Search results

This book explores the works of one of Sweden’s most esteemed artists, Hilma af Klint, alongside others in her artistic circle – and examines their inspirational influence on contemporary artists working today. Swedish Ecstasy tells the story of renowned Swedish artist Hilma af Klint and her artistic circle as the country sought to reconcile religious beliefs with scientific advances at the turn of the 20th century. While Sweden has often been characterized as a Protestant nation of great engin...

Made in L.A. has established itself as an important platform for a wildly diverse population of artists. The biennial exhibition offers a view onto the current trends and practices developed within and throughout Los Angeles, one of the most active and energetic art communities in the world. Under the direction of co-curators Aram Moshayedi and Hamza Walker, the 2016 iteration promises to offer a mix of the local and international perspectives that are an important part of the city's identity.

Three emerging painters exploring the possibilities of color True Colours brings together the work of three emerging artists: Helen Beard (born 1971), Sadie Laska (born 1974) and Boo Saville (born 1980). Despite using paint in very different ways, the artists all share an interest in exploring the possibilities of color. Beard uses a vivid rainbow palette to create interlocking arrangements of bright primary color, which combine to describe explicit sexual encounters. Laska creates dreamlike co...

The years between Richard Nixon's resignation and Ronald Reagan's election as president were difficult ones for America. Artists in particular were sensitive to enormous divisions in the country's moods and beliefs. Examining art-making in California during a tumultuous transitional period, this catalogue accompanying a remarkable exhibition features approximately 125 California artists working in a wide array of media: from installation art to representational painting, from conceptual art to p...

Anatolia: Home of Eternity, is the catalogue that accompanies the main exhibition at Europalia Arts Festival, Turkey. It looks at the heart of Turkish culture and illustrates masterpieces brought together from museums from all over Turkey. Turkish culture is characterised by rituals and religion. On the basis of about 200 objects - archaeological finds, miniatures, sculptures, textile, items in gold, etc. - this book provides a unique glimpse at the diversity of that culture - and of a country...

Supported by a thriving art market in the Persian Gulf, interest in Iranian modern art has intensified in recent years. Iran Modern offers a timely exploration of the cultural diversity and production of avant-garde art in Iran after World War II and up to the revolution - from 1950 through 1979. Generously illustrated, this volume provides a new understanding of global interconnectedness not yet addressed in art historical accounts. Ten essays by distinguished scholars of art and history elucid...

One of the most popular artistic styles of the 20th century, Op art transformed European geometric abstraction into a global phenomenon in the mid-1960s. Its disorienting patterns and illusions, rendered with machine-like precision, became icons of the futuristic Space Age. As the 1960s faded, Op became a short-lived fad, dismissed by art historians and critics as visual kitsch. However, over the last 15 years, many museums have reintroduced Op to audiences who enthusiastically embrace it as a r...

A handbook on contemporary Italian art This lavishly illustrated publication charts the history of Italian art over the last several decades, with a focus on iconic works by artists including Carla Accardi, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Schifano, Luigi Ghirri and Anna Maria Maiolino from the MAXXI collection in Rome.

An examination of the innovative portrayals of industry and leisure created by five avant-garde artists working at Asnières in the late nineteenth century From 1881 to 1890, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand chose Asnières, a suburb of Paris, as a site of artistic experimentation. Located on the Seine, Asnières became a popular destination for Parisians thanks to aquatic sports and festivals starting in the 1850s, facilitated by the arrival of new...

A fresh look at the Arts and Crafts Movement, charting its origins in reformist ideals, its engagement with commercial culture, and its ultimate place in everyday households  In its spread from Britain to the United States, the Arts and Crafts Movement evolved from its roots in individual craftsmanship to a mainstream trend increasingly adapted for mass production by American retailers. Inspired by John Ruskin in Britain in the 1840s in response to what he saw as the corrosive forces of industri...

Over the course of the 18th century a great number of artists, ranging from established painters and sculptors to amateurs, experimented with etching, an accessible form of printmaking akin to drawing. In a period when artists strained to navigate the highly regulated Académie Royale and the increasingly discordant public spheres of the marketplace and the Salon, etching afforded them stylistic freedom and allowed them to produce exquisite works of art in a spirit of collaboration and experiment...

More than sixty years have passed since the critic Robert Coates, writing in The NewYorker in 1946, first used the term‘Abstract Expressionism’ to describe the richly coloured canvases of Hans Hofmann. The name stuck, and over the years it has come to designate the paintings and sculptures of artists as different as Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman,Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner and David Smith. The achievements of this generation, which put NewYork City on the map as the centr...

With its rugged shoreline, magnificent Cathedral Woods, and rustic cedar-shingled homes, Monhegan Island is quintessential Maine. This historic fishing village situated 10 miles off the coast has long been a haven for artists drawn to the splendor of its ocean vistas and picturesque wildlands and for ecologists fascinated by its complex natural history. Merging art, science, and history, this book explores the broad arc of ecological events on the island the formation and abandonment of pasturel...

Future Shock is the catalog accompanying SITE Santa Fe’s exhibition of the same title. The name is inspired by Alvin Toffler’s prophetic book Future Shock (published in 1970), in which he describes the profound impact of the acceleration of technological, social and structural change in contemporary life. Themes explored in the exhibition include: the role of technology in our lives and the effects of globalism, population growth, surveillance, privacy and the Anthropocene. With Toffler’s pred...

The Essex-Suffolk borderlands have always produced and attracted great artists, and the association of contemporary artists and craft workers within this part of England is equally significant. Yet until recently there has been no major arts centre which could highlight that heritage. Firstsite is that building: located in Colchester, Britain's fastest growing town, the building is designed by international architect Rafael Vinoly. Opened in September 2011, it is a model for arts-led urban regen...

Showcases familiar and little-known paintings from The Royal Collection and other public and private houses across the country Charles II's reign was a period of revolutionary experimentation: in science, art and sexual etiquette. For the first time in British history, Royal mistresses - such as Nell Gwyn - played an active, public role in court life. Women sensed new possibilities and freedoms, appearing on stage, managing their own financial, matrimonial - and extra-marital - affairs. Encourag...

Contemporary art biennials are sites of prestige, innovation and experimentation, where the category of art is meant to be in perpetual motion, rearranged and redefined, opening itself to the world and its contradictions. They are sites of a seemingly peaceful cohabitation between the elitist and the popular, where the likes of Jeff Koons encounter the likes of Guy Debord, where Angela Davis and Frantz Fanon share the same ground with neoliberal cultural policy makers and creative entrepreneurs....