Book of the Day Posted Mar 03, 2019

Book of the Day > Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future

Book of the Day > Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future. Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications in conjunction with the exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. "When Swedish artist Hilma af Klint died in 1944 at the age of 81, she left behind more than 1,000 paintings and works on paper that she had kept largely private during her lifetime. Believing the world was not yet ready for her art, she stipulated that it should remain unseen for another twenty years. But only in recent decades has the public had a chance to reckon with af Klint's radically abstract painting practice—one which predates the work of Vasily Kandinsky and other artists widely considered trailblazers of modernist abstraction. Her boldly colorful works, many of them large-scale, reflect an ambitious, spiritually informed attempt to chart an invisible, totalizing world order through a synthesis of natural and geometric forms, textual elements, and esoteric symbolism. Accompanying the first major survey exhibition of the artist's work in the United States, Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future represents her groundbreaking painting series while expanding recent scholarship to present the fullest picture yet of her life and art. Essays explore the social, intellectual, and artistic context of af Klint's 1906 break with figuration and her subsequent development, placing her in the context of Swedish modernism and folk art traditions, contemporary scientific discoveries, and spiritualist and occult movements. A roundtable discussion among contemporary artists, scholars, and curators considers af Klint's sources and relevance to art in the 21st century. The volume also delves into her unrealized plans for a spiral-shaped temple in which to display her art—a wish that finds a fortuitous answer in the Guggenheim Museum's rotunda, the site of the exhibition." 
 
None Posted Mar 01, 2019

Book of the Day > True Print by Dafi Kühne

Book of the Day > True Print by Dafi Kühne. Published by Lars Müller Publishers. BOOK SIGNING SATURDAY 3/2/19 4PM-6PM. 

"Dafi Kühne is a Swiss designer who works with analogue and digital techniques to produce fresh and unique letterpress-printed posters. Using very different kinds of tools — from a computer to a pantograph — for his compositions, he pushes the boundaries of design. Never afraid of getting his hands dirty in his creative workshop, Dafi Kühne embraces the labor involved in the entire process of creating a poster, from initial idea to finished product. Fusing modern means with the century-old tradition of letterpress, he forms a new vocabulary for how to communicate through type and form in a truly contemporary way. Never retro, his work is a clever response to the search for new possibilities of graphic expression: true print."

Book of the Day Posted Feb 28, 2019

Book of the Day > Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists

Book of the Day > Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists. Published by Oxford University Press. "Creating Their Own Image marks the first comprehensive history of African-American women artists, from slavery to the present day. Using an analysis of stereotypes of Africans and African-Americans in western art and culture as a springboard, Lisa E. Farrington here richly details hundreds of important works--many of which deliberately challenge these same identity myths, of the carnal Jezebel, the asexual Mammy, the imperious Matriarch--in crafting a portrait of artistic creativity unprecedented in its scope and ambition. In these lavishly illustrated pages, some of which feature images never before published, we learn of the efforts of Elizabeth Keckley, fashion designer to Mary Todd Lincoln; the acclaimed sculptor Edmonia Lewis, internationally renowned for her neoclassical works in marble; and the artist Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and her innovative teaching techniques. We meet Laura Wheeler Waring who portrayed women of color as members of a socially elite class in stark contrast to the prevalent images of compliant maids, impoverished malcontents, and exotics "others" that proliferated in the inter-war period. We read of the painter Barbara Jones-Hogu's collaboration on the famed Wall of Respect, even as we view a rare photograph of Hogu in the process of painting the mural. Farrington expertly guides us through the fertile period of the Harlem Renaissance and the "New Negro Movement," which produced an entirely new crop of artists who consciously imbued their work with a social and political agenda, and through the tumultuous, explosive years of the civil rights movement. Drawing on revealing interviews with numerous contemporary artists, such as Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Nanette Carter, Camille Billops, Xenobia Bailey, and many others, the second half of Creating Their Own Image probes more recent stylistic developments, such as abstraction, conceptualism, and post-modernism, never losing sight of the struggles and challenges that have consistently influenced this body of work. Weaving together an expansive collection of artists, styles, and periods, Farrington argues that for centuries African-American women artists have created an alternative vision of how women of color can, are, and might be represented in American culture. From utilitarian objects such as quilts and baskets to a wide array of fine arts, Creating Their Own Imageserves up compelling evidence of the fundamental human need to convey one's life, one's emotions, one's experiences, on a canvas of one's own making."
None Posted Feb 26, 2019

