-papers of this luscious book are appropriately blue; its double-columned text breathes easily in the space of its pages; it is so well sewn it opens flat at any place; and fascinating, aptly chosen color plates, not confined to the title color, will please even those eyes denied the good luck of being blue."---William Gass, Los Angeles Times Book Review"Blue is both prettily produced and whimsically enjoyable."---Julian Bell, Times Literary Supplement"Michel Pastoureau takes us into territory that could be made to feel impossibly dense and absurdly specialized. To his credit, the tour is brisk and challenging."---John Loughery, Washington Post Book World"A generous, gorgeous book full of nearly 100 historical and artistic plates, all illustrating the meaning and role of the color blue in Western history. . . . Pastoureau has created something rare: a coffee table book that is also a good read. And not just a good read, but a compelling read."---Brian Bouldrey, Chicago Tribune"Blue . . . is confident, stylish, well-turned out. . . . The book's sapphire glow will grace the most discriminating coffee tables."---Jane Gardam, Spectator"This beautifully illustrated book is well written and informative, and makes an important contribution to the social history of art." * Choice *"In this beguiling and beautiful mixture of art book and social history, the distinguished French scholar shows how the rarest of all colors became the commonest."---Emma Hagestadt and Boyd Tonkin, The Independent Magazine"The material history of a certain section of the spectrum, from the costly tones of the Virgin's cloak to uniforms, Picasso and jeans. History can make you blind, but some historians can make you see again."---James Davidson, Daily Telegraph"Taken together, the earlier volumes on blue (2001), black (2009), green (2013) and red (2017), plus the new book, [Yellow,] represent ‘an edifice’ that [Michel Pastoureau] has been working to build for half a century: a history of colours in (for the most part) Europe from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the 18th century and beyond. . . . [The books] amount to an ambitious project deserving not merely respect but even a touch of awe. There are very few comparable enterprises."---Kevin Jackson, Literary Review
£31.50
Princeton University Press Humanity
Book SynopsisTrade Review"The prominent Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has long used his fame and social media as a megaphone for his activism. It was because of his blogging and Twitter activity criticizing the government that he was detained by the Chinese police for nearly three months and had his passport taken away in 2011. And his Instagram posts of the last few years have brought increasing international attention to the refugee crisis, as has his documentary Human Flow, released last fall. But now Mr. Ai has returned to a more traditional form of expression: Humanity, a little blue book . . . that collects excerpts from Mr. Ai’s thoughts and aphorisms."---Robin Pogrebin, New York Times"Praise for Ai Weiwei's Weiwei-isms: "Here is a man who understands how to get messages to people. His expertise in artful dissemination is the 21st-century equivalent of Andy Warhol's brilliant populism.... [E]pigrammatic, pungent, uncompromising.""---Peter Aspden, Financial Times"A collection of impassioned quotations from Chinese artist and activist Ai that urge the developed world to assume a more charitable response to the global refugee crisis, the largest displacement of people since WWII. . . . This is not an analysis of the refugee crisis, but rather . . . field notes from the front lines. The result is a powerful and timely account of the refugee crisis that posits no easy solutions." * Publishers Weekly *"In his book Humanity, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, takes us on a meditation of sorts, from understanding through to action, via a series of quotations he has given in various magazines, podcasts, etc., around the world. . . . The quotes are presented and organized by artist and longtime collaborator Larry Warsh, who also writes the introduction, starting with the question 'What is our human obligation?' [Humanity offers a way ] to answer that question in light of current crises that are costing the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world. . . . Important reading."---Deborah Dundas, Toronto Star"Larry Warsh has done a great job in putting this collection together. It starts with an ending: 'My conclusion is we are one humanity. If anyone is being hurt, we are all being hurt. If anyone has joy, that‘s our joy.' It closes with a call to action: 'Indifference does not liberate us, but instead cuts us off from reality.' Make some space for these aphorisms in your focuses over the coming year, spread the word."---Stewart Rayment, interLib"In Humanity, Ai Weiwei tells us that because no artist can be self-contained, he feels that refugees are part of him and that he is part of them. He invites us to enter into a circuit of mutuality and empathy that involves a subject, an artist and an audience with consequences thatgo beyond the artistic situation."---Kosmas Tsokhas, Journal of Contemporary Asia
£10.99
Whitechapel Gallery The Cute
Book Synopsis
£15.26
Taylor & Francis Ltd Experiencing Translationality
Book SynopsisThis innovative book takes the concept of translation beyond its traditional boundaries, adding to the growing body of literature which challenges the idea of translation as a primarily linguistic transfer.To gain a fresh perspective on the work of translation in the complex processes of meaning-making across physical, social and cultural domains (conceptualized as translationality), Piotr Blumczynski revisits one of the earliest and most fundamental senses of translation: corporeal transfer. His study of translated religious officials and translated relics reframes our understanding of translation as a process creating a sense of connection with another time, place, object or person. He argues that a promise of translationality animates a broad spectrum of cultural, artistic and commercial endeavours: it is invoked, for example, in museum exhibitions, art galleries, celebrity endorsements, and the manufacturing of musical instruments. Translationality offers a way to reimagiTable of ContentsTable of contentsList of figuresAcknowledgements Introduction1. What does translation do? 2. Squaring the circle: episcopal translations3. Holy bones: translations of relics 4. From gift shops to the Custom Shop: translationality for sale 5. The experience of translationalityReferencesIndex
