Modern Art: A Critical Introduction traces the historical and contemporary contexts for understanding modern art movements, and the theories which influenced and attempted to explain them. This approach forgoes the chronological march of art movements and isms in favour of looking at the ways in which art has been understood. It investigates the main developments in art interpretation from the same period, from Kant to post-structuralism, and draws examples from a wide range of art genres including painting, sculpture, photography, installation and performance art. The book includes detailed discussions of visual art practices both inside and outside the museum. This new edition has been restructured to make the key themes as accessible as possible and updated to include many more recent examples of art practice . An expanded glossary and margin notes also provide definitions of the range of terms used within theoretical discussion and critical reference. Individual chapters explore key themes of the modern era, such as the relationship between artists and galleries, the politics of representation, the changing nature of self-expression, the public monument, nature and the urban,

For two centuries, Gesamtkunstwerk-the ideal of the "total work of art"-has exerted a powerful influence over artistic discourse and practice, spurring new forms of collaboration and provoking debates over the political instrumentalization of art. Despite its popular conflation with the work of Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk's lineage and legacies extend well beyond German Romanticism, as this wide-ranging collection demonstrates. In eleven compact chapters, scholars from a variety of disciplines trace the idea's evolution in German-speaking Europe, from its foundations in the early nineteenth century to its manifold articulations and reimaginings in the twentieth century and beyond, providing an uncommonly broad perspective on a distinctly modern cultural form.

In this collection of essays, a range of scholars from different disciplines look through the prism of technology at the much-debated notion of cultural memory, analyzing how the past is shaped or unsettled by cultural texts including visual art, literature, cinema, photographs and souvenirs.

This edition of E.J. Pratt's letters is the final volume in the Collected Works series. Because of Pratt's role in the making of Canadian culture between and after the World Wars, his correspondence highlights key moments in our cultural history and provides a view of the enterprise from its very centre. The letters take us into his "workshop," illuminating the research behind his distinctive documentary long poems and the social nature of his creative production. They also reveal the complex network of writers, critics, artists and political figures of which Pratt was a part, the evolution of the Canadian book trade from the 1920s through to the early 1960s, and the emergence of radio (and specifically, of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) as a tool for forging national identity. Pratt's correspondence both confirms the public persona of one of Canada's first literary celebrities and provides glimpses of the private character behind the mask.

This beautiful, fully illustrated book presents a compendium of artworks throughout history which have been inspired by myth, fantasy and the unreal. Artists have explored imaginary worlds and fantastical creatures for centuries, expressing the unreal and impossible, the mystical and mythical, via the medium of paint. But what draws them to the imaginary, the uncharted and the unknown? Is it merely an escape from reality? Or are they seeking a greater understanding of the human experience, or perhaps the very meaning of life itself? With myriad styles and methods of expression, what links artists through the ages? And how have these visual flights of fancy and imagination changed over the course of time? The Art of Fantasy is a visual sourcebook of all that is fantastical – from fine art to illustration, and from surrealists and symbolists to the creatives working in undefined territories. While the artists in our history books (Blake, Goya, Dali, Magritte, Ernst) first brought fantasy art to the galleries, it was the twentieth century artists who brought it to the masses. It is in this book that, for the first time, they are united and equally weighted, presenting a mesmerising and thoughtful curation of the best fantasy artwork out there. This is an inspiring collection for fans of myth, magic, fantasy and art history.

This legendary book has been universally hailed as the best, the most readable and the most provocative account of modern art ever written. Through each of the thematic chapters Hughes keeps his story grounded in the history of the 20th century, demonstrating how modernism sought to describe the experience of that era and showing how for many key art movements this was a task of vital importance. The way in which Hughes brings that vitality and immediacy back through the well-chosen example and well-turned phrase is the heart of this book's success.

In Art and Politics, Segal explores the collision of politics and art in seven enticing essays. The book explores the position of art and artists under a number of different political regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, traveling around the world to consider how art and politics have interacted and influenced each other in different conditions. Joes Segal takes you on a journey to the Third Reich, where Emil Nolde supported the regime while being called degenerate; shows us Diego Rivera creating Marxist murals in Mexico and the United States for anti-Marxist governments and clients; ties Jackson Pollock's drip paintings in their Cold War context to both the FBI and the CIA; and considers the countless images of Mao Zedong in China as unlikely witnesses of radical political change.

