Contemporary art biennials are sites of prestige, innovation and experimentation, where the category of art is meant to be in perpetual motion, rearranged and redefined, opening itself to the world and its contradictions. They are sites of a seemingly peaceful cohabitation between the elitist and the popular, where the likes of Jeff Koons encounter the likes of Guy Debord, where Angela Davis and Frantz Fanon share the same ground with neoliberal cultural policy makers and creative entrepreneurs. Building on the legacy of events that conjoin art, critical theory and counterculture, from Nova Convention to documenta X, the new biennial blends the modalities of protest with a neoliberal politics of creativity. This book examines a strained period for these high art institutions, a period when their politics are brought into question and often boycotted in the context of austerity, crisis and the rise of Occupy cultures. Using the 3rd Athens Biennale and the 7th Berlin Biennale as its main case studies, it looks at how the in-built tensions between the domains of art and politics take shape when spectacular displays attempt to operate as immediate activist sites. Drawing on ethnographic research and contemporary cultural theory, this book argues that biennials both denunciate the aesthetic as bourgeois category and simultaneously replicate and diffuse an exclusive sociability across social landscapes.

This book contains more than 350 masterworks of artists such as Hiroshite, Utamaro, Harunobu, Eisen, and Hokusai, all from the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The work of 38 established and emerging artists explore the creative potential of risk-taking and transgression in contemporary life The unconventional theme underlying the art featured in this book is the struggle between risk-taking and the prediction algorithms that have become a feature of contemporary life. Does the influence of machine intelligence, and the coincident avoidance of risk, homogenize creative thought? These ideas are explored in the work of 38 established and emerging artists in a variety of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, sculpture, video art, computer art, and performance. Featured artists include Joelle Tuerlinckx, Ed Atkins, Esther Ferrer, Mounira Al Solh, and Shezad Dawoud. The book takes its title from a town on the French-Belgian border with a history as a well-known customs outpost. Distributed for Mercatorfonds Exhibition Schedule: WIELS Museum for Contemporary Art Brussels (September 12, 2020-February 10, 2021)

Open House discusses the topic of temporary housing in architecture, art, design and humanitarian aid. The phenomenon of tiny houses fascinates and is currently trending in various media. In times of large migratory movements from poor to rich countries there is also an urgent demand for temporary housing in many places. Eighteen international authors explore the intentions behind such constructions, their underlying principles and the lifestyle they convey. Their contributions reveal how these concepts relate to the very notion of habitat, to space, to pragmatic criteria, as well as to the time in which they are elaborated. Moreover, addresses various issues of individual housing through the featured original installations, and spatial experiments. Open House is published in conjunction with a two-year research project and an open-air exhibition of the same title in Geneva in summer 2022. Book and exhibition comprise around 40 designs by artists, architects, designers, architecture schools and research institutions, as well as humanitarian organisations, such as Andrea Zittel, EPFL Laboratoire ALICE, Global Shelter Cluster, Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH Zurich, Jean Prouve, John Armleder, Kengo Kuma, Kerim Seiler, Matti Suuronen, Maurizio Cattelan and Philippe Parreno, the UNHCR, and others. Text in English and French.

The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, holds stunning examples of jewellery and metalwork from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This exceptional period of design covers the neo-Gothic and historicist designs of the mid- to late nineteenth century, the groundbreaking work of British Arts & Crafts designers, sinuous curves influenced by the European Art Nouveau movement and the structural modernity of the 1930s. The collection contains jewellery by some of the finest historicist designers, including the Castellani and Giuliano families and John Brogden, as well as a spectacular decanter by William Burges. There are important pieces of jewellery and silver by the most famous of Arts & Crafts designers, including C.R. Ashbee, Henry Wilson, Gilbert Marks and John Paul Cooper. Unique pieces designed by the artist Charles Ricketts hold a special place in the history of queer art in Britain, having been designed for his friends Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, a couple known collectively as Michael Field. Modernist silver is represented by leaders of the field Omar Ramsden and H.G. Murphy. This beautifully illustrated volume reproduces 70 of the Museum's most important pieces from this period, many previously unpublished, with comparative illustrations of some of the original designs. Importantly, the book is arranged chronologically by designer and includes biographies, a description of their work and how it changed over time, as well as commentary about the specific works in the Museum's collection. The resulting book therefore brings together for the first time the Fitzwilliam's exceptionally fine holdings of jewellery and metalwork from this highly popular and fruitful period of design.

