Chronicle Books 2004
256 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0811841030
24.5 x 28.5 cm English text. Hardcover
The most thorough account of the legendary Push Pin Studios, told through its signature publication, The Push Pin Graphic: A Quarter Century of Innovative Design and Illustration is a visually arresting showcase of the wry, irreverent, and merrily experimental publication. Part design and illustration studio, part pop culture think tank, Push Pin Studios had phenomenal sway over visual culture from the mid 1950s through the 1980s. Its founding principals Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser, created a graphic design laboratory that mined the traditions of the past to presage the eclecticism of the future, and took design in a bold, new direction. Pushing the limits of visual tradition, the studio developed a visual code for its time, and altered the course of graphic style and design practice for subsequent generations. Push Pin's place in design history is nowhere better revealed than in its signature periodical The Push Pin Graphic - a stylish, brash, free form showcase for the studio's talents and personal interests. For The Push Pin Graphic: A Quarter Century of Innovative Design and Illustration, Chwast and Glaser join design historian Steven Heller and designer Martin Venezky to cull the best of the studio's quirky, celebrated periodical. Featuring the covers and select spreads from each of the eighty-six issues of the publication, The Push Pin Graphic is the first comprehensive account of this design milestone - a unique glimpse into the creative output of a firm that continues to inspire designers to this day.
RRP £35.00
Special offer! Price: £13.95
Whitechapel Gallery 2000
176 pages B&W reproductions ISBN 0854881220
21 x 26.5 cm English text. Softcover
Taking its title from Harold Szeemann’s landmark show, Live in Your Head re-examines the artistic legacy of the 1960s and 70s and attempts to clarify the points of origin of a formative generation in British art.
An essential guide to the period, being the first since the 1970s to focus specifically on conceptual and experimental art in Britain. Featuring a double-page spread on each of the 64 participating artists, this catalogue also includes artists’ statements and portraits, reproductions of numerous works, biographic and bibliographical information. In addition, Live in Your Head includes a lively and illustrated chronology of social and cultural events between 1965-1975, and essays by Michael Archer, Rosetta Brooks and co-curators, Andrea Tarsia and Clive Phillpot.
Was £24.95 Price: £10.99
Ellipsis 2000
240 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 1899858806
18.5 x 21.5 cm English text.Hardcover
"Compston was a pivotal personality in the Shoreditch art scene of the mid 1990s, until his death at the age of 25 in March 1996. An enigmatic figure, his great creative energy was the driving force of his life, art his weapon. His lasting success has been to bring together a group of artists now at the forefront of the London art scene. Yet Compston¹s attempt to establish a 'capitalism of the avant garde' foundered, in part due to an inability to recognise the implications of his ambitious schemes. In 1992 Joshua Compston set up Factual Nonsense, a 'gallery and project centre' in Charlotte Road in Hoxton, in a Victorian furniture factory. From this space he organised a whirlwind seven openings in six months and began to feel the existence of a community, giving him the confidence he needed to organise 'Fete worse than Death', the first of many local events. This took place in the streets around Factual Nonsense, a mile away from Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin¹s 'The Shop' in Bethnal Green.
The list of participants reads like a Who¹s Who of young British art Tracey Emin, Gillian Wearing, Matt Collishaw, Gavin Turk, Gilbert & George, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume, Damian Hurst, Angus Fairhurst, Jessica Voorsanger, Sue
Webster and Tim Noble, Molly Nyman, Hannah Greenway."
From 'No FuN Without U: The Art of Factual Nonsense
by Jeremy Cooper
Was £35.00 Price: £10.00
336 pages Colour reproductions. ISBN 9780811844239
21.5 x 30 cm English text. Hardcover
Mucking up the pages of The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Blab, and more, Gary Baseman has populated the finest publications with his particular brand of illustration. With Dumb Luck, Chronicle proudly presents the first complete collection of ten years of work that Baseman himself describes as "that muddy spot where the line between genius and stupidity has been smudged beyond recognition." His world is populated not only with freaky folks, but also with maimed bunnies, weird wiener dogs, and anthropomorphic ice-cream cones that yeam and burn just like we do. Dark and dopey, hockey and heartbreaking, Baseman's genius lies in capturing those ridiculous and oftentimes appalling aspects of being human.
