art contemporary

Hardcover. New York, Rizzoli International Publications, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 352 pages. Hardcover. Extensive color photographs throughout. Silver gilt titles on spine. Reminder mark to bottom edge, otherwise clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. This exceptional album features over two hundred images by the most important modern and contemporary photographers, including David Bailey, Henry Clarke, Patrick Demarchelier, Karl Lagerfeld, Annie Leibovitz, Helmut Newton, David Sims, Bert Stern, Juergen Teller, Mario Testino, and Bruce Weber. This book features images from iconic Vuitton advertising campaigns from the 20s through to the present, with magazine editorials from publications including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Interview, and others.

Hardcover. New York, Assouline, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 144 pages, color photographs. In publisher's shrinkwrap. A beautiful collection of the work of contemporary artist Louise Lawler, who, for the past twenty years, has photographed art as it is situated and displayed, whether in private homes, public buildings, or museums, galleries, and auction houses. From an exhibition of Degas's materpieces to an Andy Warhol installation, this book invites you to discover Lawler's unique vision of modern and contemporary art. Lawler is fascinated by what "happens" to the art object after it leaves the artist's studio - where it goes, how it's displayed, how it's valued, what it means. In a Lawler photograph taken in a private home, the furnishings and objects surrounding the art are given as much attention as the art; in a museum, the view out of a window next to the artwork; in an auction house, the label identifying the artwork. Her striking and provocative photographs show us how the environment that surrounds it affects our perception of art and how it in turn affects all aspects of that environment.

Hardcover. Insight Editions, 1st, 2008, Book: N, Hardcover, 14 pages. From the demented pages of MAD Magazine comes a depraved and uproarious look at contemporary politics' juiciest scandals. Revel in the salacious animation of our fearless leaders' most embarrassing moments. Hunt with Dick Cheney, learn how to spell with Dan Quayle, take speech lessons with George W. Bush, and find out why Alfred E. Neuman is running for President...again and again and again. Mad About Politics: A Pop-Up Book spares nothing at the expense of our elected officials, highlighting the unbearable truth about who's in charge. With precise pop-up ingenuity American power players have never looked so enjoyably foolish. If you're wondering who to vote for on Election Day let MAD About Politics give you some pointers. Suitable for the sardonic this tome of asinine political parody will have anyone with a sense of humor rolling in the aisles.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 398 pages. Alex Stewart's excellent book tackles a subject which has been hidden in plain sight: the central importance of the big band, not as dead artifact of the Swing Era, but as a seminal and nurturing force through the entire history of jazz down to our own time. Through an attractive blend of ethnographic participant-observation, historiography, and formal analysis, Stewart puts the big band at the center of jazz, arguing for its indispensability as a locus of instrumental training and rehearsal, composition, legitimation, and professional networking. Informed and enriched by his own experience as a performer in those worlds. Light crease to front cover, clean copy.

Hardcover. US, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 247 pages, illustrations in color and b&w. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Lucian Freud, perhaps the world's leading portrait painter, spent seven months painting a portrait of the art critic Martin Gayford. Gayford describes the process chronologically, from the day he arrived for the first sitting through to his meeting with the couple who bought the finished painting, and he vividly conveys what it is like to be on the inside of the process of creating a work of art. As Freud completes his portrait of Gayford, so the art critic produces his own portrait of the artist, giving a rare insight into Freud's working practice. Through their wide-ranging conversations, the reader learns not only about Freud's choice of models, lighting, setting, pose, and colors, but also about his likes and dislikes, his encounters and experiences, and the ways in which he approaches his relationship with each portrait subject. Gayford records Freud's observations on the work of Michelangelo, Vermeer, Titian, Chardin, Goya, van Gogh, Mondrian, and his great contemporary Francis Bacon. The book is full of revealing anecdotes about the people Freud has met in the course of his long career, including Max Ernst, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, George Orwell, W. H. Auden, Greta Garbo, and his grandfather Sigmund Freud.