£35.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Francis Bacon
Book SynopsisIn this landmark text by one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, Gilles Deleuze takes the paintings of Francis Bacon as his object of his study. The book presents a deep engagement with Bacon''s work and the nature of art. Deleuze analyzes the distinctive innovations that came to mark Bacon''s style: the isolation of the figure, the violation and deformations of the flesh, the complex use of color, the method of chance, and the use of the triptych form. Here Deleuze creates a number of his well-known concepts, such as the ''body without organs'' and contrasts his own approach to painting with that of both the phenomenological and the art historical traditions. Deleuze links Bacon''s work to Cezanne''s notion of a ''logic'' of sensation and, investigating this logic, explores Bacon''s crucial relation to past painters such as Cezanne, Velasquez, and Soutine.Trade ReviewA lively and systematic study of Bacon's work. The book is clearly organised, helping to make complicated arguments easier to follow. * Modern Painters *A path-breaking work on the aesthetics of sensation, the philosophy of colour, on form, and on painting in general, Francis Bacon is one of the most important, if not the most crucial, of all of Deleuze's writings. * Tom Conley, Harvard University, USA *One of Deleuze’s most beautifully crafted studies, and an essential component of his aesthetic philosophy. * Southern Humanities Review *Art historians as well as scholars of 20th century intellectual history will find this a rich mine of original thought. * Library Journal *Long-awaited. This book is invaluable for an understanding of the trajectory of Deleuze’s own thought. Offers an entry point into Deleuze’s more explicitly theoretical work that simultaneously grounds and orients that theory in terms of a specific instance. * Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism *Table of ContentsTranslator's Preface, by Daniel W. Smith Preface to the French Edition, by Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin Author's Foreword Author's Preface to the English Edition 1. The Round Area, the Ring The round area and its analogues - Distinction between the Figure and the figurative - The fact - The question of "matters of fact" - The three elements of painting: structure, Figure, and contour - Role of the fields 2. Note on Figuration in Past Painting Painting, religion, and photography - On two misconceptions 3. Athleticism First movement: from the structure to the Figure - Isolation - Athleticism - Second movement: from the Figure to the structure - The body escapes from itself: abjection - Contraction, dissipation: washbasins, umbrellas, and mirrors 4. Body, Meat, and Spirit, Becoming-Animal Man and animal - The zone of indiscernibility - Flesh and bone: the meat descends from the bone - Pity - Head, face, and meat 5. Recapitulative Note: Bacon's Periods and Aspects From the scream to the smile: dissipation - Bacon's three successive periods - The coexistence of all the movements - The functions of the contour 6. Painting and Sensation Cezanne and sensation — The levels of sensation — Figuration and violence - The movement of translation, the stroll - The phenomenological unity of the senses: sensation and rhythm 7. Hysteria The body without organs: Artaud - Worringer's Gothic line - What the "difference of level" in sensation means - Vibration - Hysteria and presence - Bacon's doubt — Hysteria, painting, and the eye 8. Painting Forces Rendering the invisible: the problem of painting - Deformation: neither transformation nor decomposition - The scream - Bacon's love of life - Enumeration of forces 9. Couples and Triptychs Coupled Figures — The battle and the coupling of sensation - Resonance - Rhythmic Figures - Amplitude and the three rhythms - Two types of "matters of fact" 10. Note: What Is a Triptych? The attendant - The active and the passive - The fall: the active reality of the difference in level - Light, union and separation 11. The Painting before Painting .. . Cezanne and the fight against the cliche - Bacon and photographs - Bacon and probabilities - Theory of chance: accidental marks - The visual and the manual - The status of the figurative 12. The Diagram The diagram in Bacon (traits and color-patches) - Its manual character - Painting and the experience of catastrophe - Abstract painting, code, and optical space - Action Painting, diagram, and manual space - What Bacon dislikes about both these ways 13. Analogy Cezanne: the motif as diagram - The analogical and the digital - Painting and analogy - The paradoxical status of abstract painting - The analogical language of Cezanne and of Bacon: plane, color, and mass - Modulation - Resemblance recovered 14. Every Painter Recapitulates the History of Painting in His or Her Own Way .. . Egypt and haptic presentation - Essence and accident - Organic representation and the tactileoptical world - Byzantine art: a pure optical world? - Gothic art and the manual - Light and color, the optic and the haptic 15. Bacon's Path The haptic world and its avatars - Colorism - A new modulation - From Van Gogh and Gauguin to Bacon - The two aspects of color: bright tone and broken tone, field and Figure, shores and flows .. . 16. Note on Color Color and the three elements of painting - Color-structure: the fields and their divisions - The role of black Color-force: Figures, flows, and broken tones Heads and shadows - Color-contour - Painting and taste: good and bad taste 17. The Eye and the Hand Digital, tactile, manual, and haptic - The practice of the diagram - On "completely different" relations - Michelangelo: the pictorial fact Index of Paintings Notes Index
