The first book to explore two of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art side by side, Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons. In the first half of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp redefined what we consider art and what it means to be an artist. Many of his ideas return, transformed, in the work of Jeff Koons, born when Duchamp was 68 years old and whose own career lit up the art world of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This is the first book to explore the affinities between these two highly influential artists, whose creative universes similarly question the function of objects and the allure of commodities. International art historians, writers, and curators contribute their expertise on topics such as each artist's persona, as well as reflecting on the influence of technology and sexuality on their work. Exhibition: Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico (19.05.-29.09.2019).
Edited by curator Masimilliano Gioni, this book focuses in particular on Koons' art as seen in relation to contemporary American culture. With his aesthetics of plenitude and his pop-up dreams of social mobility and acceptance, throughout his career Koons has composed a "fantasy America [...] custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions" -to use Warhol's description of his own interpretation of American culture. Through the inclusion of source materials, personal recollections and biographical narratives, the book reads each of Koons' celebrated series through the prism of his biography and the ways in which his individual history intersects with that of his country and culture. Ranging from his upbringing in rural Pennsylvania to his fascination for popular culture and vernacular art, the publication composes an unconventional view of Jeff Koons and his work, retracing the personal influences and cultural histories that have shaped Koons's unique formal vocabulary. Published to accompany the major exhibition in Doha in March 2021, the catalogue features an interview with Jeff Koons by the curator, and essays by the well-known art critic Dodie Kazanjian and the Qatari-American writer and artist Sophia Al Maria.
The first book to explore two of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art side by side, Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons In the first half of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp redefined what we consider art and what it means to be an artist. Many of his ideas return, transformed, in the work of Jeff Koons, born when Duchamp was 68 years old and whose own career lit up the art world of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This is the first book to explore the affinities between these two highly influential artists, whose creative universes similarly question the function of objects and the allure of commodities. International art historians, writers, and curators contribute their expertise on topics such as each artist’s persona, as well as reflecting on the influence of technology and sexuality on their work. The publication of this intriguing book coincides with an exhibition at the Museo Jumex in Mexico City, opening in May 2019. This book is a copublication with Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo.
This innovative volume is the first to address the conservation of contemporary art incorporating biological materials such as plants, foods, bodily fluids, or genetically engineered organisms. Eggshells, flowers, onion peels, sponge cake, dried bread, breast milk, bacteria, living organisms—these are just a few of the biological materials that contemporary artists are using to make art. But how can works made from such perishable ingredients be preserved? And what logistical, ethical, and conceptual dilemmas might be posed by doing so? Because they are prone to rapid decay, even complete disappearance, biological materials used in art pose a range of unique conservation challenges. This groundbreaking book probes the issues associated with displaying, collecting, and preserving these unique works of art. The twenty-four papers from the conference present a range of case studies, prominently featuring artists’ perspectives, as well as conceptual discussions, thereby affording a comprehensive and richly detailed overview of current thinking and practices on this topic. Living Matter is the first publication to explore broadly the role of biological materials in the creative process and present a variety of possible approaches to their preservation. The free online edition of this open-access publication is available at www.getty.edu/publications/living-matter/ and includes videos and zoomable illustrations. Also available are free PDF, EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book.
The complex nature of industrial design, which combines functional and aesthetic elements, allows different modes of protection: cumulative, separate or partially overlapping regimes are applicable according to different legal systems. The legal framework is rapidly changing, especially in Europe where the principle of cumulation of a special sui generis regime for protecting industrial design with copyright rules has been established. In the last decade, national courts of some Member States conferred to the “cumulative regime” a peculiar meaning, other courts enforced design rights in line with the interpretation given by the Court of Justice of the EU. The copyright/design interface is presented here to a wider, non-specialist audience, taking as a starting point the notion of industrial design derived from design studies, on the border between art and science.
Marcel Duchamp's stature in the history of art has grown steadily since the 1950s, as several artistic movements have embraced him as their founding father. But although his influence is comparable only to Picasso's, Duchamp continues to be relatively unknown outside his narrow circle of followers. This book seeks to explain his oeuvre, which has been shrouded with mystery. Duchamp's two great preoccupations were the nature of scientific truth and a feeling for love with its natural limit, death. His works all speak of eroticism in a way that pushes the socially acceptable to its outer limits. Juan Antonio Ramirez addresses such questions as the meaning of the artist's ground-breaking ready-mades and his famous installation Etant donnés; his passionate essay reproduces all of Duchamp's important works, in addition to numerous previously unpublished visual sources. Duchamp: Love and Death, even is a seminal monograph for understanding this crucial figure of modern art.
