The Museum of Modern Love

Author: Heather Rose
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616208872
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
“Art will wake you up. Art will break your heart. There will be glorious days. If you want eternity you must be fearless.” —Heather Rose, The Museum of Modern Love Our hero, Arky Levin, has reached a creative dead end. An unexpected separation from his wife was meant to leave him with the space he needs to work composing film scores, but it has provided none of the peace of mind he needs to create. Guilty and restless, almost by chance he stumbles upon an art exhibit that will change his life. Based on a real piece of performance art that took place in 2010, the installation that the fictional Arky Levin discovers is inexplicably powerful. Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art sit across a table from the performance artist Marina Abramović, for as short or long a period of time as they choose. Although some go in skeptical, almost all leave moved. And the participants are not the only ones to find themselves changed by this unusual experience: Arky finds himself returning daily to watch others with Abramović. As the performance unfolds over the course of 75 days, so too does Arky. As he bonds with other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do. This is a book about art, but it is also about success and failure, illness and happiness. It’s about what it means to find connection in a modern world. And most of all, it is about love, with its limitations and its transcendence.

The Museum of Modern Love

Author: Heather Rose
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1474611656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
'One of my stand-out Australian reads from 2016 . . . A glorious novel, meditative and special' Hannah Kent, author of BURIAL RITES Arky Levin, a film composer in New York, has promised his wife that he will not visit her in hospital, where she is suffering in the final stages of a terminal illness. She wants to spare him a burden that would curtail his creativity, but the promise is tearing him apart. One day he finds his way to MOMA and sees Mariana Abramovic in The Artist is Present. The performance continues for seventy-five days and, as it unfolds, so does Arky. As he watches and meets other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do.

Bruny

Author: Heather Rose
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1760872377
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 394

Book Description
The brilliant and explosive new novel from the author of the award-winning The Museum of Modern Love. Why is a massive bridge being built to connect the sleepy island of Bruny with the mainland of Tasmania? And why have terrorists blown it up? When the Bruny bridge is bombed, UN troubleshooter Astrid Coleman agrees to return home to help her brother before an upcoming election. But this is no simple task. Her brother and sister are on either side of politics, the community is full of conspiracy theories, her mother is fading and her father is quoting Shakespeare. Only on Bruny does the world seem sane. Until Astrid discovers how far the government is willing to go. Bruny is a searing, subversive novel about family, love, loyalty and the new world order. It is a gripping thriller with a jaw-dropping twist, a love story, a cry from the heart and a fiercely entertaining and crucial work of imagination that asks the burning question: what would you do to protect the place you love? Praise for The Museum of Modern Love: 'A glorious novel, meditative and special in a way that defies easy articulation.' Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites 'Audacious and beautiful.' Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos 'I adored it, and it is my book of the year so far.' Amanda Rayner, Readings Reviews ' coruscates with captivating energy Incisive, beautiful, and precise.' Foreword Reviews, starred review 'Captivating a gem of a novel.' Library Journal, starred review 'Deeply involving profound emotionally rich and thought-provoking.' Booklist, starred review 'With rare subtlety and humanity, this novel relocates the difficult path to wonder in us all.' The Christina Stead Prize 2017 'Profound a tender meditation on art, love, grief, and life.' Bustle 'An unusual and lively work of fiction.' Newsday

The Museum of Broken Relationships

Author: Olinka Vistica
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1474605516
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 486

Book Description
What to do with the fragments of a love affair? A postcard from a childhood sweetheart. A wedding dress in a jar. Barbed wire. Silicone breast implants. Red stilettos, never worn. These objects and many others make up the inspiring, whimsical, sometimes bizarre, and always unforgettable population of the real-life Museum of Broken Relationships. A decade ago, two lovers were struggling through their own painful breakup, desperate to heal their heartbreak without destroying the memory of the love they had shared. Then, an idea struck: they would create a communal space, a kind of refuge for - and cathartic celebration of - the everyday objects that had outlasted love. These items, along with the anonymous, intimate stories each piece represented, quickly captured hearts and imaginations across the globe. As word spread, the tiny museum became a worldwide sensation. Collected here are 203 of the best, funniest, most heartwarming and thought-provoking pieces that offer an irresistible experience of human connection. The Museum of Broken Relationships is a poignant celebration of modern love - and a must-read for anyone who has ever loved and lost.

