Contemporary & Modern Art

In The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, ten eminent scholars from Britain and the United States offer timely new appraisals of the revolutionary cultural transformations of the first decades of the twentieth century. Chapters on the major literary genres, intellectual, political and institutional contexts, film and the visual arts, provide both close analyses of individual works and a broader set of interpretive narratives. A chronology and guide to further reading supply valuable orientation for the study of Modernism. Readers will be able to use the book at once as a standard work of reference and as a stimulating source of compelling new readings of works by writers and artists from Joyce and Woolf to Stein, Picasso, Chaplin, H. D. and Freud, and many others. Students will find much-needed help with the difficulties of approaching Modernism, while the essays' original contributions will send scholars back to this volume for stimulating re-evaluation.

The posthumous collection of writings by the seminal American art critic features his observations of Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, and others. (Fine Arts).

In 1912, in several European cities, a handful of artists--Vasily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Francis Picabia and Robert Delaunay--presented the first abstract pictures to the public. Inventing Abstraction, published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, celebrates the centennial of this bold new type of artwork. It traces the development of abstraction as it moved through a network of modern artists, from Marsden Hartley and Marcel Duchamp to Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich, sweeping across nations and across media. This richly illustrated publication covers a wide range of artistic production--including paintings, drawings, books, sculptures, film, photography, sound poetry, atonal music and non-narrative dance--to draw a cross-media portrait of these watershed years. An introductory essay by Leah Dickerman, Curator in the Museum's Department of Painting and Sculpture, is followed by focused studies of key groups of works, events and critical issues in abstraction's early history by renowned scholars from a variety of fields.

This is the first of a series of four volumes providing biographical background and critical assessments of important 19th- and 20th-century artists. It presents many critical essays taken from various books and periodicals, and also includes biographical essays, selected reproductions, portraits of the artists, and annotated reading lists. The series is aimed in particular at teachers and students of art, art history, design, photography, the humanities and architecture.

Co-founder and co-editor of October magazine, a veteran of Artforum of the 1960s and early 1970s, Rosalind Krauss has presided over and shared in the major formulation of the theory of postmodernism. In this challenging collection of fifteen essays, most of which originally appeared in October, she explores the ways in which the break in style that produced postmodernism has forced a change in our various understandings of twentieth-century art, beginning with the almost mythic idea of the avant-garde. Krauss uses the analytical tools of semiology, structuralism, and poststructuralism to reveal new meanings in the visual arts and to critique the way other prominent practitioners of art and literary history write about art. In two sections, "Modernist Myths" and "Toward Postmodernism," her essays range from the problem of the grid in painting and the unity of Giacometti's sculpture to the works of Jackson Pollock, Sol Lewitt, and Richard Serra, and observations about major trends in contemporary literary criticism.

Paul Klee on Modern Art, with an introduction by Herbert Read, represents the essential collection of thinking about art from one of the last century's most influential artists.

Following World War I, a new artistic-social avant-garde emerged with the ambition to engage the artist in the building of social life. Through close readings of the works of Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, and László Moholy-Nagy whose careers covered a broad range of artistic practices and political situations, Victor Margolin examines the way these three artists negotiated the changing relations between their social ideals and the political realities they confronted. Focusing on the difficult relationship between art and social change, Margolin brings important new insights to the understanding of the avant-garde's role in a period of great political complexity. "An ambitious effort. This book puts the masters of European Modernism into perfect focus as inventors, propagators, and practitioners of a visual language that continues to hold sway over contemporary graphic style."--Steven Heller "Worth the wait. . . . Margolin usefully presents what he calls the 'failed hope' of this movement in this valuable effort."--Publishers Weekly

Available now in a paperback edition, our critically acclaimed By Hand features the work of thirty-two artists whose innovative and unexpected uses of handicraft techniques such as embroidery, sewing, knitting, and crocheting are making the age-old craft versus art debate obsolete. From Kiki Smith's lovingly etched birds, to Barb Hunt's knitted land mines to dynamo-ville's one-of-a-kind puppets, to Evil Twin's handstitched publications, the artworks in By Hand revel in the care and consideration of craft.

Collage has a relatively short, but incredibly rich history. The popularity of collage is on the increase again, partly as a result of such postmodernist concerns as pluralism, multiplicity and hybridity. This book features works by international artists Picasso, Schwitters and Ernst, through to Hannah Hoch, Martha Rosler, John Stezaker, Richard Hamilton, Layla Curtis, David Salle, Eduardo Poalozzi, Javier Rodriguez, Robert Rauschenberg, Mimei Thompson, David Thorpe, Fred Tomaselli and many more.

