The young British-Kenyan painter Michael Armitage (born 1984 in Nairobi, Kenya) has quickly become one of the most exciting voices in contemporary painting. In his large-format, nuanced oil paintings, he combines East African and European motifs and painting traditions. He draws inspiration from political events, pop culture, folklore and personal memories, weaving these into mythically charged and dreamlike images. With ?Paradise Edict? Michael Armitage, who will be awarded the renowned Ruth Baumgarte Art Award in the fall, celebrates his first major presentation in a museum setting and his first show in Germany.0Texts by: Don Handa, Imraan Coovadia, Elsbeth Court, Anna Schneider, Dimona Stöckle00Exhibition: Haus der Kunst, München, Germany (04.09.2020 - 14.02.2021).
An unrivaled survey of contemporary art from the UK Taking place every five years, the British Art Showis the largest touring exhibition of contemporary art in the UK. This catalog features artworks from its ninth edition, by artists including Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Simeon Barclay, Heather Phillipson and Alberta Whittle.
Michael Armitage: The Promised Land will be the artist's first exhibition in Australia, presenting recent work with a suite of new paintings that reflect on the recent Kenyan elections and the political rallies and dissidence that followed. Sumptuous and explicit in their representation of the human body, Armitage's paintings reconsider cultural traditions and stereotypes, spinning the exoticising gaze of Western art history into a different direction.
Katharine Susannah Prichard was born in 1883 to Australian parents then living in Fiji, but she grew up in Tasmania, lived for a while in both Melbourne and London before finally settling in Western Australia. She was one of the co-founders of the Communist Party of Australia in 1921, and her status as a communist and a female writer led to her being frequently under surveillance and harassment by the Australian police and other government authorities. She wrote The Black Opal in 1921, and the novel focuses on the very close-knit opal-mining community living and working on Fallen Star Ridge, a fictitious location set in New South Wales, Australia. Life is hard for the miners as their fortunes rise and fall with the amounts and quality of black opal they can uncover. Black opal is a beautiful mineral with fiery gleams of color, much valued for jewelry. Finding productive seams of such opal is a matter of both hard work and good luck. The novel is a well-drawn study of the relationships of the people living on the Ridge, and the two main characters are portrayed with clarity: Michael Brady, an older man much respected by the other miners for this knowledge and ethical approach, and Sophie Rouminof, a beautiful teenage girl who is the darling of the camp but who abruptly runs away to America after being disappointed in love. Despite the difficulties the individual miners face, there is a community spirit and an agreement on basic values and principles of behavior at the Ridge. But this community of shared endeavor is eventually jeopardized by the influence of outsiders, in particular an American who wishes to buy up the individual mines, operate them under a company structure, and simply pay the miners a salary. This conflict between capitalism and honest manual labour becomes one of the most important themes of the work. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
In a stunningly original look at the American Declaration of Independence, David Armitage reveals the document in a new light: through the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow. Armitage examines the Declaration as a political, legal, and intellectual document, and is the first to treat it entirely within a broad international framework. He shows how the Declaration arose within a global moment in the late eighteenth century similar to our own. He uses over one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. He discusses why the framers’ language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted in the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements—from Haiti to Vietnam, and from Venezuela to Rhodesia. Included is the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. An eye-opening list of declarations of independence since 1776 is compiled here for the first time. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.
This timely publication, accompanying a brand new survey exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, presents key works by some of the most exciting practitioners in current figurative painting.0After a long period dominated by abstraction and conceptual approaches, painting saw a revival of figuration in the 1990s by artists whose work updated portraiture and history painting but remained rooted in the conventions of realism. However a new generation, coming to prominence in the new millennium, are distinguished by a radically different approach to the figure, in which bodies are fragmented, morphed, merged and remade but never completely cohesive.0'Radical Figures' highlights the renewed interest in radical modes of figuration during the past two decades, and considers the vast range of imagery, subjects and stories that have informed this transition: from the re-evaluation of early pioneers such as James Ensor and Max Beckman, and postwar painters such as Maria Lassnig and Philip Guston; to raunchy comics; to the ubiquity of photography on social media.0Fully illustrated in colour, this innovative appraisal will explore the breadth and range of painterly techniques used, such as loose gestural brushwork suggesting polymorphous forms and gender fluid bodies, and thick impasto evoking flesh, matter and objecthood. Including newly commissioned texts on and by each artist, this sumptuous catalogue will showcase the best in figurative painting today.00Exhibition: Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (06.02.-10.05.2020).