Was £27.00 Price: £11.99
Oxford University Press 2004
230 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0192801651
12.5 x 18 cm English text. Hardcover
Tunnels and sculptures made from human hair; photos of rats running through drains, sharks in formaldehyde - is this what art is about today? This is a controversial and fascinating attempt to define what is 'contemporary' about contemporary art, and the dramatic changes that have taken place in the last twenty years. Stallabrass reveals the growing inclusiveness of the contemporary art world, pointing to the greatly increased visibility for women and non-western artists, and the blurring of boundaries between art and other areas of culture. Does this modernization threaten to undermine the world of art as we know it, or is this just another example of a global market demanding a certain product? And where are the artists in all this?
WAS £12.99 Price: £5.99
Thames and Hudson 2005
256 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0500342059
20 x 24 cm English text. Harcdover
David Adjaye is the most exciting and accomplished young architect to emerge on the international scene in many years. The combination of material inventiveness, creative clients and modest budgets has produced a refined and comprehensive body of design work - and Adjaye is only 38 years old. He was born in Tanzania the son of a diplomat, and his wide-ranging education, both cultural and formal, has allowed him to respond deftly to wildly differing projects, from gritty urban contexts - such as London's Whitechapel multimedia centre and an extension for New York's New Museum - to elegant pastoral retreats in more natural surroundings. The innovation in Adjaye's career is exemplified in his residential works for a wide variety of clients and budgets. Perhaps his best-known projects are the houses he has created in a range of settings for such creatives as artist Chris Ofili and actor Ewan McGregor. The winner of a competition to design a new building for the Nobel Foundation and the architect of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Adjaye is currently enjoying enormous worldwide attention in both specialist and journalistic presses. This publication, his first monograph and an object of beauty in its own right, is a timely celebration of a young talent at the height - and yet at the beginning - of his creative powers.
RRP £29.95
Special offer! Price: £13.99
Phaidon 1999
500 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0714838454
25 x 29 cm English text. Hardcover
On its publication in 1999, The American Art Book immediately filled a critical gap in accessible yet authoritative surveys on American artists of the past three centuries. With an A to Z format that departs from the usual emphasis on genres and time periods, it offers an unparalleled overview of the most influential and best-loved American artists from Colonial times to the present. This book is now available in a new mini version that presents the compelling content of the original edition in a highly portable format that is both useful as a serious work of reference and fun for on-the-go art enthusiasts.
The American Art Book presents 500 artists and their works, ranging from Puritan portraits to the luminous paintings of the Hudson River School and the American Impressionists, to the videos and digital works of today’s most intriguing conceptual artists. Its alphabetical format generates intriguing juxtapositions: Jenny Holzer faces Winslow Homer, and Richard Avedon sits next to Milton Avery, encouraging readers to contemplate the connections between art and American history and popular culture. Each artist is represented by a full-page colour plate of a representative work, and an informative, engaging text which places the artist and the image in the context of contemporary movements and preceding traditions. The book includes an easy-to-use glossary of artistic terms and movements, and a directory of museums and public collections across the United States and around the world with important holdings in American art. With its original format and fresh selections of artwork, this volume offers a stimulating way to approach this rich, varied subject.