Today's artists create work that's challenging, complicated, and often perplexing, and this book offers a guide to understanding--and enjoying--the wide range of works on display in museums and galleries worldwide. How to Read Contemporary Art provides a thoughtful, accessible, and lavishly illustrated look at the ever-changing world of art at the beginning of the 21st century. Organized alphabetically, the book encompasses photography, installation, sculpture, painting, video art, performance, and more. Author Michael Wilson explores the impact of a broad selection of the most prominent artists at work around the world today, including Francis Alÿs, Allora & Calzadilla, Luc Tuymans, and Marina Abramović.

In 1998 we published cream, which initiated our 10x10 formula: Phaidon asked 10 curators to select 10 emerging artists. Among the 100 chosen many are now established artists, including Maurizio Cattalan, Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson and Thomas Hirschhorn, positioning the Cream series at the pinnacle of contemporary art surveys. Ice Creamreveals the next generation of emerging artists as selected by a fresh group of curators-- Sergio Edelsztein, Jens Hoffmann, Lisette Lagnado, Midori Matsui, Shamim Momin, Pi Li, Gloria Sutton, Olesya Turkina, Philippe Vergne, and The Wrong Gallery.

In "After the Revolution", the authors concluded that 'The battles may not all have been won . . . but barricades are gradually coming down, and work proceeds on all fronts in glorious profusion.' Now, with "The Reckoning", authors Heartney, Posner, Princenthal, and Scott bring into focus the accomplishments of 24 acclaimed international women artists born since 1960 who have benefited from the groundbreaking efforts of their predecessors. The book is organised in four thematic sections: 'Bad Girls' profiles artists whose work represents an assault on conventional notions of gender and racial difference. 'History Lessons' offers reflections on the self in the context of history and globalization. 'Spellbound' focuses on women's embrace of the irrational, subjective, and surreal, while 'Domestic Disturbances' takes on women's conflicted relationship to home, family, and security. Written in lively prose and fully illustrated throughout, this book gives an informed account of the wonderful diversity of recent contemporary art by women.

Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 (Fourth Edition) is a unique introduction to eight important themes that have recurred in art over the past few decades-identity, the body, time, memory, place, language, science, and spirituality. Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel provide an intriguing and accessible guide that will stimulate students, gallery goers, and other readers to think actively and critically about visual art from 1980 to the present. The opening chapter provides a concise overview of the period, analyzing how key changes (the rise of digital media, a growing awareness of globalization, the influence of theory, the use of the Internet, and interactions with everyday culture) have resulted in an art world with dramatically expanded boundaries. Each of the remaining eight chapters features an introduction to one theme; a brief look at historical precedents and influences; a detailed analysis of how contemporary artists have responded to and embodied aspects of the theme in specific works; and two in-depth and fascinating profiles of artists who have extensively explored aspects of the theme in his or her work.Generously illustrated in full color, Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 (Fourth Edition) covers an international array of artists working with an immense variety of materials, techniques, subjects, and forms. A timeline that situates contemporary art in the context of major events in world history, art, and popular culture enhances the engaging, readable text.

First published in 1996, this irreplaceable resource has now been updated, revised, and expanded by Kristine Stiles to represent thirty countries and more than one hundred new artists. Stiles has added forty images and a diverse roster of artists, including many who have emerged since the 1980s, such as Julie Mehretu, Carrie Mae Weems, Damien Hirst, Shirin Neshat, Cai Guo-Qian, Olafur Eliasson, Matthew Barney, and Takashi Murakami. The writings, which as before take the form of artists' statements, interviews, and essays, make vivid each artist's aesthetic approach and capture the flavor and intent of his or her work. The internationalism evident in this revised edition reflects the growing interest in the vitality of contemporary art throughout the world from the U.S. and Europe to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Australia.

To Life! Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet documents the burgeoning eco art movement from A to Z, presenting a panorama of artistic responses to environmental concerns, from Ant Farm’s anti-consumer antics in the 1970s to Marina Zurkow’s 2007 animation that anticipates the havoc wreaked upon the planet by global warming. This text is the first international survey of twentieth and twenty-first-century artists who are transforming the global challenges facing humanity and the Earth’s diverse living systems. Their pioneering explorations are situated at today’s cultural, scientific, economic, spiritual, and ethical frontiers. The text guides students of art, design, environmental studies, and interdisciplinary studies to integrate environmental awareness, responsibility, and activism into their professional and personal lives.