When and why did the turntable morph from music machine to musical instrument? Why have mobile phones evolved changeable skins? How did hip-hop videos inspire an edgy new look for the Cadillac? The answers to such questions illustrate this provocative book, which examines the cultural meanings of artifacts and the role of designers in their design and production. "Designing Things" provides the reader with a map of the rapidly changing field of design studies, a subject which now draws on a diverse range of theories and methodologies -- from art and visual culture, to anthropology and material culture, to media and cultural studies. With clear explanations of key concepts -- such as form language, planned obsolescence, object fetishism, product semantics, brand positioning and user needs -- overviews of theoretical foundations and case studies of historical and contemporary objects, " Designing Things" looks behind-the-scenes and beneath-the-surface at some of our most familiar and iconic objects. See more at: http: //designingthings.org/

Born in Mexico in 1907, Frida Kahlo learned about suffering at an early age. She fell victim to polio at the age of six, and was then seriously hurt in a bus accident at eighteen, resulting in injuries that affected her for the rest of her life. The young and indomitable Frida met Diego Rivera, the great mural painter, when Mexico was at a great cultural and political crossroads. They formed a legendary partnership, with a strong attachment to Mexican folk art, a deep commitment to the Communist struggle and a raging artistic ambition that survived all the trials of their marriage. Admired by the Surrealists and photographed by the greatest, Frida was most renowned for her self-portraits and unusual still lifes. This book traces the extraordinary life of this artist whose unforgettable imagery combined cruelty and wit, honesty and insolence, pain and empowerment.

Although the Holocaust represents one of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind, it is thought of by many only in terms of statistics--the brutal slaughter of over 6 million lives. The art of those who suffered under the most unspeakable conditions and the art of those who reflect on the genocide remind us that statistics cannot tell the entire story. This important and diverse collection focuses on the art expression from the inferno, documenting the Holocaust through sketches of camp life drawn surreptitiously by victims on scraps of paper, and through contemporary paintings, sculpture, and personal reflections. From an informative and comprehensive perspective, this book evokes a powerful response to the 20th-century catastrophe.

This volume is a unique contribution to Latin American studies because it underscores the essential role that women have played in the arenas of modern and contemporary art. [This book] provides valuable and much-needed assistance to the researcher. (From the foreword by Elizabeth Ferrer) With more than 1,500 references on nearly 800 women Latin American Women Artists, Kahlo and Look Who Else pays tribute to the rich and multifaceted artistic accomplishments of women in and from 20th-century Latin America. Frida Kahlo has until recently dominated the interest of scholars, curators, and the public to the point of almost eclipsing the achievements of other artists from the region. This selectively annotated bibliography begins systematically to identify other women - painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, performance artists, and others - who have made significant contributions to the history of art in the region. The first section, the main part of the work, consists of individual artists grouped in an alphabetical country arrangement. Artists in each country are listed A-Z, as are the citations about them. Annotations are descriptive and highlight, among other details, the presence of biographical and professional development information in the analyzed materials. A section of general works arranged by country follows, consisting principally of periodical and monographic literature that deals with numerous women, and a listing of the women mentioned in the cited materials. The volume has two appendices. The first is an analyzed list of 77 collective exhibitions in which works by these women have been presented. The second appendix groups the artists by country, allowing for an in-brief look at all of the artists identified in the bibliography. The name index references artists to the main section by country code and also includes entries for authors, curators, and exhibition catalogue essayists.