Hardcover. Munich/NY, Prestel Publishing, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 304 pages. There are hardly any artists who are as fascinating in terms of their work and personality as Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968). By declaring an everyday object a work of art and thereby revolutionizing art history as the inventor of the readymade, he became a forerunner for an entire generation of conceptual artists. To this day, the influence of his works and writings holds immense significance for contemporary art. In addition to the significant Duchamp collection at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the publication also addresses the unique archive of the Swiss artist and Duchamp researcher Serge Stauffer. The 100 questions, addressed by Stauffer to Duchamp in 1960 and shown here for the first time along with Duchamp's answers, provide not only essential insights into Duchamp's artistic thinking but also demonstrate Stauffer's extraordinary research work. Due to size and weight, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. New York, Flammarion, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 280 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean copy still in publishers shrink-wrap, however shrink wrap has been torn at bottom edge for a remainder mark to bottom edge of textblock and a small tear near top edge. The first fashion monograph on Marcel Rochas, a key twentieth-century women's wear designer, written by his daughter. Fashion designer Marcel Rochas (1902-1955) made considerable and enduring contributions to the world of fashion; his legacy has inspired a range of contemporary designers. In this lavish monograph, his daughter, Sophie Rochas, provides an intimate first-hand account that includes her childhood memories and rare access to the family's private archives. She provides insight into her father's talents as an innovative designer, communications genius, revered socialite, attentive father, and demanding husband, as well as the style influences that inspired him.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Hardcover, pictorial boards, Photographer Marcia Resnick (b. 1950) earned recognition as part of the legendary Downtown New York art scene of the 1970s and 1980s. Her portraits of the era's major cultural figures, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Belushi, and Susan Sontag, have contributed to the scene's mythic status. Against this backdrop, Resnick also produced a significant body of work that engaged with the history of art, took a humorous approach to conceptual art and feminism, and proposed new ideas for what photography could be. Spanning the artist's career, this richly illustrated volume explores Resnick's early influences and education at Cooper Union and CalArts; discusses her series and photobooks such as See and Re-visions; and situates the artist's work within the history of contemporary art. An afterword by Laurie Anderson speaks to the very personal vision of Resnick's photography. Still in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Hardcover. Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in a white cardboard slipcase, 352 pages. One of the best-known Japanese artists of the international scene, Mariko Mori, born in 1967 in Tokyo, envisions fantastical worlds and beings in spectacular photographs and videos--frequently casting herself amid these scenarios as a Bjork-esque avatar in biomorphic and technological symbiosis. Mori studied fashion design in Tokyo, worked briefly as a model and later studied fine art in England, and this early education is visible in her elaborately produced photographs, videos and sculpture that are as reminiscent of Hollywood as they are of contemporary art. Her recent work involves exotic landscapes, computer-generated images and choreographed performances for which the artist designs her own costumes and plays the central characters.This extraordinary and substantial publication offers a retrospective of Mori's entire oeuvre, and is the first to present the complete Beginning of the End: Past, Present, Future, a photographic cycle produced over a period of 11 years, in which Mori presents herself as a time traveler in a plexiglass capsule at significant symbolic locations, from Giza to New York to Shanghai.

Hardcover. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 289 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with minor wear to dust jacket edges. Klein surveys the history of Matisse's portraits and their sitters, with attention to the details of the financial transaction or other agreement that caused the painting to be made. An analysis of Matisse's self-portraits is also provided. Klein works chronologically, detailing the artist's developing style, but remains attached to his biography as well, with many quotes about Matisse or his works from contemporary sources. This volume is well illustrated with b&w and color plates.

Hardcover. NY, Guggenheim Museum, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Hardcover First Edition SIGNED on title page by Matthew Barney. With essays by Nancy Spector and Neville Wakefield. Text in English. Published on the occasion of the exhibitions in Cologne, Paris and New York, 2002 - 2003. Cremaster Cycle is the definitive guide for 'The Cremaster Cycle', the Matthew Barney's epic five-part film series. The book is filled with hundreds of Barney's fantastical images which use the biological model of sexual difference as its conceptual departure point. Three essays by Barney experts articulate the series' diverse themes and explore the artist's innovative aesthetic vocabulary; interviews with key collaborators, a composer, costume designer, make-up artist, technicians and actors reveal his working process. A trailblazing essay by Curator of Contemporary Art Nancy Spector charts Barney's work from the 1990s to the present and provides critical insights into the aesthetic vocabulary of his five 'Cremaster' films, while Neville Wakefield's 'Cremaster Glossary' illuminates the films most far-flung references with citations from sources as diverse as Freud's psychoanalytic studies, Mormon law and lore, and hardcore music fanzines. In addition to stills from the five films, the book features related sculptures, photographs, drawings and storyboards. Barney himself collaborated on all aspects of this extraordinary publication, including the selection of over 700 images, most of them never before published. 530 pages. 32,2x23,5x6,2 cm Hardcover with plastic dust jacket with green and black cover title . Clean, as new. DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Australia, T & G Publishing, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 296 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. Color photographs throughout. Max Pam is one of Australia's most important contemporary photographers. His success is based on a body of provocative and compellingly intimate images of people from all over the world. This substantial publication with notes gives an emotional, sometimes lyrical, provocative, always intimate portrait of the artist as much as the people and places he has witnessed.

