This anthology of articles selected from The Journal of Artists’ Books contains some of the best critical writing on artists’ books produced in the last quarter of a century. Driven by the editorial vision of artist Brad Freeman, JAB began as a provocative pamphlet and expanded to become a significant journal documenting artists’ books from multiple perspectives. With its range of participants and approaches, JAB provided a unique venue for sustained critical writing in the field and developed a...
Miraculum Monstrum is an epic hybrid narrative about Tristia Vogel, a female artist who experiences a radical physical transformation, beginning with the excrescence of apparent wings. Though she is possibly an anomalous mutation resulting from worldwide ecological upheaval, the bird/woman is co-opted by a religious cult that claims to have prophesied her experience; she is thus written as the central figure of their scriptural text. The fragmentary poem that is Miraculum Monstrum, which bears t...
In a New Light: Giovanni Bellini's "St Francis in the Desert"
by Susannah Rutherglen and Charlotte Hale
Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert is a masterpiece of Venetian Renaissance art that portrays St. Francis of Assisi, the medieval saint who renounced earthly riches to embrace a humble existence. Departing from canonical representations of the holy man's life, Bellini imagined St. Francis alone in a mountainous wilderness, stepping from his simple shelter into a golden light that seems to transfigure him spiritually. For centuries, viewers have puzzled over the work's meaning, but unti...
The latent liability in energy is anarchy, but when it's working in a direction with a sense of purpose like the independence movement, and according to the priorities of the arts, and not violence, there's a lot you can do. There's a lot of self-respect to be regained. There's a lot of fun to be had. There’s a lot to be learned. A panorama of ideas about nationality and culture, Arts and the Nation arose from the conviction that Scotland can never be really democratic until it gives the arts th...
“The 21 artists, who share their stories of madness, trauma, addiction, abuse and self-destruction, and their relationship to art, leave no vulnerable detail unwritten.”—Shameless A visceral look at the bizarre entanglement of destructive and creative forces, Live Through This is a collection of original stories, essays, artwork, and photography. It explores the use of art to survive abuse, incest, madness and depression, and the often deep-seated impulse toward self-destruction including cutti...
Tunnel – Johannes Nagel
by Glenn Adamson, Esther Niebel, and John White
The catalogue Tunnel presents works from 2018 to 2023 by ceramicist Johannes Nagel (*1979). The majority of the objects were formed by the artist’s hands digging into sand to form cavities, negative spaces, which were then molded and revealed using liquid porcelain. By doing this, says co-author Esther Niebel, the artist imprints his own presence in to the objects. In addition to the extraordinary shapes thus created, expressive colours and the painting of the objects play a central role in Nage...
In this book of interviews, Heidi Zuckerman, CEO and Director of the Aspen Art Museum, opens up the studios and practices of more than thirty prominent contemporary artists through personal and illuminating conversations. A perceptive, sensitive interviewer, Zuckerman offers the reader refreshing insights and access to some of the most engaging artists making work this decade. Before arriving in Aspen in 2005, Zuckerman previously worked as a curator at the University of California, Berkeley Ar...
Inspiration from the Art of Paul J. Stankard: A Window Into My Studio and Soul
by Paul Joseph Stankard
This striking gift book features luminous photos of world-renowned glass artist Paul Stankard’s astonishing art paired with insightful writing for all who seek out and appreciate creative energy. Stunning, full-page photos of Stankard’s paperweights show fascinating worlds: bees captured in flight, botanically exact bouquets, and miniature humanlike creatures are captured in bursting color. His unmatched technical skill is one-half of what has made Stankard a master in glass art; the other half...
The bestselling author of Find Me and Call Me by Your Name returns to the essay form with this collection of thoughts on time, the creative mind, and great lives and works. The irrealis mood knows no boundaries between what is and what isn't, between what happened and what won't. In more ways than one, the essay about the artists, writers, and great minds gathered in this volume have nothing to do with who I am, or who they were, and my reading of them may be entirely erroneous. But I misread t...
The Artist Speaks
One of Singapore’s most prominent performance artists, Lee Wen produced a body of provocative, thought-provoking and sharply satirical works over three decades. Despite Singapore’s decade- long proscription of funding for performance art, Lee Wen was indefatigable, pioneering the art form with searing expressive intensity. He confronted identity politics and issues of race, society and culture through a wide-ranging series of expansive, experimental performances. Presented in this title are writ...