"This exhibition catalogue brings together the work of celebrated American artists Clyfford Still (1904--1980) and Mark Bradford (born 1961). Bradford, who has long been fascinated by Still's use of black as a signature component of his abstract imagery, has chosen to read Still's relationship with the color as an open-minded invitation to dialogue. Including reproductions of twenty-five paintings by Still and a group of works Bradford created specifically for the exhibition, ... [t]aken together, the exhibition and book provide the opportunity to reconsider Still's paintings and the historical moment that brought about both Abstract Expressionism and the Civil Rights movement in the company of one of today's most admired artists."--Albright-Knox Art Gallery website.
The first publication dedicated exclusively to Mark Rothko’s art during the critical formative period of the 1940s. Examining the development and artistic exploration of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, this unprecedented volume presents the works of American artist Mark Rothko from the 1940s, a time when his most essential development as a painter occurred, dramatically and in a very compact space of time. During this period, Rothko moved from expressive figurative and surrealist canvases to more abstract multiform subjects and finally to his signature abstractions—luminous rectangles of color suspended in space. Richly illustrated with works by Rothko and his contemporaries, introduction by Todd Herman and essays by prominent Rothko scholars, this important new book deepens our understanding of Rothko’s art during this vital period, and that of the mature works that emerged from it.
The classic Photofile series brings together the best work of the world's greatest photographers in an attractive format and at a reasonable price. Handsome and collectible, the books each contain reproductions in color and/or duotone, plus a critical introduction and a bibliography. Paris in the early 1920s saw the growth of a new art form called surrealism. Both a formal movement and a spiritual orientation, surrealism embraced ethics and politics as well as the arts. Surrealists sought to create a medium that liberated the subconscious mind, and many artists and photographers captured this revolution through photographic images. This new survey includes works by Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, René Magritte, Meret Oppenheim, and more.
Artists have long been stimulated and motivated by the work of those who came before them—sometimes, centuries before them. Interviews with 120 international contemporary artists discussing works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection that spark their imagination shed new light on art-making, museums, and the creative process. Images of works from The Met collection appear alongside images of the contemporary artists' work, allowing readers to discover a rich web of visual connections that spans cultures and millennia.
"The fact that most modern and contemporary art is produced with the idea of it ending up in a museum seems so natural to us that we can hardly think about the relationship between museums and artists as anything other than a kind of productive symbiosis. We tend to think that artists create, and museums as a matter of course preserve what is created. But in fact modern museums are, above all, filled with art produced against the museum. The Irascibles: Painters Against the Museum (New York, 1950) examines one of the most significant episodes in this historical dialectic between the museum and artists, through the lens of the now iconic Nina Leen photograph published by Life magazine on January 15, 1951: that of the clash between some of the painters of the New York School and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was, according to the artists, hostile to "advanced art." The Irascibles were William Baziotes, James Brooks, Fritz Bultman, Willem de Kooning, Jimmy Ernst, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Weldon Kees, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Theodoros Stamos, Hedda Sterne, Clyfford Still, and Bradley Walker Tomlin, although Bultman, Hofmann, and Kees were unable to attend the shoot. A quick glance at the history of modern art--with its succesion of salonniers and rejects--could lead us to think of this photo as a mere journalistic anecdote. But it is in fact a single frame in a much larger sequence: that of the institutional workings of modern art since the historical avant-gardes, caught in flagrante in one of the most compelling moments of those confrontations with the status quo. The Irascibles knew precisely what they were defending--the new--and they were aware that their demands would end up affecting the perception of the art of their time, and thus of the art that followed. And if they do indeed continue to affect our perception, it is--in what only appears to be a paradox--precisely because of the indisputable presence of their works in the very museum that once rejected them."--
During the 1960s & 1970s, Amsterdam was a nexus of intense art activities, drawing artists from all over the world. 'In & Out Of Amsterdam' presents more than 120 works - including works on paper, installations, photographs & films - by artists who were part of this remarkable creative culture.
This project presents a unique collaboration between photographer Richard Misrach and composer and performer Guillermo Galindo. Misrach has been photographing the 2,000-mile border between the US and Mexico since 2004, with increased focus since 2009--the latest installation in his ongoing series Desert Cantos, a multifaceted approach to the study of place and man's complex relationship to it. Misrach and Galindo have been working together to create pieces that both document and transform the artifacts of migration. Using water bottles, clothing, backpacks, Border Patrol drag tires, spent shotgun shells, ladders and sections of the border wall itself, most of which were collected by Misrach, Galindo fashions instruments to be performed as unique sound-generating devices. He also imagines graphic musical scores, many of which also use Misrach's photographs as points of departure. A unique melding of the artist as documentarian and interpreter, the book includes several suites of photographs drawn from a number of distinct series or Cantos, some made with a large-format camera as well as an iPhone. The book contains a compilation of two dozen sculpture-instruments, graphic scores, instrument designs and links to videos of performances by Galindo.