Carole A. Feuerman is celebrated as one of America's major hyper-realistic sculptors, alongside Duane Hanson and John De Andrea. Born 1945, she was educated in New York and Philadelphia and began as an illustrator before turning to sculpture in the 1970s, which soon earned her much recognition and early success. A pioneer of hyper-realism in sculpture, her work has been displayed in many group shows and solo exhibitions at private galleries and public museums, as well as at the major art fairs, in America, Europe, and Asia. Over five decades, Feuerman has created visual manifestations of stories telling of strength, survival, and balance. She works in marble, bronze, vinyl, painted resins, and stainless steel. Her work is marked by her thorough understanding of materials' characteristics and her ability to control them in the studio. Her subject matter is the human figure, most often a woman in an introspective moment of exuberant self-consciousness shaded by erotic lassitude. Feuerman's works represent a state of female mind rather that an alluring body meant to attract the male gaze. They suggest that women look at themselves differently from men looking at them, that a woman is more innately creative than a man. Many of Feuerman's figures have a fragmented quality, recalling those by Auguste Rodin, and the aesthetics of Surrealism. This is the most comprehensive survey of Feuerman's work in sculpture to date. Lavishly illustrated in colour throughout, it demonstrates the variety of materials and media she uses and highlights the specific qualities of her figures.

00s is the first exhibition that explores the 2000s, taking as its starting point one of the most important European collections of contemporary art - the Cranford Collection. This accompanying catalogue selects 100 works from the collection, and includes pieces by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter, Raymond Pettibon, and Josh Smith. With an introduction by Nicolas Bourriaud, the CEO of MO.CO, and interviews with Muriel and Freddy Salem, the Patrons of the Cranford Collection. Text in English and French.

This book presents the Gianfranco Luzzetti collection housed in the historic complex of the former convent of the Clarisse in Grosseto, a new museum in the city. The collection is the result of the donation to the Municipality, in 2018, of over 60 works from the personal heritage of Luzzetti, an antiquarian from Grosseto, deeply linked to his land. The paintings, of great quality, trace Italian art from the 14th to the 19th century, with particular attention to Florentine art of the 17th century. The collection includes masterpieces by Antonio Rossellino, Giambologna, Rutilio Manetti, Passignano, Niccolo di Pietro Lamberti, Corrado Giaquinto, Camillo Rusconi, Pier Dandini and Giovanni di Tano Fei, as well as important works by Donatello and Beccafumi and works already donated to the Municipality of Grosseto in past years, of Santi di Tito and Cigoli. This volume, with introductory texts regarding the history of the site, the birth of the Museum and the Collection, is complemented by an anthology of writings by Luzzetti and bibliographic apparatuses. Research and texts: Sandro Bellesi, Marco Ciampolini, Roberto Contini, Elena Dubaldo, Lucia Ferri, Claudia Ganci, Cecilia Luzzetti, Gianfranco Luzzetti, Andrea Marchi, Mauro Papa, Marcella Parisi, Francesca Perillo, Gianluca Sposato, Angelo Tartuferi. Italian edition, with English translation in the appendix.

The African continent is home to numerous outstanding textile traditions, many dating to antiquity and all playing a multifaceted role in their respective societies: these eye-catching fabrics proclaim wealth and status, convey symbolic meanings, and of course serve a practical function in garments both ordinary and exceptional. This magnificent book conveys the amazing diversity of African textiles, from the geometric-patterned kente cloths of Ghana, to the multicolour raffia skirts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the beaded barkcloths once reserved for Ugandan royalty. The authors, all leading experts in the field, examine each region of sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar in turn, elucidating the aesthetic qualities, cultural significance, and production methods of the most important textile traditions. Their authoritative text is illustrated with over 300 superlative textiles from public and private collections, many reproduced as full-page plates that allow the reader to appreciate each individual fibre. This impressive clothbound volume will be a key reference for students and scholars, an essential sourcebook for designers, and a delight for all art lovers.

Together with important First Nations material, the Thomson Canadian Collection is the largest of all private holdings of Canadian art. There are rare and incomparable examples of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art. Krieghoff's inspired accounts of life in the Canadas, prior to Confederation, bring the light and atmosphere of history fully into the present. A staggering power to capture the fleeting and the fugitive in paint still distinguishes the work of the early 20th-century painter Morrice.

