33 Artists in 3 Acts

Author: Sarah Thornton
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393245810
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
This compelling narrative goes behind the scenes with the world’s most important living artists to humanize and demystify contemporary art. The best-selling author of Seven Days in the Art World now tells the story of the artists themselves—how they move through the world, command credibility, and create iconic works. 33 Artists in 3 Acts offers unprecedented access to a dazzling range of artists, from international superstars to unheralded art teachers. Sarah Thornton's beautifully paced, fly-on-the-wall narratives include visits with Ai Weiwei before and after his imprisonment and Jeff Koons as he woos new customers in London, Frankfurt, and Abu Dhabi. Thornton meets Yayoi Kusama in her studio around the corner from the Tokyo asylum that she calls home. She snoops in Cindy Sherman’s closet, hears about Andrea Fraser’s psychotherapist, and spends quality time with Laurie Simmons, Carroll Dunham, and their daughters Lena and Grace. Through these intimate scenes, 33 Artists in 3 Acts explores what it means to be a real artist in the real world. Divided into three cinematic "acts"—politics, kinship, and craft—it investigates artists' psyches, personas, politics, and social networks. Witnessing their crises and triumphs, Thornton turns a wry, analytical eye on their different answers to the question "What is an artist?" 33 Artists in 3 Acts reveals the habits and attributes of successful artists, offering insight into the way these driven and inventive people play their game. In a time when more and more artists oversee the production of their work, rather than make it themselves, Thornton shows how an artist’s radical vision and personal confidence can create audiences for their work, and examines the elevated role that artists occupy as essential figures in our culture.

Seven Days in the Art World

Author: Sarah Thornton
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393071057
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

Big Star's Radio City

Author: Bruce Eaton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441153942
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 155

Book Description
Released when ELP and Elton John were plodding from one packed stadium to the next, Radio City was a radical album influenced by records that were already deemed oldies and yet sounding like a lean electrical jolt from the future. Here, Bruce Eaton examines the key ingredients of Radio City's lasting appeal- and through extensive interviews with all of those involved, gets to the heart of the cult of Big Star.

Weiwei-isms

Author: Ai Weiwei
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400845858
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 149

Book Description
The quotable Ai Weiwei This collection of quotes demonstrates the elegant simplicity of Ai Weiwei's thoughts on key aspects of his art, politics, and life. A master at communicating powerful ideas in astonishingly few words, Ai Weiwei is known for his innovative use of social media to disseminate his views. The short quotations presented here have been carefully selected from articles, tweets, and interviews given by this acclaimed Chinese artist and activist. The book is organized into six categories: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections. Together, these quotes span some of the most revealing moments of Ai Weiwei's eventful career—from his risky investigation into student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to his arbitrary arrest in 2011—providing a window into the mind of one of the world's most electrifying and courageous contemporary artists. Select Quotes from the Book: On Freedom of Expression "Say what you need to say plainly, and then take responsibility for it." "A small act is worth a million thoughts." "Liberty is about our rights to question everything." On Art and Activism "Everything is art. Everything is politics." "The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay." "Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don't feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy." On Government, Power, and Making Moral Choice "Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country." "I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won't cost me much." "Tips on surviving the regime: Respect yourself and speak for others. Do one small thing every day to prove the existence of justice." On the Digital World "Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true." "The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that." "The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China." On History, the Historical Moment, and the Future "If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future." "We need to get out of the old language." "The world is a sphere, there is no East or West." Personal Reflection "I've never planned any part of my career—except being an artist. And I was pushed into that corner because I thought being an artist was the only way to have a little freedom." "Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom." "Expressing oneself is like a drug. I'm so addicted to it."

Bad New Days

Author: Hal Foster
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784781460
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
One of the world’s leading art theorists dissects a quarter century of artistic practice Bad New Days examines the evolution of art and criticism in Western Europe and North America over the last twenty-five years, exploring their dynamic relation to the general condition of emergency instilled by neoliberalism and the war on terror. Considering the work of artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tacita Dean, and Isa Genzken, and the writing of thinkers like Jacques Rancière, Bruno Latour, and Giorgio Agamben, Hal Foster shows the ways in which art has anticipated this condition, at times resisting the collapse of the social contract or gesturing toward its repair; at other times burlesquing it. Against the claim that art making has become so heterogeneous as to defy historical analysis, Foster argues that the critic must still articulate a clear account of the contemporary in all its complexity. To that end, he offers several paradigms for the art of recent years, which he terms “abject,” “archival,” “mimetic,” and “precarious.”

