Search results for ""Author Luke Syson""

The brightly colored tin-enameled earthenware called maiolica was among the major accomplishments of decorative arts in 16th-century Italy. This in-depth look at the history of maiolica, told through 140 exemplary pieces from the world-class collection at the Metropolitan Museum, offers a new perspective on a major aspect of Italian Renaissance art. Most of the works have never been published and all are newly photographed. The ceramics are featured alongside detailed descriptions of production techniques and a consideration of the social and cultural context, making this an invaluable resource for scholars and collectors. The imaginatively decorated works include an eight-figure group of the Lamentation, the largest and most ambitious piece of sculpture produced in a Renaissance maiolica workshop; pharmacy jars; bella donna plates; and more.Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art (08/29/16–02/26/17)

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What is a family? And how is family experienced? These questions, explored through artists’ eyes, are at the heart of the exhibition, Real Families: Stories of Change, a collaboration between the Fitzwilliam Museum and the University of Cambridge Centre for Family Research. The book provides a catalogue of the exhibition in four sections, containing twelve illuminating essays that discuss the concept of the family.Real Families: Stories of Change focuses on art produced in the past 50 years, a period of significant change in how families are created and structured, with historical works woven into the exhibition to examine what is genuinely new, and what has remained the same, about the family. The catalogue includes reproductions of paintings, photography and sculpture.In the first section, ‘What is a Family?’, artists portray new forms of family, including families formed by assisted reproduction and families with LGBTQ+ parents, as well as families affected by divorce, adoption and infertility. The works prompt viewers to consider stereotyped beliefs about what makes a family and society’s prejudice against childlessness.Second, ‘Family Transitions’ starts with artists’ representations of motherhood, followed by an examination of the positive role that fathers play. Works on siblings speak to the dynamic and intense relationships that exist between siblings, and those on grandparents and grandchildren highlight the benefit of having each other in their lives. Artists also convey their complex feelings about their ageing parents.‘Family Dynamics’ explores positive and negative relationships between couples, parents and children, and extended family, with works that foreground affection and rejection, comfort and conflict, enmeshment, estrangement and not fitting in. The works also examine the wider social, cultural and political influences on family relationships. Finally, ‘Family Legacies’ highlights the importance to many people of a sense of connection and belonging. This section explores the transmission of family from one generation to the next through genetic inheritance, social and cultural practices, language and objects, which can forge emotional connections and give rise to family memories.

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Explores how artists from the European Renaissance to the global present have used sculpture and color to evoke the presence of the living body Since the earliest myths of the sculptor Pygmalion bringing a statue to life through desire, artists have explored the boundaries between sculpture and the physical materiality of the body. This groundbreaking volume examines key sculptural works from 13th-century Europe to the global present, revealing new insights into the strategies artists deploy to blur the distinction between art and life. Sculpture, which has historically taken the human figure as its subject, is presented here in myriad manifestations created by artists ranging from Donatello and Degas to Picasso, Kiki Smith, and Jeff Koons. Featuring works created in traditional media such as wood and marble as well as the unexpected such as wax, metal, and blood, Like Life presents sculpture both conventional and shocking, including effigies, dolls, mannequins, automata, waxworks, and anatomical models. Containing texts by art and cultural historians as well as interviews with contemporary artists, this is a provocative exploration of three-dimensional representations of the human body.Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Met Breuer (03/21/18–07/22/18)

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An exciting, unexpected, and beautiful encounter with one collector’s deeply personal assemblage of works. Since the 1980s, Mickey Cartin has assembled a remarkable collection of objects and art—Renaissance and modernist paintings, master prints, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, and more. Exploring the theory behind collecting art and how Cartin’s approach to collecting diverges from common practices, this publication offers a unique perspective on an intimate practice. Unconcerned with hewing to specific categories, time periods, or media, Cartin’s collection—which includes the likes of Josef Albers, Sol Lewitt, and Forrest Bess—creates active combinations and disrupts homogeneity, privileging the drive of curiosity. A documentation of the celebrated exhibition Seen in the Mirror: Things from the Cartin Collection at David Zwirner, New York, in 202, this catalogue includes additional artworks from Cartin’s trove along with views of his home, conveying how he lives with these various types of work. Cartin selected each work in the exhibition and catalogue as a reflection of his deep connections with the many artists represented therein. The conversation between Cartin and David Leiber illuminates the tensions between study and instinct, reading versus experiencing, as well as the influences and figures that inform his personal, curatorial practice. With an introduction by the curator of the Cartin Collection, Steven Holmes, and a text from the art historian Luke Syson, this inspiring volume is a spirited investigation of a very different method of and approach to collecting.

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