Tibetan Buddhist art is not only rich in figural icons but also extremely diverse in its symbols and ritual objects. This first systematic review is an abundantly illustrated reference book on Tibetan ritual art that aids our understanding of its different types and forms, its sacred meanings and ceremonial functions. Eighteen chapters, several hundred different implements are documented in detail, in many cases for the first time and often in their various styles and iconographic forms: altar utensils and amulets, masks and mirrors, magic daggers and mandalas, torma sculptures and prayer objects, vajras and votive tablets, sacrificial vessels and oracle crowns, stupas and spirit traps, ritual vases, textiles, furniture, and symbolic emblems. These are accompanied by many historical and modern text sources, as well as rare recorded oral material from high-ranking Tibetan masters. This long-awaited handbook is a must-have for all those with an interest in Buddhist art and religion.

The Stebbins Collection - the private collection of Dr. Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., the esteemed historian of American art and foremost expert on Martin Johnson Heade, and his wife, Susan Cragg Stebbins, successful author and art historian - consists of 70 American paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by 53 artists. Recently donated to The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, Florida, this incredible collection includes remarkable works by American masters ranging from Martin Johnson Heade and Thomas Eakins to Fidelia Bridges and John La Farge, well-known artists Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran and little-known figures like Arthur I. Keller and Walter Granville-Smith. Publication in October 2021 will not only highlight the significance of this private collection built over a lifetime by the Stebbinses, but it is also a valuable contribution to the field of 19th and early-20th-century American art, and to the history of collections and collecting.

This volume presents a rich survey of the first Golden Age of European printmaking and reveals important artistic and cultural innovations spurred by the proliferation of etchings, engravings, and woodcuts. Featuring many of the era's most extraordinary and influential prints, Renaissance Impressions includes examples in all graphic media from Europe's major printmaking centres, which disseminated images by the period's greatest artists, among them, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian. Through absorbing thematic essays and lively entries on more than 80 prints by master printmakers including Albrecht Durer, Marcantonio Raimondi, and Hendrick Goltzius, this lushly illustrated catalogue explores the pivotal role that prints played in shaping visual culture throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Essays by Arthur J. Di Furia, Jamie Gabbarelli, Sharon Gregory.

Jewellery art is a small but easily discernible voice amid the great choir that is the art scene. It has been the impetus for innovation and a seismograph for current discourse within the applied arts for several decades. Now, for the first time, the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts is presenting its holdings of modern jewellery, ranging from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. Analysed and assembled, it provides insights into the multifaceted oeuvres of around 180 jewellery artists from around the world. The collection is broadly representative of the international developments in jewellery art and as such it especially grants a special view of the approaches from GDR before the unification. Images by 11 photographers from Leipzig show just how varied and versatile the perception of jewellery on a person can be. Text in English and German.

A comprehensive survey of the work of the legendary Swiss artist, this book illustrates and examines more than 100 of his sculptures, paintings, drawings, and prints This lavishly illustrated retrospective traces the early and midcareer development of the preeminent Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), examining the emergence of his distinct figural style through works including a series of walking men, elongated standing women, and numerous busts. Rare paintings and drawings from his formative period show the significance of landscape in Giacometti's work, while also revealing the influence of the postimpressionist painters that surrounded his father, the artist Giovanni Giacometti. Other areas of inquiry on which Alberto Giacometti casts new light are his studio practice-amply illustrated with photographs-his obsessive focus on depicting the human head, his collaborations with poets and writers, and his development of the walking man sculpture, thanks to numerous drawings, many of which have never been shown. Original essays by modern art and Giacometti specialists shed new light on era-defining sculptural masterpieces, including the Walking Man, the Nose, and the Chariot, or on key aspects of his work, such as the significance of surrealism, his drawing practice, or the question of space. Distributed for the Cleveland Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Cleveland Museum of Art (March 12-June 12, 2022) Seattle Art Museum (July 14-October 9, 2022) Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (November 13, 2022-February 12, 2023) The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (March 19-June 18, 2023)