The Art Of Seduction

Author: Robert Greene
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847651402
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Book Description
Which sort of seducer could you be? Siren? Rake? Cold Coquette? Star? Comedian? Charismatic? Or Saint? This book will show you which. Charm, persuasion, the ability to create illusions: these are some of the many dazzling gifts of the Seducer, the compelling figure who is able to manipulate, mislead and give pleasure all at once. When raised to the level of art, seduction, an indirect and subtle form of power, has toppled empires, won elections and enslaved great minds. In this beautiful, sensually designed book, Greene unearths the two sides of seduction: the characters and the process. Discover who you, or your pursuer, most resembles. Learn, too, the pitfalls of the anti-Seducer. Immerse yourself in the twenty-four manoeuvres and strategies of the seductive process, the ritual by which a seducer gains mastery over their target. Understand how to 'Choose the Right Victim', 'Appear to Be an Object of Desire' and 'Confuse Desire and Reality'. In addition, Greene provides instruction on how to identify victims by type. Each fascinating character and each cunning tactic demonstrates a fundamental truth about who we are, and the targets we've become - or hope to win over. The Art of Seduction is an indispensable primer on the essence of one of history's greatest weapons and the ultimate power trip. From the internationally bestselling author of The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, and The 33 Strategies Of War.

Art That Changed the World

Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1465421203
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
Experience the uplifting power of art on this breathtaking visual tour of 2,500 paintings and sculptures created by more than 700 artists from Michelangelo to Damien Hirst. This beautiful book brings you the very best of world art from cave paintings to Neoexpressionism. Enjoy iconic must-see works, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and Monet's Waterlilies and discover less familiar artists and genres from all parts of the globe. Art That Changed the World covers the full sweep of world art, including the Ming era in China, and Japanese, Hindu, and Indigenous Australian art. It analyses recurring themes such as love and religion, explaining key genres from Romanesque to Conceptual art. Art That Changed the World explores each artist's key works and vision, showing details of their technique, such as Leonardo's use of light and shade. It tells the story of avant-garde works like Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass), which scandalized society, and traces how one genre informed another - showing how the Impressionists were inspired by Gustave Courbet, for example, and how Van Gogh was influenced by Japanese prints. Lavishly illustrated throughout, look no further for your essential guide to the pantheon of world art.

Thinking Through Craft

Author: Glenn Adamson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350092630
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
This book is an introduction to the way that artists working in all media think about craft. Workmanship is key to today's visual arts, when high 'production values' are becoming increasingly commonplace. Yet craft's centrality to contemporary art has received little serious attention from critics and historians. Dispensing with clichéd arguments that craft is art, Adamson persuasively makes a case for defining craft in a more nuanced fashion. The interesting thing about craft, he argues, is that it is perceived to be 'inferior' to art. The book consists of an overview of various aspects of this second-class identity - supplementarity, sensuality, skill, the pastoral, and the amateur. It also provides historical case studies analysing craft's role in a variety of disciplines, including architecture, design, contemporary art, and the crafts themselves.

The 3D Type Book

Author: Agathe Jacquillat
Publisher: Laurence King Publishing
ISBN: 9781856697132
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This book is the most comprehensive showcase of three-dimensional letterforms ever written, featuring over 1,300 images of more than 300 projects by more than 160 emerging talents and established individuals and studios including Sagmeister Inc, Vaughan Oliver, Milton Glaser, Alvin Lustig, Louis Danziger, Roger Excoffon, Paul Elliman, Marian Bantjes, Geoff Kaplan, Clotilde Olyff, Italo Lupi, Marion Bataille, Antoine+Manuel, Frost*Design, Mervyn Kurlansky, Non-Format, Oded Ezer, Rowland Scherman, Post Typography, Rinzen, Underwares Type Workshop, J. Kyle Daevel, Ji Lee, Pleaseletmedesign and Strange Attractors Design.As well as pioneering milestones from as far back as the 1940s, this book focuses on recent and brand new typographic projects. 3D type specialist Andrew Byrom explains the context and motivation behind these innovative works in an insightful foreword.

Whitewalling

Author: Aruna D'Souza
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781943263141
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
In 2017, the Whitney Biennial included a painting by a white artist, Dana Schutz, of the lynched body of a young black child, Emmett Till. In 1979, anger brewed over a show at New York's Artists Space entitled The Nigger Drawings. In 1969, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition Harlem on My Mind did not include a single work by a black artist. In all three cases, black artists and writers and their allies organized vigorous responses using the only forum available to them: public protest. Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in 3 Acts reflects on these three incidents in the long and troubled history of art and race in America. It lays bare how the art world--no less than the country at large--has persistently struggled with the politics of race, and the ways this struggle has influenced how museums, curators and artists wrestle with notions of free speech and the specter of censorship. Whitewalling takes a critical and intimate look at these three "acts" in the history of the American art scene and asks: when we speak of artistic freedom and the freedom of speech, who, exactly, is free to speak? Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary art, food and culture; intersectional feminisms and other forms of politics; how museums shape our views of each other and the world; and books. Her work appears regularly in 4Columns.org, where she is a member of the editorial advisory board, as well as in publications including the Wall Street Journal, ARTnews, Garage, Bookforum, Momus and Art Practical. D'Souza is the editor of the forthcoming Making it Modern: A Linda Nochlin Reader.