Learning to Look at Paintings by
Learning to Look at Paintings is an accessible guide to the study and appraisal of paintings, drawings and prints. Mary Acton shows how you can develop visual, analytical and historical skills in learning to look at and understand an image by analysing how it works, what its pictorial elements are and how they relate to each other. This fully revised and updated new edition is illustrated with over 100 images by a wide range of Western European and American artists, ranging from Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Botticelli to Picasso, Matisse and Rothko, and now includes modern and contemporary artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, Anselm Kiefer, Tacita Dean and Marlene Dumas. In addition, Mary Acton presents new examples highlighting the survival and revival of painting in recent years. A new introduction situates the book in the wider context of recent changes in the approach to Art History. A glossary of critical and technical terms used in the language of Art History is also included, with an updated but still selective reading list.
Ways of seeing by
Based on the BBC television series, John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a unique look at the way we view art, published as part of the Penguin on Design series in Penguin Modern Classics.'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.''But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.' John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented- 'This is an eye-opener in more ways than one- by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.' By now he has.If you enjoyed Ways of Seeing, you might like Susan Sontag's On Photography, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
Inventing Abstraction 1910-1925 by
Inventing Abstraction 1910-1925 explores the development of abstraction from the moment of its declaration around 1912 to its establishment as the foundation of avant-garde practice in the mid-1920s. The book brings together many of the most influential works in abstraction's early history to draw a cross-media portrait of this watershed moment in which traditional art was reinvented in a wholesale way. Works are presented in groups that serve as case studies, each engaging a key topic in abstraction's first years: an artist, a movement, an exhibition or thematic concern. Key focal points include Vasily Kandinsky's ambitious Compositions V, VI and VII; a selection of Piet Mondrian's work that offers a distilled narrative of his trajectory to Neo-plasticism; and all the extant Suprematist pictures that Kazimir Malevich showed in the landmark '0.10' exhibition in 1915.
Frameworks for Modern Art by
This is the first of four books in the Open University series Art of the Twentieth Century. The opening chapter discusses key concepts such as modernity, modernism, autonomy, spectatorship and globalisation. It is followed by four case studies, each of which is devoted to a specific work of art chosen from across the span of the century: Marcel Duchamp's Bottlerack, Barnett Newman's Eve, Ana Mendieta's Silueta series, and Yarla by the Australian Aboriginal Yuendumu community. These works have been selected not only for their intrinsic interest, but for the way in which they open up wider questions of meaning and interpretation that are central to understanding 20th-century art. issues and debates about art and its place in the wide culture today. Topics include the relation of the modernist mainstream to later postmodernist standpoints, the status of the art object, the development of a fully abstract art, the role of gender and identity in the expanding field of art and the globalisation of art practice.
After Modern Art by
Contemporary art can be baffling and beautiful, provocative and disturbing. This pioneering book presents a new look at the controversial period between 1945 and 2015, when art and its traditional forms were called into question. It focuses on the relationship between American and European art, and challenges previously held views about the origins of some of the most innovative ideas in art of this time. Major artists such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, and Shiran Neshat are all discussed, as is the art world of the last fifty years. Important trends are also covered including Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Postmodernism, and Performance Art. This revised and updated second edition includes a new chapter exploring art since 2000 and how globalization has caused shifts in the art world, an updated Bibliography, and 16 new, colour illustrations.
Minimal Art by
Here with a new introduction and updated bibliography, is the definitive collection of writings by and about the work of the 1960s minimalists, generously illustrated with photographs of paintings, sculpture, and performance.
Vision and painting : the logic of the gaze by 
Beyond Recognition by
Perhaps more than any other recent writer, Craig Owens explored the relations among the discourses of contemporary art, sexuality, and power. His familiarity with the New York art world and its practitioners in the 1970's and 1980's makes his writing an unparalleled guide to one of the most riveting periods of contemporary culture.