Hardcover. NY, McSweeney's, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 263 pages. Guest-editing Dave Eggers's literary journal, Jimmy Corrigan cartoonist Ware has assembled a beautifully designed anthology of contemporary art comics, with a few vintage treats thrown in, including an excerpt from "Obadiah Oldbuck"--an 1842 publication that's arguably the first American comic book--and a series of very rough sketches by Charles Schulz. A few pieces have recently been published elsewhere (including excerpts from Mark Beyer's loopy, design-heavy Amy and Jordan and Joe Sacco's comics essay on Sarajevo, The Fixer), but the book is a superb introduction to the best American cartoonists working today. Some of them, including Richard McGuire and Mark Newgarden, haven't published much since the heyday of RAW in the late 1980s and early '90s; others, like Lynda Barry and Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, are prolific creators at the top of their form. As Ira Glass points out in his introduction, Ware seems to believe cartooning gets no respect at all, and his McSweeney's is a passionate defense of the medium. Ware has included work by artists with an impressively varied range of visual styles and narrative techniques. And Ware's own contribution is brilliant: the book's cover unfolds into a gigantic "comics supplement" of his bitter little cartoons, with extra, tiny comic books by Ron Rege Jr. and John Porcellino tucked into its folds.

Hardcover. Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 224 pages. The years from 1945 to 1985 are often identified as the moment in which Los Angeles established itself as a leading cultural center in America. However, this conception of its history entirely excludes the very controversial presence of the Mexican muralists, as well as the work of other artists who were influenced by them and responded to their ideas. It is likewise often thought that Los Angeles' Mexican culture arrived full formed from outside it, when in fact that culture originated within the city--it was in Los Angeles and Southern California that Jose Vasconcelos, Ricardo Flores Magon, Octavio Paz and other intellectuals developed the iconography of modern Mexico, while Anglos and Chicanos were developing their own. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Clemente Orozco, Alfredo Ramos Martinez and Jean Charlot made some of their earliest murals in Los Angeles, influencing the Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicano artists of the 1970s and 80s. MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985 focuses on the construction of different notions of "Mexicanidad" within modernist and contemporary art created in Los Angeles. From the Olvera Street mural by Siqueiros, to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and the Disney silver-screen productions, to the revitalization of the street mural, up to the performance art of Guillermo Gomez-Pena, MEX/LA explores the bi-national and hybrid forms of artistic practices, popular culture and mass-media arts that have so uniquely shaped Los Angeles' cultural panorama.

Softcover. Cincinnati OH, Contemporary Art Center, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 102 pages, b&w and color illustrations. Very light edge wear, else a clean, tight copy. Publication documenting renowned post-modern architect Michael Graves and the summer pavilion for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Written by architecture historian and critic Jayne Merkel, the book begins with a history of other outdoor music structures and the decision to build on the river site. Merkel discusses Graves' development as a leader of the post-modern movement and draws upon his sources in ancient amphitheaters, as well as his other structures in Portland, Louisville, and San Juan Capistrano. The book also includes an in-depth interview with Graves and a chapter on the "state of the art" acoustics and the collaboration between architect Graves and artist Ted Schmidt which resulted in the unique cut-out sculptures adorning the roof line of Riverbend.

Softcover. Jackson MS, University Press of Mississippi, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 312 pages. In this collection of more than a dozen interviews one of the giants of American comic strips talks about his life and his craft. The years spanning 1937 to 1986, when the interviews were conducted, embrace almost all of Caniff's career as he was producing the legendary Terry and the Pirates and his post-World War II masterpiece Steve Canyon. In long talks with such comics luminaries as Jules Feiffer and Will Eisner, Caniff (1907-1988) discusses his signature chiaroscuro style, his passion for realism in every detail, and his relationships with such other cartooning greats as Al Capp (Li'l Abner), Noel Sickles (Scorchy Smith), and Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) As Caniff speaks earnestly about his art, his techniques, and his intentions, he discloses his inspirations. He based his characters on real persons and his material on contemporary politics and military issues. He gives candid opinions about the effects of the marketplace, business, and sales upon his art. "I would have created Blondie if I'd known that I could have sold it, you can be damn sure." He notes that the cause for terminating his association with Terry and the Pirates and his creation of Steve Canyon was neither lack of interest nor censorship but the opportunity to exert full creative control over his work.

