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An introduction to the rich and diverse history of contemporary art over the past 60 years—from Modernism and minimalism to artists like Andy Warhol and Marina Abramović. Featuring lavish illustrations, this is the perfect gift for art history fans and anyone looking for a more inclusive perspective on ‘the old boys’ club.’ Encountering a work of contemporary art, a viewer might ask, "What does it mean?" "Is it really art?" and "Why does it cost so much?" These are not the questions that E. H. Gombrich set out to answer in his magisterial The Story of Art. Contemporary art seems totally unlike what came before it, departing from the road map supplied by Raphael, Dürer, Rembrandt, and other European masters. In The Story of Contemporary Art, Tony Godfrey picks up where Gombrich left off, offering a lively introduction to contemporary art that stretches from Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes to Marina Abramović’s performance art to today’s biennale circuit and million-dollar auctions. Godfrey, a curator and writer on contemporary art, chronicles important developments in pop art, minimalism, conceptualism, installation art, performance art, and beyond.
Photo‐realism, abstraction, portraiture, installation painting, neo‐expressionism and the Leipzig School are just some of the areas of this thriving medium explored in Painting Today. This comprehensive survey of contemporary painting presents the broad range of styles, materials and methods that comprise the artform, extending the tradition of Phaidon’s trail–blazing Art Today. Since the proclaimed "death of painting" in 1968, artists around the globe have nevertheless continued to expand its imagery, techniques and meanings, and in over 500 illustrations this book presents the work of both famous and emergent painters active around the world. Tony Godfrey presents a lively and authoritative view of the vast range of possibilities that painting today encompasses.
What is art? Must it be a unique, saleable luxury item? Can it be a concept that never takes material form? Or an idea for a work that can be repeated endlessly? Conceptual art favours an engagement with such questions. As the variety of illustrations in this book shows, it can take many forms: photographs, videos, posters, billboards, charts, plans and, especially, language itself. Tony Godfrey has written a clear, lively and informative account of this fascinating phenomenon. He traces the origins of Conceptual art to Marcel Duchamp and the anti-art gestures of Dada, and then establishes links to those artists who emerged in the 1960s and early 1970s, whose work forms the heart of this study: Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner, Victor Burgin, Marcel Broodthaers and many others.
Drawing has become the pre-eminent tool of both experimental and traditional art. The long-term definition of drawing as marks on paper is now seen as too limiting; it can range from the humblest doodle to monumental land lines. It is the medium used by artists as various as the painter John Walker, the land artist Richard Longt, the one-time minimalist Sol Le Witt and the young figure sculptor Antony Gormley. The last 20 years have witnessed the re-emergence of drawing and its importance to artists: the return to the life room sparked off by the preoccupation of R.B. Kitaj; the legacy of abstraction with the rich achievements of artists such as De Kooning, Twombly, Johns, Marden and Penck; the explosion of work that extended the meaning of drawing and the crucial influence of drawing on the new image painters of the 1980's, most notably Clemente, Paladino, Kiefer and Le Brun. "Drawing Today" is complemented by an assortment of attractive colour illustrations.
"This is the first book to cover the great resurgence that has occurred in Europe and America in the last ten years.'New Painting' now dominates contemporary art in its various guises: neo-expressionism, pattern-painting, 'anachronistic' painting 'post-graffitti'. This book clearly outlines the different aspects of this complex phenomenon: the return to national traditions, the re-cycling of advertising media, the various regional schools of Germany, the use of such unorthodox materials as antlers, straw, lead and even porridge mixed into the paint. The best known of these artists, Baselitz, Clemente, Fetting, Kiefer, Paladino, Salle, Schnabel and others, with their unique use of myth, style and materials are all examined in detail."--BOOK JACKET.
Global expansion and growing local economies have allowed the obsession with photography to sweep throughout the Asian continent. This volume documents the growing culture of photography as an art form in Asia, including often overlooked countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Singapore.
An in-depth look at the work and career of this fascinating artist, who is having a profound impact on contemporary painting Nigel Cooke is known for his complex paintings, which thematically explore the meeting point between creative labour, consciousness, art history, consumer culture, and nature. Primarily centred on meticulously painted, large-scale urban landscapes, which he calls 'hybrid theatrical spaces', Cooke's work employs disparate styles, often integrating trompe l'oeil miniature rocks and trees with backdrops of graffiti-marked buildings, to create scenes conveying obscure and macabre narratives. This survey of Cooke’s career to date explores the artist's style, approach, and impact on contemporary art and includes his very latest works, completed shortly before publication.
Industrial Enzymology provides state-of-the-art explanations of the uses of enzymes, with an emphasis on their practical applications in 22 industries.
"An international movement that developed along separate but parallel lines in Europe and America during the 1970s, Conceptual Art grew out of the legacy of Marcel Duchamp. Aiming to completely redefine the relationships between the production, definition and ownership of artworks and their various audiences, Conceptual artists rejected traditional formats, media and definitions. Instead they chose to address some of the key issues underlying modern life and art. Thse included the gulf between initial idea and finished work, the value assigned works of art in modern economies, the role of women and of feminine creativity in general, the politics of exhibition organization - in short, the ways art and the art world have been defined for centuries. Among the notable figures whose work is discussed in essays ranging from the evaluative to the theoretical are Judy Chicago, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Marcel Broodthaers and Mary Kelly. The influence of Conceptual Art continues to be felt today in the work of such controversial young artists as Rachel Whiteread and Damien Hirst." - back cover.