Book of the Day > Harlem's Little Blackbird; The Story of Florence Mills

Book of the Day > Harlem's Little Blackbird; The Story of Florence Mills.  Published by Random House.
"From Caldecott Honor winner Christian Robinson and acclaimed author Renee Watson, comes the inspiring true story of Florence Mills
Born to parents who were both former slaves, Florence Mills knew at an early age that she loved to sing, and that her sweet, bird-like voice, resonated with those who heard her. Performing catapulted her all the way to the stages of 1920s Broadway where she inspired everyone from songwriters to playwrights. Yet with all her success, she knew firsthand how prejudice shaped her world and the world of those around her. As a result, Florence chose to support and promote works by her fellow black performers while heralding a call for their civil rights. Featuring a moving text and colorful illustrations, Harlem’s Little Blackbird is a timeless story about justice, equality, and the importance of following one’s heart and dreams."
Book of the Day Posted Feb 24, 2019

Book of the Day > Adam Pendleton: Black Dada Reader

Book of the Day > Adam Pendleton: Black Dada Reader. Published by Koenig Books. "Now available in paperback, Black Dada Reader is a collection of texts and documents that elucidates 'Black Dada,' a term that acclaimed New York–based artist Adam Pendleton (born 1984) uses to define his artistic output. The Reader brings a diverse range of cultural figures into a shared conceptual space, including Hugo Ball, W.E.B. Du Bois, Stokely Carmichael, LeRoi Jones, Sun Ra, Adrian Piper, Joan Retallack, Harryette Mullen, Ron Silliman and Gertrude Stein, as well as artists from different generations such as Ad Reinhardt, Joan Jonas, William Pope.L, Thomas Hirschhorn and Stan Douglas. It also includes essays on the concept of Black Dada and its historical implications from curators and critics, including Adrienne Edwards (Walker Arts Center/Performa), Laura Hoptman (MoMA), Tom McDonough (Binghamton), Jenny Schlenzka (PS122) and Susan Thompson (Guggenheim)."
Book of the Day Posted Feb 23, 2019

Book of the Day > I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100

Book of the Day > I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100. Published by Rizzoli. "One hundred years after the Harlem Renaissance emerged as a creative force at the close of World War I, I Too Sing America offers a major survey on the visual art and material culture of the groundbreaking movement. It illuminates multiple facets of the era--the lives of its people, the art, the literature, the music, and the social history--through paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, and contemporary documents and ephemera. The lushly illustrated chronicle includes work by cherished artists such as Romare Bearden, Allan Rohan Crite, Palmer Hayden, William Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley, and James Van Der Zee. The project is the culmination of decades of reflection, research, and scholarship by Wil Haygood, acclaimed biographer and preeminent historian on Harlem and its cultural roots. In thematic chapters, the author captures the range and breadth of the Harlem Reniassance, a sweeping movement which saw an astonishing array of black writers and artists and musicians gather over a period of a few intense years, expanding far beyond its roots in Harlem to unleashing a myriad of talents upon the nation. The book is published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art."
None Posted Feb 22, 2019