A lively introduction to the rich and diverse history of contemporary art over the past 60 years—from Modernism and minimalism to artists like Andy Warhol and Marina Abramović. Accessible and with lavish illustrations, this is the perfect gift for art history fans and anyone looking for a new, more inclusive perspective on ‘the old boys’ club.’ Encountering a work of contemporary art, a viewer might ask, "What does it mean?" "Is it really art?" and "Why does it cost so much?" These are not the questions that E. H. Gombrich set out to answer in his magisterial The Story of Art. Contemporary art seems totally unlike what came before it, departing from the road map supplied by Raphael, Dürer, Rembrandt, and other European masters. In The Story of Contemporary Art, Tony Godfrey picks up where Gombrich left off, offering a lively introduction to contemporary art that stretches from Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes to Marina Abramović’s performance art to today’s biennale circuit and million-dollar auctions. Godfrey, a curator and writer on contemporary art, chronicles important developments in pop art, minimalism, conceptualism, installation art, performance art, and beyond.
A Jeff Koons overview thematizing "shine" as aesthetic substance and motif across his five-decade career This volume is published for Jeff Koons' (born 1955) largest ever exhibition in Italy, developed in close dialogue with the artist, and presenting some of the most celebrated works of this master who, from the mid-1970s until the present day, has forged a reputation as one of the most important figures of the global contemporary art scene. Responsible for countless works that have entered the collective imagination, Koons regards "shine" as a key feature of his artwork--from the postmodern reinvention of the readymade to works in perfectly polished metal that resemble inflatable toys. Indeed, "shine" is far more than an ornament: it is the very substance of these works, as this reflective property brings together appearance and essence. Shinegathers paintings and sculptures on loan from international collections and museums in order to explore the concept of "shine," calling into question our relationship with daily reality and with the very concept of a work of art.
Hailed by Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker as “the most original, controversial, and expensive American artist of the past three and a half decades,” Jeff Koons has come to reign as a master of the market, a wry puppeteer with a “formidable aesthetic intelligence.” His elaborate, exquisitely produced sculptures draw from a contemporary lexicon of consumerism—often featuring large-scale reproductions of toys, household items, or luxury goods—while simultaneously holding up a mirror to the very culture from which they are extracted. These references to popular media are evidenced not merely in his choice of subject matter but also in his visual techniques: his sculptures frequently comprise smooth, mirrored surfaces, and his paintings employ bright and saturated colors. Jeff Koons: Gazing Ball—the first catalogue on the artist’s work to be published by David Zwirner—was produced on the occasion of the major 2013 exhibition at the gallery in New York, which marked the world debut of his Gazing Ball series, a brand new body of work that occupies an important place in the trajectory of his practice. Conceptually derived from the mirrored ornaments encountered on many suburban lawns, including those of Koons’s childhood hometown in rural Pennsylvania, every sculpture is anchored by a blue “gazing ball” of hand-blown glass. These are situated atop large, white-plaster sculptures that have been alternately modeled after iconic works from the Greco-Roman era, including the Farnese Hercules and the Esquiline Venus, or after such quotidian objects from the contemporary residential landscape as a rustic mailbox, a birdbath, and an inflatable garden snowman. Created in close collaboration with Koons, this elegant publication echoes the classic design of a 1970 Picasso catalogue that the artist admires. Inside, vivid color plates of the sculptures in situ capture the stark contrast between the pristine whiteness of the plaster and the highly reflective spheres. In their perfect contours and smooth, glistening surfaces, the gazing balls implicate audience as well as context—mirroring both and offering playful yet powerful meditations on the dialogue between gaze and reflection. “While all of the sculptures are grounded in their own distinct narratives, derived from Art History and suburban towns,” writes Francesco Bonami in his catalogue essay, “the seemingly fragile and delicate gazing ball establishes that sense of uncertain equilibrium that exists between history and fantasy, magic and materiality, mass culture and exclusive beauty.”
Edited by Leah Dickerman. Essays by Brigid Doherty, Sabine T. Kriebel, Dorothea Dietrich, Michael R. Taylor, Janine Mileaf and Matthew S. Witkovsky. Foreword by Earl A. Powell III.