Softcover. Site Santa Fe, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 75 pages. Color and b&w illustrations. Mona Hatoum is recognized as one of the most significant figures in contemporary art. Her work addresses political conflict, the physical body, and feminist issues in a surrealistic style and with a minimalist aesthetic. This thought-provoking artist uses diverse methods and works in various media, including installation, video, sculpture, and performance art. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY/Munich, Hirmer Publishers, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards, 208 pages, color illustrations. Monuments and Myths is the first publication to trace the intersecting work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) and Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), the leading American sculptors of the Gilded Age. Featuring provocative essays, stunning photographs, and an in-depth illustrated chronology, the catalog brings a contemporary perspective to sculptures that have defined and defied notions of American identity. This critical look at the artists' public and private works considers evolving ideas about race and representation, Indigeneity, civic space, memory, and American history. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Guggenheim Museum, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 228 pages. During the late 1960s and 70s, a paradigm shift occurred within visual culture: photography and the moving image were absorbed into critical art practices. In particular, these mediums were used to record ephemeral or performative events and to render visible conceptual systems or to question the supposed objectivity of representation itself. This volume focuses primarily on artworks from the last decade and proposes that the extensive use of reproducible mediums in today's art has its roots in an earlier formative period. By the end of the 70s, many artists turned to photography as a vehicle through which to critique photographic representation and to subvert an art system premised on the notion of the original. While this practice came to define much of the 80s postmodern art, its legacy for the 90s was essentially the license to indulge in photographic fantasy, image construction, and cinematic narrative. Artists working today freely manipulate their representations of the empirical world or invent entirely new cosmologies. They process their subject matter through conceptual systems or use digital processes to alter their images. Some directly intervene in the environment, subtly shifting components of the found world and establishing their quiet presence in it; others fabricate entire architectural environments for the camera lens. This current state of the arts and its recent history are represented via more than 150 works by 55 artists, including Nam June Paik, Kara Walker, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Ana Mendieta, Bruce Nauman, Robert Smithson, Christian Boltanski, Sophie Calle, Fischli & Weiss, Ann Hamilton, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager, Cindy Sherman, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Elger Esser, others.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 336 pages. Despite the apparent incompatibility between Mozart's humanitarian and cosmopolitan outlook and Nazi ideology, the Third Reich tenaciously promoted the great composer's music to further the goals of the fascist regime. In this revelatory book, Erik Levi draws on period articles, diaries, speeches, and other archival materials to provide a new understanding of how the Nazis shamelessly manipulated Mozart for their own political advantage. The book also explores the continued Jewish veneration of the composer during this period while also highlighting some of the disturbing legacies of Mozart reception that resulted from Nazi appropriation of his work. Augmented by rare contemporary illustrations, Mozart and the Nazis will be widely welcomed by readers with interests in music, German history, Holocaust studies, propaganda, and politics in the twentieth century. Clean copy.

Softcover. Lanham MD, Scarecrow Press, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 331 pages, b&w illustrations. Like most ground-breaking art forms, contemporary creative music is rarely understood or accepted in its own time, and for those reasons, can largely go unheard. Music and the Creative Spirit: Innovators in Jazz, Improvisation, and the Avant Garde aims to give today's brightest music innovators due recognition and respect, celebrating their work and creativity. Through personal interviews, artists such as Pat Metheny, Regina Carter, Joshua Redman, Fred Anderson, Dave Holland, Bill Frisell, David Murray, and John Zorn-to name just a few-offer clear, frank discussions about music, creativity, work, society, culture, current events, and more. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Middlebury, VT, Middlebury College Museum of Art, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 111 pages. Softcover with paper wrappers. Color pictures throughout. In 1899 Gustav Klimt's painting Nuda Veritas shook up the Austrian public with what many deem to be the painter's most political exploration of the nude female body. Klimt's provocative allegory challenged viewers to consider their own beliefs about the relationship between the nude (female) body and contemporary morality; this "naked truth" was shocking. Transcending accusations of pornography, Klimt's work paved the way for artistic examinations of the nude body as the site through which questions of freedom, desire, beauty, nature, culture, power, and their antonyms could be represented and negotiated. Taking these ideas as one critical point of departure, this volume and the accompanying exhibition feature selected prints, drawings, and watercolors by Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Max Beckmann and Kathe Kollwitz, among others. It explores the conceptions of the human body and the manner of its visualization in the period leading up to and following the First World War, which changed the world's notions of flesh and blood forever.

Hardcover. London, Arthur L Humphreys, 2nd pr., 1900, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth with gilt staping. 261 pages including index. 261 pages. Written almost 80 years after the Emperor's death, the author attempts to bring together all the contemporary biographies and memoirs relating to the sojourn on St Helena. Mild foxing, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Hanover NH, UPNE, 1st, 2013, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: Near Fine, Hardcover, 132 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. In an age of specialization it is amazing to find an artist who has mastered the complexities of painting both the urban landscape and the Maine wilderness. Joel Babb achieves all this with absolute clarity, attention to detail, and meticulous realism. His vision is very much of our time a contemporary dialogue between nature and culture. This first-ever overview of Joel Babb s work offers a full complement of his major paintings created over the past several decades and a compelling account of Babb s evolution as an artist by art critic Carl Little.