Book of the Day > Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman

Book of the Day > Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman. Published by Giles, Ltd.
"This is a timely, visual exploration of the life, art, and lasting legacy of Augusta Savage (1892–1962). An outstanding sculptor associated with the intellectual and cultural awakening known as the Harlem Renaissance, Savage overcame poverty, racism, and sexual discrimination in pursuit of her goals. Creating new visions of Black identity in her work, she was also an activist, campaigning for equal rights for African Americans in the arts. Born just outside Jacksonville, Florida, Savage left the South to pursue new opportunities. She took classes at Cooper Union School of Art in New York City, and in 1929 won an award to study in Paris. Returning to Harlem, she opened a studio, and also offered art classes. She was one of the founders of the Harlem Artists Guild and was made the first director of the federally supported Harlem Community Art Center. Through her leadership there, Savage had an impact on two generations of Harlem artists, among them Charles Alston, William Artis, Romare Bearden, Robert Blackburn, Selma Burke, Ernest Crichlow, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Marvin Smith, and Morgan Smith—all represented in this book.This groundbreaking volume features illustrations of more than forty works by Savage, her students, and her contemporaries, archival letters and rarely seen photographs, as well as essays by three outstanding scholars and an extensive bibliography."
Book of the Day Posted Feb 21, 2019

Book of the Day > Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement

Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement. Published in conjunction with an exhibit at the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. "Few American artists today are creating work as striking and politically charged as Carrie Mae Weems. Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement explores a unique body of aesthetically powerful work that is particularly relevant in the context of current debates about social justice. In addition to acclaimed series by Weems dealing with historical archives, this catalogue for an exhibition at the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College also features new photographs that address police violence. Strategies of Engagement highlights Weems’s relationship with her viewers, which is at once pedagogical, confrontational, and collaborative, thus encouraging ongoing debates about power and resistance, history and identity. Intellectually and ethically challenging, the works in Strategies of Engagement are also imbued with melancholy seriousness, playful wit, and unexpected flashes of hope, grace, and beauty. Essays by a diverse collection of scholars analyze Weems’s use of performance and masquerade to reanimate lost histories and others focus on her transformative interventions in documentary photography and archives. The volume is rounded out by a panel discussion with Weems about the relationship between the arts and social change."
Book of the Day Posted Feb 20, 2019

Book of the Day > The Time Is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side, 1960-1980

Book of the Day > The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side, 1960-1980. Published by University of Chicago Press. "During the 1960s and 70s, Chicago was shaped by art and ideas produced and circulated on its South Side. Defined by the city’s social, political, and geographic divides and by the energies of its multiple overlapping art scenes, this vibrant moment of creative expression produced a cultural legacy whose impact continues to unfold nationally and internationally. The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960-1980, published in tandem with an exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art, examines this cultural moment—brimming with change and conflict—and the figures who defined it. Focusing primarily on African American artists in and out of the Black Arts Movement, The Time is Now! re-examines watershed cultural moments: from the Wall of Respect to Black Creativity, from the Civil Rights Movement to AfriCOBRA, from vivid protest posters to visionary Afrofuturist art, and from the Hairy Who to the radical sounds of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Employing new scholarship that reassesses and recalibrates traditional narratives of postwar Chicago art, the exhibit resonates with current national dialogues around race, gender, protest, and belonging. The book contains a series of long and short essays, interviews, and other contextual material, along with full-color images of all works included in the exhibition and extensive reproductions of ephemera and historical photographs."
Book of the Day Posted Feb 17, 2019

Book of the Day > Henry Taylor

Book of the Day > Henry Taylor. Published by Rizzoli. "This definitive survey of over 200 of the painter's portraits and street scenes forms a personal and political portrait of society today. For three decades the iconic artist has worked his way through New York, Los Angeles, Europe, and Africa, documenting what he sees. In his circle are artists, musicians, writers, performers, as well as friends from his ten years as a psychiatric technician. It is the artist's empathetic eye that allows him to imagine his figures with authenticity and grace--not better than they are, or more glamorous--but part of a big, complicated world. Flat, brushy flows of color cast figures that often float in surreal landscapes abstracted from the barbeque in the park, or neighboring street. Suites of Taylor's paintings are reproduced alongside handwritten accounts of the sittings, offering an in-depth understanding of the artist's world. Contributions by Charles Gaines, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Sarah Lewis, and Zadie Smith touch on the nature of truth, racial terror; memory and belonging in America. This definitive monograph celebrates Taylor's direct and revealing portraits, offering a tonic to a divisive cultural moment."
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