Series:

Phaidon Contemporary Artists

2 total works

Cover of Luc Tuymans
The surface of Tuymans' small paintings are monochromatic and frail, as if recuperating from a long illness. In the traditions of Flemish and Spanish still-life genre painting, they represent domestic scenes or commonplace objects. They resonate, however, with a sense of the uncanny. Hovering beneath the surface of Tuymans' quiet paintings are deep-seated anxieties that rise to the surface in his depictions of faces or parts of the body. Though modest in scale and sensitive in execution, the work's power lies in conveying a sense of violence or a haunting evocation of lost lives and repressed histories. The interview with Aliaga traces the psychology and sources of Tuymans' work. Loock looks at his paintings through a series of exhibitions and the effect their installation has on our readings of them. Spector chooses "Pillows" to explore the narratives of lost loves and sleepless nights. Tuymans chooses Platonov's "Chevengur" and complements it with his essay "Disenchantment", to reveal his motives and methods. The book is part of a series of studies of important artists of the late-20th century.
Each title offers a comprehensive survey of the artist's work, providing analyses and multiple perspectives on contemporary art and its inspiration.

Cover of Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum

by Nancy Spector, Guy Brett, and Michael Archer

Published 21 November 2016

A revised and expanded edition of one the most popular titles in the Contemporary Artists Series

Born in Lebanon, Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum was exiled to London, where she has lived and worked since the mid-1970s. Through performance, video, sculpture, and installation, she creates architectonic spaces that relate to the body, language, and the condition of exile as well as transforming everyday, domestic objects into things foreign, threatening, and dangerous. Often exquisitely beautiful, Hatoum’s works combine states of emotion and longing with the formal simplicity of Minimalism, creating powerful evocations of displacement, denial, and otherness.