The Bodleian Library is one of the few libraries outside Germany with a substantial number of medieval manuscripts from the German-speaking lands. These manuscripts, most of which were acquired by Archbishop Laud in the 1630s, during the Thirty Years' War, mainly consist of major groups of codices from ecclesiastical houses in the Rhine-Main area, that is Wurzburg, Mainz, and Eberbach. Their potential contribution to the religious and intellectual history of these foundations and to the study of German medieval culture as a whole is immeasurable. This book contains descriptions of over one hundred medieval, manuscripts, mostly Latin, from the Charterhouse St Michael at Mainz, founded in the early 1320s. Dating from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, they reflect the spirituality and literary interest of the Carthusian order. This is the first major publication on the Mainz Charterhouse manuscript collection. Published in two volumes, it provides authoritative and superbly detailed descriptions, including information about the physical characteristics, decoration, binding, and provenance of the manuscripts. Each manuscript is illustrated.

The Old Master paintings and European sculpture and decorative arts at the renowned Frick Collection might be thought to be all but inextricable from the domestic setting of the Gilded Age mansion in which they reside. For a couple of years, however, while the Frick is undergoing renovation, highlights from the collection have been relocated to a radically different, unlikely home: Marcel Breuer's Brutalist building five blocks away, which the architect designed for the Whitney Museum of American Art. The result is a stunning reconstruction and re-presentation of a beloved collection, with the museum's treasures comfortably and elegantly adapting to their temporary modernist abode. This handsome volume documents this altogether singular moment in the Frick's history with stunning photographs by Joseph Coscia Jr. and a reflective foreword by Roxane Gay.

- The treasures of the Alba family represent more than five hundred years of patronage and collecting of European art of the highest quality and importance- Accompanies a 2016 exhibition at the Meadows Museum (Dallas) and in The Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Tennesee)The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University is honored to offer viewers in the United States their first opportunity to contemplate masterpieces from the leading historic private art collection in Spain. The treasures of the Alba family represent more than five hundred years of patronage and collecting of European art of the highest quality and importance. One hundred thirty-eight exemplary objects from these vast holdings will be presented in Dallas and then travel to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville.Coinciding with the Meadows Museum's golden anniversary, the exhibition Treasures from the House of Alba: 500 Years of Art and Collecting and this companion publication trace the history of the Alba family from the fifteenth century through the present day through the works they collected. The book explores the family's wealth of paintings, sculptures, furniture, tapestries, and other objects, as well as the Alba archives and library. The stature of the painting collection is clear from the artists represented in the exhibition, among them Fra Angelico, Titian, Rubens, Mengs, Goya, Ingres, Sorolla, and Renoir. The relationship of the Alba legacy to America is highlighted in decorative objects and in a selection of documents from the Alba library related to Columbus and his voyages.The ten essays in this publication shed light on the dynasty's particular interest in collecting tapestries; its patronage of writers such as Garcilaso de la Vega; the influence of Eugenia de Montijo, empress of France, who was directly related to the Alba family; the pivotal roles of the Seventeenth Duke of Alba and his daughter, the Eighteenth Duchess, in the twentieth century, both of them keenly engaged with the art of their time; and the three palaces Liria, Monterrey, and Las Duenas that house much of the collection today. Finally, there is one essay covering the biographical life of the Albas as well as an article that discusses their artistic legacy. As a result, the book provides an in-depth study of the rich life and cultural achievements of this legendary dynasty that still lives strong today.

Inspiration fresh from the studios of 131 master artists! A celebration of creative drawing, the Strokes of Genius series showcases standout work from today's top artists. This 8th volume focuses on how artists use texture to bring life and depth to subjects ranging from soulful portraits and expressive still lifes, to beautiful landscapes and pulsing city scenes. Texture plays an essential role in each of these drawings--capturing character, building mood, and paying homage to everyday moments that often go unnoticed. These pages serve up a tantalizing buffet of tactile impressions, from rough tree bark and silky fur to peeling paint and timeworn fabrics. Complete with fascinating, firsthand insights on the drawing techniques behind the textures, Strokes of Genius 8 offers hours of browsing and inspiration for artists and art-lovers alike. Inside you'll find: 139 magnificent works in charcoal, pencil, pastel, colored pencil, scratchboard and pen+ink An exciting range of styles and approaches, presented in subject-themed chapters A behind-the-scenes look at the tools and methods used to evoke a wide range of natural and manmade textures