Was £29.95 Price: £17.99
MoCA, Los Angeles 2004
280 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 0520244095
23.5 x 28 cm English text. Hardcover
This fully illustrated 248-page book accompanies the first comprehensive American retrospective of Robert Smithson's (1938-1973) complex and highly influential career. Straddling the movements of minimalism and land art, Smithson, who died in a plane crash at the age of 35, had a profound impact on the cultural landscape that resonates to this day. Robert Smithson presents essays by top Smithson scholars alongside both archival imagery and specially commissioned photography of the artist's works; it considers the interrelationship of Smithson's complete artistic output, from the earliest figurative work up to his famed earthworks. Smithson's revolutionary ideas positioned art as existing beyond the walls of the museum in media such as writing and film, and even in the landscape itself. This volume and the exhibition it accompanies explore Smithson's work within the context of the artistic climate of the late 1960s as well as ensuing decades. Perhaps most renowned as the creator of Spiral Jetty (1970), a fifteen-hundred-foot rock coil dramatically situated in the Great Salt Lake, Smithson also broke new ground with his films, photographs, writing, drawings, and collages. Eugenie Tsai provides a curatorial overview of the exhibition, which includes early writings, drawings, and other work with religious, erotic, and pop culture motifs that deepen our understanding of Smithson's diverse practice. Other contributions to the volume are a previously unpublished interview with Smithson by Moira Roth; a substantive historical and critical essay by Thomas Crow; an essay by MOCA curator Cornelia Butler discussing Smithson's lineage and his influence on contemporary artists; and a series of texts focusing on key works from Smithson's oeuvre, including Incidents of Mirror Travel in the Yucatan by Suzaan Boettger, Enantiomorphic Chambers by Ann Reynolds, Airport Terminal Project by Mark Linder, Spiral Jetty by Jennifer Roberts, Heap of Language by Richard Sieburth, Proposal for Monument at Antartica [sic] by Robert Sobiesek. The book also features the complete Library List - a posthumously compiled list of publications in Smithson's personal library - with an introduction by Alexander Alberro, as well as an exhibition checklist and annotated exhibition chronology
RRP £32.95
Special offer! Price: £18.95
Black Dog Publishing 2000
112 pages Colour and B&W reproductions. ISBN 1901033422
21 x 27.5 cm English text. Softcover
BANK have been a critical force in the British art scene since their first show in 1991, representing the consistently visible and genuinely alternative strategy to the over hyped yBa, throughout the decade. The book charts the progress of BANK through a series of 27 unique shows united only by attitude and energy: an adrenaline-driven journey through their obsession with the mechanics, politics and etiquette of making art, and of making art visible. Key concepts in their work include exhibition as installation art, curation as art practice, art as collective practice and curation as appropriation.
RRP £16.95
Special offer! Price: £4.99
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation 2004
208 pages Duotone reproductions. ISBN 0892073136
26 x 28.5 cm English text. Hardcover
Robert Mapplethorpe never concealed his interest in and passion for the human figure in all its sensuous manifestations. His celebrated black-and-white photographs from the later part of the 20th century revealed in the athletic body, the nude body, the exquisite body. This groundbreaking exhibition and its accompanying catalogue explore the relationship between the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe and Classical art, in particular through Mannerist engravings and sculpture. The pairing of works is among the first collaborations between the Guggenheim Museum and the State Hermitage Museum. Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition exemplifies the artist's rapport with the elongated and elaborate forms of Mannerist art, namely the study of the human body, highlighting the underlying classicism evident in the clarity and potency of all Mapplethorpe’s subjects as well as their explosive energy. The classical ideal was not only a poetic inspiration but also an ethical model and, in his creative quest, Mapplethorpe described photography as "the perfect way to make a sculpture." The potency of love and Eros, which electrifies many of the Mannerist works shown here, is articulated again in the work of Mapplethorpe. The vital anatomical forms of his portraits of models such as bodybuilder Lisa Lyons and the statuesque Derrick Cross find their roots in Antiquity, and here they find their mirror in the likes of Jan Harmensz Muller’s Sabine woman and Jacob Matham’s Apollo. The Hermitage’s superb collection of Italian painting and sculpture amply illustrates the course of Italian art from the Middle Ages to the 18th century and includes an impressive collection of Mannerist works. Approximately 50 Mannerist works from the Hermitage collection are paired with the same number of works by Mapplethorpe from the Guggenheim’s collection, are several Italian, French and Flemish bronze sculptures from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Essays by the curators are included: Addressing the return to Classicism at the end of the 16th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Arkady Ippolitov discusses the obsession that defines both the work of Mapplethorpe and the Mannerists. Germano Celant's text further explores the influence this 16th-century style had on Mapplethorpe’s artistic practice and sensibility, illuminating the artist’s interest in the study of pure form as well as allegorical imagery. Articulated in both word and image, the catalogue also traces Mapplethorpe’s complex relationship to the history of art more broadly, ranging from Neoclassicism to Surrealism, with comparisons to the work of Jacques-Louis David, Antonio Canova, Auguste Rodin, Man Ray, and more. A third essay by Guggenheim Curator Jennifer Blessing traces allegorical representations in 19th- and 20th-century photography, with references to Mapplethorpe’s oeuvre. Essays by Germano Celant, Jennifer Blessing, and Arkady Ippolitov.
Was £29.95 Price: £16.99