£999.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Design Thinking
Book SynopsisDesign thinking is the core creative process for any designer; this book explores and explains this apparently mysterious design ability. This new edition is a completely revised, updated and extended version of a classic text.Focusing on what designers actually do when they are designing, the book is structured around a series of in-depth case studies of the work of outstanding and expert designers, interwoven and developed with commentary and comparison. The coverage reflects the breadth of design from architecture to engineering, consumer products to communications, and from individual designing to teamwork and collaborative designing. The scale of designing ranges from Formula One racing cars to city commuting cars, locomotives to bicycles, sewing machines to litter bins and lemon squeezers. The book is based on evidence from observation and investigation of design practice, providing insights into and understanding of design thinking, and the development of design ability from novTrade ReviewI came across the first edition of this book and adopted it immediately for my instructional design course…The second edition is even richer with engaging storytelling and case studies. A must-read for future designers-to-be. * Minjuan Wang, Professor and Chair of Learning Design and Technology, San Diego State University, USA *This is the classic book on how designers think and work. While based on solid research, it is also a compelling read: the interviews, case studies and stories from design practice are lively and very accessible. There still is no better explanation. * Kees Dorst, Professor of Transdisciplinary Innovation, University of Technology Sydney, Australia *Are you looking for a book that can help you advance your ability to be a reflective designer? This straightforward book takes on the complex topic of design thinking and gives you gems to reflect on and incorporate into your own design practice. * Cynthia Atman, Professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering and Director of CELT, University of Washington, USA *Nigel Cross has been at the forefront of research in design thinking for several decades. This book elegantly encapsulates his exceptional knowledge of just what it is that makes designing such a unique and valuable activity. * Peter Lloyd, Professor of Integrated Design Methodology, TU Delft, the Netherlands *This book highlights the core characteristics of design thinking and its processes through empirical case studies on how designers generate creative designs. Nigel Cross, a pioneer in design research and methodology, analyzes design thinking with insights based on his long-standing experience, which can be of great help to design researchers, educators and students. * Kun-Pyo Lee, Dean of the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University *Design thinking has radically changed the world. Long before the concept got traction in many disciplines beyond design, Nigel already engaged deeply with the cognitive processes of designers and architects. This book is a much needed refresher on the understanding of these fascinating phenomena. As a design professor with a background in psychology, I am hugely inspired by this book. * Cees de Bont, Dean of the School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK *Table of ContentsIllustration Credits Preface Acknowledgements Introduction The Design of this Book 1. Design Ability Studying Design Ability Asking Designers About What They Do Deconstructing What Designers Do Watching What Designers Do Thinking About What Designers Do Understanding What Designers Do 2. Designing to Win Background: Formula One Designing Radical Innovation Self-adjusting Suspension Pit Stops Designing from First Principles Steering Column Analogical Thinking Integrated Design City Car Modelling Learning from Failure Design Process and Working Methods 3. Designing to Please Background: The Art of Technical Design Looking for Improvement Sewing Machine Constructive Thinking Going Beyond the Brief Locomotive Fixation Learning from Failure Design Process and Working Methods 4. How Designers Think Motivation and Attitude Other Outstanding Designers Common Features Strategic Thinking Creative Thinking Problem Framing Co-evolution 5. Designing to Use The Experiment Design in Action Systems View First Principles Designing for Clients and Users Discussion: Design strategy 6. Designing Together Teamwork in Design Roles and Relationships Planning and Changing Activities Gathering and Sharing Information Generating and Adopting Concepts Plastic Tray Persuasion Avoiding and Resolving Conflicts Discussion: Design Co-operation 7. How Designers Work Creative Working Team Working Team Leadership Design Process Structure Versus Spontaneity Collaborative Designing Creative Designing The Creative Bridge 8. Design Expertise Experts and Novices From Novice to Expert Development of Expertise Developing Design Thinking Expertise in Teamwork Design Intelligence The Designing Brain Glossary References Index
£52.25
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC After Modernist Painting
Book SynopsisThis book presents both a historical survey and a critical re-evaluation of the contested and contingent nature of the medium of painting over the last 60 years. Offering a critical account of painting specifically, rather than art more generally, After Modernist Painting provides a timely exploration of what has remained a persistent and protean medium.Taking Clement Greenberg''s Modernist Painting as its starting point, the book focuses on certain developments, including the relationship of painting to Conceptual Art and Minimalism, the pronouncement of painting's alleged death, its response to Installation Art''s foregrounding of site, how painting both images and imagines the digital and how it continues to embody a particular set of ideas and responses to the world.Revised and expanded to reflect developments in the field since the first edition was published in 2013, After Modernist Painting addresses a range of global artists and painting practices from the
£23.74