What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage

Author: Amy Sutherland
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588366901
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life–namely her dear husband, Scott? In this lively and perceptive book, Sutherland tells how she took the trainers’ lessons home. The next time her forgetful husband stomped through the house in search of his mislaid car keys, she asked herself, “What would a dolphin trainer do?” The answer was: nothing. Trainers reward the behavior they want and, just as important, ignore the behavior they don’t. Rather than appease her mate’s rising temper by joining in the search, or fuel his temper by nagging him to keep better track of his things in the first place, Sutherland kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the dishes she was washing. In short order, Scott found his keys and regained his cool. “I felt like I should throw him a mackerel,” she writes. In time, as she put more training principles into action, she noticed that she became more optimistic and less judgmental, and their twelve-year marriage was better than ever. What started as a goofy experiment had such good results that Sutherland began using the training techniques with all the people in her life, including her mother, her friends, her students, even the clerk at the post office. In the end, the biggest lesson she learned is that the only animal you can truly change is yourself. Full of fun facts, fascinating insights, hilarious anecdotes, and practical tips, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage describes Sutherland’s Alice-in-Wonderland experience of stumbling into a world where cheetahs walk nicely on leashes and elephants paint with watercolors, and of leaving a new, improved Homo sapiens.

Modern Love

Author: Constance DeJong
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780991558520
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
"This is a facsimile edition of Modern Love, which was originally published by Standard Editions in 1977. An earlier version of the text appeared in serial form as Books I-V of the Complete Works of Constance De Jong, published by TVRT and Mirror Press from 1975-1976" --Colophon.

Modern Love

Author: Kendrah Morgan
Publisher: Miegunyah Press
ISBN: 9780522862812
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Much has been written about the lives and art of Heide, but finally the remaining members of the inner circle have entrusted the truth to be told through this intimate biography of John and Sunday Reed. Equal parts romance and tragedy, Modern Love explores the lives of these champions of successive generations of Australian artists and writers, whose works and personalities John and Sunday carefully curated to suit their artistic tastes and sexual passions. It is a story of rebellion against their privileged backgrounds and a bohemian existence marked by extraordinary achievements, intense heartbreak and enduring love, a remarkable partnership that changed all those who crossed the threshold into Heide and altered the course of art in Australia.

Reading Group Choices

Author: Reading Group Choices
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780975974476
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description

The Art Museum in Modern Times

Author: Charles Saumarez Smith
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0500022437
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A compelling examination of the art museum from a renowned director, this sweeping book explores how architecture, vision, and funding have transformed art museums around the world over the past eighty years. How have art museums changed in the past century? Where are they headed in the future? Charles Saumarez Smith is uniquely qualified to answer these questions, having been at the helm of three major institutions over the course of his distinguished career. For The Art Museum in Modern Times, Saumarez Smith has undertaken an odyssey, visiting art museums across the globe and examining how the experience of art is shaped by the buildings that house it. His story starts with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, one of the first museums to focus squarely on the art of the present rather than the past. When it opened in 1939, MoMA’s boldly modernist building represented a stark riposte to the neoclassicism of most earlier art museums. From there, Saumarez Smith investigates dozens of other museums, including the Tate Modern in London, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the West Bund Museum in Shanghai, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He explores our shifting reasons for visiting museums, changes to the way exhibits are organized and displayed, and the spectacular new architectural landmarks that have become destinations in their own right. Global in scope yet full of personal insight, this fully illustrated celebration of the modern art museum will appeal to art lovers, museum professionals, and museum goers alike.

The Collector's Apprentice

Author: B. A. Shapiro
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616209801
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
The bestselling author of The Art Forger and The Muralist delivers a page-turning historical thriller of art and revenge, of history and love, that will transport readers to 1920s Paris and America. It’s the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris—broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then-fiancé, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father’s art collection, prove her innocence—and exact revenge on George. When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates—including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley’s murder. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector’s Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.