Pop Art by
This new title in the renowned Art & Ideas series is a thorough introduction to, and significant appraisal of, the art of Pop. Bradford Collins explains the essence of Pop art and examines its full history in contemporary cultural and political context - the origins of the movement during the 1950s, the flourishing of Pop art in America and the UK during the 1960s, and its further incarnations and more widespread impact. The 250 illustrations include all the most classic examples of Pop art by such well-known figures as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as lesser known works that have been neglected in recent years but are essential to a thorough understanding of Pop. Contemporary source material used by artists to make their works and consideration of what was in the media at the time support discussions of the inspiration, creation and impact of the art.
Olafur Eliasson, Experience by
An updated and expanded edition of the acclaimed in-depth monograph on one of the most influential artists of our time Conceived in close collaboration with the artist, this updated survey tracks Eliasson's artistic practice from the 1990s to the present day, including recent exhibitions at Tate Modern, London (In real life, 2019) and the Beyeler Foundation, Basel (Life, 2021). Through hundreds of illustrations bracketed by writings on and by Eliasson, this book provides an unparalleled overview of his remarkably accessible output, from such large-scale interactive experiences as The weather project at Tate Modern, London (2003) to smaller, more delicate works on paper or made of glass, and includes photography, painting, and film.
Has Modernism Failed? by
An art critic confronts the current art milieu, characterizing it as being without purpose or moral authority, and questions whether allegedly radical artists now reflect the culture of consumerism more than they challenge it.
Frameworks for Modern Art by
This is the first of four books in the Open University series Art of the Twentieth Century. The opening chapter discusses key concepts such as modernity, modernism, autonomy, spectatorship and globalisation. It is followed by four case studies, each of which is devoted to a specific work of art chosen from across the span of the century: Marcel Duchamp's Bottlerack, Barnett Newman's Eve, Ana Mendieta's Silueta series, and Yarla by the Australian Aboriginal Yuendumu community. These works have been selected not only for their intrinsic interest, but for the way in which they open up wider questions of meaning and interpretation that are central to understanding 20th-century art. issues and debates about art and its place in the wide culture today. Topics include the relation of the modernist mainstream to later postmodernist standpoints, the status of the art object, the development of a fully abstract art, the role of gender and identity in the expanding field of art and the globalisation of art practice.
Guerrilla Girls: the Art of Behaving Badly by
Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly is the first book to catalog the entire career of the Guerrilla Girls from 1985 to present. The Guerrilla girls are a collective of political feminist artists who expose discrimination and corruption in art, film, politics, and pop culture all around the world. This book explores all their provocative street campaigns, unforgettable media appearances, and large-scale exhibitions. Each copy comes with a punch-out gorilla mask that invites readers to step up and join the movement themselves. Captions by the Guerrilla Girls themselves contextualize the visuals. Explores their well-researched, intersectional takedown of the patriarchy In 1985, a group of masked feminist avengers--known as the Guerrilla Girls--papered downtown Manhattan with posters calling out the Museum of Modern Art for its lack of representation of female artists. They quickly became a global phenomenon, and the fearless activists have produced hundreds of posters, stickers, and billboards ever since. More than a monograph, this book is a call to arms. This career-spanning volume is published to coincide with their 35th anniversary. Perfect for artists, art lovers, feminists, fans of the Guerrilla Girls, students, and activists Add it to the shelf with books like Wall and Piece by Banksy, Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope by Artisan, and Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents by Nicholas Ganz
What Is Post-Modernism by
Provides a lucid exposition of Post-Modernism in art and architecture. This book clarifies a tradition that is thriving but still very much misunderstood. The reader is presented with many examples of art and architecture appropriate to Post-Modernism as well as being introduced to the history which preceded it, facilitating a much clearer understanding of the overall concept and initiating a thirst for more.
The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics by
The Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of theprogress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences.The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics brings the authority, liveliness, and multi-disciplinary scope of the Handbook series to the area where philosophy meets the arts. Jerrold Levinson has assembled a hugely impressive range of talent to contribute 48 brand-new essays, making this the mostcomprehensive guide available to the theory, application, history, and future of the field. This Handbook will be invaluable to academics and students across philosophy and all branches of the arts, both as the reference work of choice and as a stimulus to new research and creativity.