History, Romance, & Destiny The Third Novel in the Trilogy Dr. John Burel's great-grandson, John Harrison, was a toddler when his family pioneered from South Carolina to Mississippi. As a youngster, he proudly helped his family bellwether the Civil War and rebirth of the New South. By the early 1900s, he was a prosperous farmer and landowner. Time passed quickly, and too soon he was an old man. Join Grandpa and feel the biting north wind as he shuffled onto the front porch, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, "It's hog-killing day!" Watch the bustling families rush toward the big house to slaughter enough hogs to carry them through the winter. Summer finally arrived and brought old-time gospel singing and preaching to their country church on the hill. Mama rose early on Sunday morning and filled her basket with fried chicken, biscuits, baked sweet potatoes, and fried apple pies. After preaching there was going to be another dinner-on-the-ground. Everyone was excited. Without a doubt, those were the good years. But all that changed. Walk down the dismal road with the Burrell family as they helplessly watched the reckless Roaring Twenties and Great Depression bring a flourishing economy and their comfortable lifestyle to a grinding halt. Feel Grandpa's pain and humiliation when the bank called in his Deed-of-Trust, and he was forced to sell his last 640-acre farm and home for a few dollars. Sit for awhile and listen to his grandson, Cecil Allen Burrell, The Man Himself, as his thought-provoking stories detail how they all survived those disastrous years. With their eyes on the future, John Harrison's children and grandchildren navigated their way back into prosperity and eventually reclaimed their part of the American dream & the same dream brought to America by their Great3-Grandfather, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Elzear Burel in 1778.
The author asserts that the privatisation of South Australia's electricity supply has been a disaster for the state, with households and small businesses facing price hikes of around 25%, and the threat of power blackouts. How did this mess come about?
Harvey Quaytman’s paintings are distinct for their inventive, whimsical exploration of shape, meticulous attention to surface texture, and experimental application of color. While his works display a rigorous commitment to formalism, they are simultaneously invested with rich undertones of sensuality, decorativeness, and humor—expressed, too, in his playful poetic titles, such as A Street Called Straight and Kufikind. Demonstrating the arc of Quaytman’s oeuvre, from his radically curvilinear canvases of the late 1960s and 1970s, to his exploration of serialized geometric abstraction in the 1980s, and finally to his serene cruciform canvases of the 1990s, this retrospective exhibition and accompanying illustrated catalogue is a timely reconsideration of Quaytman’s influential work, placing him and his work more prominently in the trajectory of American modern art. With contributions by Suzanne Hudson and John Yau, as well reflections by R. H. Quaytman, an artist and the daughter of Harvey Quaytman, on her father’s work and life. Published in association with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Exhibition dates: October 17, 2018–January 27, 2019, Berkeley Museum of Art Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).
This deluxe hardcover survey, featuring profiles of 50 artists on the rise, is the definitive guide to contemporary African art. With African artists attracting sizable audience numbers to museums, setting sky-high auction records, and appearing in mainstream press, it has become impossible to overlook the cultural significance of contemporary African art today. Author and curator Osei Bonsu's engaging profiles of leading African artists—along with gorgeous full-color reproductions of their work—introduce readers to a generation of movers and shakers whose innovative artwork reflects on Africa as both an idea and an experience. Using diverse forms, languages, and expressions to articulate what it means to be a part of the world, these artists generate alternate histories and imaginative futures—work that is both personal and political, universal and incredibly specific. Their work helps define contemporary African art as a vast artistic and cultural movement. STELLAR ROSTER OF ARTISTS: Amoako Boafo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Bronwyn Katz—from household names to up-and-coming artists, African Art Now features some of the most exciting artists working today. IMPORTANT AND TIMELY: Over the past two decades, contemporary African art has become part of the global mainstream, inspiring countless exhibitions, fairs, and auctions around the world. And yet, African art remains overlooked as an area of dedicated study due to continued academic and cultural bias. This book shines a spotlight on the artists whose wide-ranging accomplishments represent the shifting dynamics and boundless possibilities of African art today. Perfect for: Artists, art collectors, art lovers, and museumgoers Educators and students Anyone interested in learning about contemporary African art