Newly published in paperback to coincide with the Barbara Hepworth retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain in 2015, this fascinating book combines a fully illustrated catalogue of the sculptor's surviving prototypes in plaster (and a number also in aluminium and wood), generously gifted to The Hepworth Wakefield by the Hepworth Estate, with a detailed analysis of her working methods and a comprehensive history of her work in bronze. The Hepworth's collection of over forty unique, unknown sculptures are the surviving working models from which editions of bronzes were cast. They range in size from works that can be held in the hand to monumental sculptures, including the Winged Figure for John Lewis's Oxford Street headquarters. The majority are original plasters on which the artist worked with her own hands and to scale. It was in plaster that Hepworth experimented most as she made the transition from stone and wood to bronze, testing the potential of her new material as she went. Sophie Bowness's illuminating text describes the different means by which this increasingly important artist made her plaster works, and why. Drawing extensively on archival records and photographs, this publication is an important source of information about a significant collection of work, the gallery which houses it and Hepworth in general. The catalogue illuminates the histories of Hepworth's sculptures through fascinating archival photographs, which demonstrate everything from the varied tools used by Hepworth to the logistical problems of transporting her monumental pieces through the narrow streets of St Ives. The book provides a much-needed account of Hepworth's studio practice, her relations with foundries, and the evolution of her public commissions.

One hundred years ago in Brazil the rituals of Candomble were feared as sorcery and persecuted as crime. Its cult objects were fearsome fetishes. Nowadays, they are Afro-Brazilian cultural works of art, objects of museum display and public monuments. Focusing on the particular histories of objects, images, spaces and persons who embodied it, this book portrays the historical journey from weapons of sorcery looted by the police, to hidden living stones, to public works of art attacked by religious fanatics that see them as images of the Devil, former sorcerers who have become artists, writers, and philosophers. Addressing this history as a journey of objectification and appropriation, the author offers a fresh, unconventional, and illuminating look at questions of syncretism, hybridity and cultural resistance in Brazil and in the Black Atlantic in general.

This book seeks to configure the ways in which the interdisciplinary, the eclectic and the combinatory have served a strategic purpose in the development of a self-aware and identity-conscious visual discourse in Mexico, from the formative nineteenth century to the post-national 1990s. The construction and interrogation of identities in reproductive media provides the unifying analytical interest ranging over observational writing, illustrated periodicals, graphic art, photography and film. Chapters discuss nation-building imagery and exhibitionary paradigms; cultural nationalism and photographic ethnicity; the interplay of graphic arts and film in the construction of originary identities; disabused perspectives on modernization and urbanism in film and photography; women photographers and the indigenous subject; the questioning of objective identities and the play of reflexive tropes in modernist and 1990s photography; the deconstruction of the Mexican archive in post-national photography and multimedia art; and archaeological models and materials and the dismantling of cultural nationalism in visual culture.

Modern Art in Pakistan examines interaction of space, tradition, and history to analyse artistic production in Pakistan from the 1950s to recent times. It traces the evolution of modernism in Pakistan and frames it in a global context in the aftermath of Partition. A masterful insight into South Asian art, this book will interest researchers, scholars, and students of South Asian art and art history, and Pakistan in particular. Further, it will be useful to those engaged in the fields of Islamic studies, museum studies, and modern South Asian history.

Born in Berlin in 1931 to Jewish parents, the eight-year-old Auerbach was sent to England in 1939 to escape the Nazi regime. His parents stayed behind and died in a concentration camp in 1943. Now in his eighties, Auerbach is still producing his distinctly sculptural paintings of friends, family and surroundings in north London, where he has made his home since the war. The art historian and curator Catherine Lampert has had unique access to the artist since 1978 when she first became one of his sitters. With an emphasis on Auerbach's own words, culled from her conversations with him and archival interviews, she provides a rare insight into his professional life, working methods and philosophy. Auerbach also reflects on the places, people and inspirations that have shaped his life. These include his experiences as a refugee child, finding his way in the London art world of the 1950s and 1960s, his friendships with Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Leon Kossoff, among many others, and his approaches to looking and painting throughout his career. For anyone interested in how an artist approaches his craft or his method of capturing reality this is essential reading.

This multidisciplinary study focuses on the creative state as the nucleus of the work of numerous poets, artists, and philosophers from twentieth-century Spain. Beginning with cognitive science, Gala explores the mental processes and structures that underline creative thinking, for poets like Jose Maria Hinojosa, Clara Janes, and Jorge Guillen.

