Through a series of essays by leading critics and curators, this illustrated book demonstrates how the language of abstract painting remains urgent, relevant and critical, tracing its influences on contemporary artists working in Britain, America, France, and Germany.
This volume examines the work of more than 100 female artists with nearly 300 works in the fields of painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance art, and other experimental media. A series of thematic essays, arranged by country, address the cultural and political contexts in which these radical artists worked, while other essays address key issues such as feminism, art history, and the political body. Published in association with the Hammer Museum. The exhibition took place from Sep 15, 2017-Dec 31, 2017, in the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
"With a rigorous approach and self-imposed limitations to both scale and composition, Tomma Abts (b. 1967) has reinvigorated painterly abstraction and its relevance within contemporary art. Using a fixed canvas size and a vertical format, Abts deploys basic formal elements such as arcs, circles, planes, and stripes to create powerful works that are at once subtle and eccentric. This extraordinary book, designed in collaboration with the artist herself, is a substantial and deeply insightful treatment of her career to date and features sixty works made over the past decade. Essays not only contextualize Abts's work within an art-historical framework of methods, process, and style, but also examine her paintings' philosophical and psychological dimensions and their embodiment of a creative process that transcends the specifics of any particular work. The beautifully designed and illustrated exhibition catalogue examines both the art-historical framework of Tomma Abts's painting as well as its deep philosophical and psychological dimensions. James Rondeau is president and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Lizzie Carey-Thomas is head of programs at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Kate Nesin is an independent art historian. Juliane Rebentisch is a professor of philosophy and aesthetics at the Offenbach University of Art and Design in Berlin"--
One of the new forms of prose fiction that emerged in the eighteenth century was the first-person narrative told by things such as coins, coaches, clothes, animals, or insects. This is an ambitious new account of the context in which these "it narratives" became so popular. What does it mean when property declares independence of its owners and begins to move and speak? Jonathan Lamb addresses this and many other questions as he advances a new interpretation of these odd tales, from Defoe, Pope, Swift, Gay, and Sterne, to advertisements, still life paintings, and South Seas journals. Lamb emphasizes the subversive and even nonsensical quality of what things say; their interests are so radically different from ours that we either destroy or worship them. Existing outside systems of exchange and the priorities of civil society, things in fact advertise the dissident obscurity common to slave narratives all the way from Aesop and Phaedrus to Frederick Douglass and Primo Levi, a way of meaning only what is said, never saying what is meant. This is what Defoe's Roxana calls "the Sense of Things," and it is found in sounds, substances, and images rather than conventional signs. This major work illuminates not only "it narratives," but also eighteenth-century literature, the rise of the novel, and the genealogy of the slave narrative.
What are the relationships between the photographic image, painting and mediation? This extended essay explores participatory relationships relating to the photographic, painting and our mediation with these images. Since the year 2000 to 2017, the exponential growth in mobile devices has enabled a greater connectivity to the Inter-web, enabling the uploading of individual daily experiences, via social networks, instantaneously sharing digitised images with families, friends and strangers around the world. Although some research explores the impact of social networks on the psychology of users, contributions have generally been beneficial and positive, particularly with social activist movements leading to greater democracy. However, as with all new technologies, we must be cautious about how our psychology is affected and the possible detrimental effects these platforms might have on our identity and social interactions, as well as controlling types of information. We must be vigilant and cautious due to photographic images becoming easier to manipulate. Editorially manipulated collages that form corporationist ideologies that could seek to control ways we interpret our view of the world.
Erika Verzutti (São Paulo, 1971) is a key artist for understanding sculpture practice today, both in the Brazilian panorama and internationally. Her thought- provoking forms explore new routes for the medium, with renewed attention to the origin and materiality of sculpture, its varied references, and its formal intelligence. Using different materials, such as bronze, concrete, stone, and papier-maché, Verzuttiœs works are sensual and tactile, both rough and refined, evoking animals and plants, landscapes and minerals, everyday objects and objects of artfrom Tarsila do Amaral to Constantin Brancusi, from René Magritte to Piero Manzoni. Often with an uncanny character, Verzuttiœs sculptures give themselves up to unpredictability, sometimes with a certain degree of humor, refusing to accept pre-established definitions or traditionshence the catalogueœs subtitle: The Indiscipline of Sculpture. This is the most thorough publication dedicated to Verzuttiœs oeuvre, which accompanies her first exhibition in a Brazilian museumthe Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. The book is divided into seven chapters organizing the artistœs practice, spanning her entire career since 2003: Becoming-Animalʺ, Tropical Pathwayʺ, World Metaphorʺ, Totemize the Tabooʺ, Wild Modernismʺ, Under Tarsilaœs Sun (and Other Stories),ʺ and Strangely Familiar.ʺ With texts written by curators, art critics, and historians, this is a fundamental book for understanding Erika Verzuttiœs work as one of the most singular contributions to the field of sculpture today.
The author traces the course of literary criticism from its foundations in classical and medieval precepts to the theorising of the present day. He explores the texts which have been milestones in the history of critical thought, placing them firmly in the context of their time.
With its plethora of illustrations, many of works published here for the first time, 'Painting Out of the Ordinary' will be compulsory reading for anyone interested in British art and society of the Romantic era.
Design is a conceptive activity which is usually presented as a sensible, sequential process and action. This book claims that design cannot be reduced to the rational, effective planning and organization that most models (such as design thinking) present. The author suggests another type of rationality which is based on what the humanities call aesthetics, writing, composition, and style: a rationality based in imaginary elaboration and coherence. The chapters, therefore, demonstrate that design practice is about creating not only functional tools, but planes of reflections that challenge norms. To support this claim, this book analyzes research programs, art works, and design projects that produced new information and communication technologies (ICT). This is detailed using examples in each chapter. From these examples, two types of conclusions are derived: a first level considers the lessons that we can draw from these examples in terms of design practice while the second level starts a theoretical discussion based on these analyses of use cases. The goal is to develop an understanding of conception in its different forms. This book brings the use of these neglected methods to the foreground as a way to explicate the design process. Taking into consideration the humanities within design contributes to the discussion on pluridisciplinarity. The book posits that design as a historical and situated activity is a truly multidisciplinary endeavor that bridges the gap between engineering sciences and the humanities.