Unmarked by
Unmarked is a controversial analysis of the fraught relation between political and representational visibility in contemporary culture. Written from and for the Left, Unmarked rethinks the claims of visibility politics through a feminist psychoanalytic examination of specific performance texts - including photography, painting, film, theatre and anti-abortion demonstrations.
Art since 1900: modernism, anti-modernism, post-modernism by
Groundbreaking in both its content and its presentation, Art Since 1900 has been hailed as a landmark study in the history of art. Conceived by some of the most influential art historians of our time, this extraordinary book has now been revised, expanded and brought right up to date to include the latest developments in the study and practice of art.
With a clear year-by-year structure, the authors present 130 articles, each focusing on a crucial event - such as the creation of a seminal work, the publication of an important text, or the opening of a major exhibition - to tell the myriad stories of art from 1900 to the present. All the key turning-points and breakthroughs of modernism and postmodernism are explored in depth, as are the frequent antimodernist reactions that proposed alternative visions. This expanded edition includes a new introduction on the impact of globalization, as well as essays on the development of Synthetic Cubism, early avant-garde film, Brazilian modernism, postmodern architecture, Moscow conceptualism, queer art, South African photography, and the rise of the new museum of art.
Acclaimed as the definitive work on the subject, Art Since 1900 is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of art in the modern age.
Art in Theory 1900 - 2000 by
This popular anthology of twentieth-century art theoretical textshas now been expanded to take account of new research, and toinclude significant contributions to art theory from the 1990s. New edition of this popular anthology of twentieth-centuryart-theoretical texts. Now updated to include the results of new research, togetherwith significant contributions from the 1990s. Includes writings by critics, philosophers, politicians andliterary figures. The editors provide contextual introductions to 340 texts. Complements Art in Theory 1648-1815 and Art in Theory1815-1900 to create a complete survey of the theoriesunderpinning the development of art in the modern period.
Critical Terms for Art History by
"Art" has always been contested terrain, whether the object in question is a medieval tapestry or Duchamp's Fountain. But questions about the categories of "art" and "art history" acquired increased urgency during the 1970s, when new developments in critical theory and other intellectual projects dramatically transformed the discipline. The first edition of Critical Terms for Art History both mapped and contributed to those transformations, offering a spirited reassessment of the field's methods and terminology. Art history as a field has kept pace with debates over globalization and other social and political issues in recent years, making a second edition of this book not just timely, but crucial. Like its predecessor, this new edition consists of essays that cover a wide variety of "loaded" terms in the history of art, from sign to meaning, ritual to commodity. Each essay explains and comments on a single term, discussing the issues the term raises and putting the term into practice as an interpretive framework for a specific work of art. For example, Richard Shiff discusses "Originality" in Vija Celmins's To Fix the Image in Memory, a work made of eleven pairs of stones, each consisting of one "original" stone and one painted bronze replica. In addition to the twenty-two original essays, this edition includes nine new ones--performance, style, memory/monument, body, beauty, ugliness, identity, visual culture/visual studies, and social history of art--as well as new introductory material. All help expand the book's scope while retaining its central goal of stimulating discussion of theoretical issues in art history and making that discussion accessible to both beginning students and senior scholars. Contributors: Mark Antliff, Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Stephen Bann, Homi K. Bhabha, Suzanne Preston Blier, Michael Camille, David Carrier, Craig Clunas, Whitney Davis, Jas Elsner, Ivan Gaskell, Ann Gibson, Charles Harrison, James D. Herbert, Amelia Jones, Wolfgang Kemp, Joseph Leo Koerner, Patricia Leighten, Paul Mattick Jr., Richard Meyer, W. J. T. Mitchell, Robert S. Nelson, Margaret Olin, William Pietz, Alex Potts, Donald Preziosi, Lisbet Rausing, Richard Shiff, Terry Smith, Kristine Stiles, David Summers, Paul Wood, James E. Young