Focusing on the role of arts in the construction of national identity, Suzanne Pourchier-Plasseraud has chosen to study the case of a country lacking an ancient state history of its own, Latvia. This book analyses the part played by the visual arts in transmuting the cultural concept of a nation, advocated by a small intelligentsia, into a widespread claim for independence. By the end of the 19th century, fretting under Russian political domination and German economic and cultural supremacy, the Latvians turned back to their own language, culture and folklore, with a special interest for their dainas, their timeless common heritage rooted into a mythical golden age. Latvian artists thus found themselves entrusted with the mission of creating a national iconographic representation and a specifically Latvian art, freed from Russian and German influences. The author shows how the links between the cultural and political spheres evolved between 1905 and 1940, including during the period of authoritarian government preceding WWII. An enlightening contribution to understanding how art and history can be turned into social and political instruments, this book reaches far beyond the Latvian case to a European and even global scope.

Visual Propaganda, Exhibitions, and the Spanish Civil War is a history of art during wartime that analyzes images in various media that circulated widely and were encountered daily by Spaniards on city walls, in print, and in exhibitions. Tangible elements of the nation's past"monuments, cultural property, and art-historical icons"were displayed in temporary exhibitions and museums, as well as reproduced on posters and in print media, to rally the population, define national identity, and reinvent distant and recent history. Artists, political-party propagandists, and government administrators believed that images on the street, in print, and in exhibitions would create a community of viewers, brought together during the staging of public exhibitions to understand their own roles as Spaniards. This book draws on extensive archival research, brings to light unpublished documents, and examines visual propaganda, exhibitions, and texts unavailable in English. It engages with questions of national self-definition and historical memory at their intersections with the fine arts, visual culture, exhibition history, tourism, and propaganda during the Spanish Civil War and immediate post-war period, as well as contemporary responses to the contested legacy of the Spanish Civil War. It will be of interest to scholars in art history, visual and cultural history, history, and museum studies.

This is the first comprehensive scholarly bibliography/research guide/sourcebook on the major French Fauve painters (Henri Matisse and Georges Braque are treated in separate Greenwood bio-bibliographies). It includes information on 3,120 books and articles as well as chronologies, biographical sketches, and exhibition lists. Each artist receives a primary and secondary bibliography with many annotated entries. Secondary bibliographies include details about each artists' life and career, relationships with other artists, work in various media, iconography, and more. Designed for art historians, art students, museum and gallery curators, and art lovers alike, this volume organizes the vast literature surrounding this fascinating, revolutionary, 20th-century art group. Genuinely new art is always challenging, sometimes even shocking to those unprepared for it. In 1905, the paintings of Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and their friends shocked conservative museum-goers; hence, the eventual popularity of art critic Louis Vauxcelles's tag les fauves, or "wild beasts" by which these artists became known. Although it lasted only three or four years, Fauvism is recognized as the first artistic revolution of international consequence in the 20th century. It was based on the glorification of pure saturated colors and the free expression of primitivism. It was a dynamic sensualism; an equilibrium of passion and order, fire and austerity that could not last. By the end of 1908, Fauvism collapsed in the face of Cubism, which, moreover, several Fauve artists helped to form.

Awarded an Honourable Mention by the Association for Israeli Studies. Exploring the politics of the image in the context of Israeli militarized visual culture, Civic Aesthetics examines both the omnipresence of militarism in Israeli culture and society and the way in which this omnipresence is articulated, enhanced, and contested within local contemporary visual art. Looking at a range of contemporary artworks through the lens of "civilian militarism", Roei employs the theory of various fields, including memory studies, gender studies, landscape theory, and aesthetics, to explore the potential of visual art to communicate military excesses to its viewers. This study builds on the specific sociological concerns of the chosen cases to discuss the complexities of visuality, the visible and non-visible, arguing for art's capacity to expose the scopic regimes that construct their visibility. Images and artworks are often read either out of context, on purely aesthetic or art-historical ground, or as cultural artefacts whose aesthetics play a minor role in their significance. This book breaks with both traditions as it approaches all art, both high and popular art, as part of the surrounding visual culture in which it is created and presented. This approach allows a new theory of the image to come forth, where the relation between the political and the aesthetic is one of exchange, rather than exclusion.