"One of the most playful, innovative and eccentric artists of Postwar Europe, Takis (b.1925, Athens) was a catalysing figure in the artistic and literary circles of Paris, London and New York from the 1950s onward. Pioneering a variety of sculpture, painting and musical structures, Takis made works that harness invisible natural forces. Perhaps best known are his innovative `telemagnetic' works, begun in the late 1950s using everyday metallic objects that float in space through the use of magnets. These investigations and his fierce individualism won him the admiration of Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and caused polemics with his artistic contemporaries Yves Klein, Giacometti and Jean Tinguely. This publication will be the first English-language introduction to a key figure of Europe's post-war avant-garde and cultural underground. Through a combination of new essays and a key selection of primary sources, this publication will foreground the artist's influence in contemporary art since the 1960s - and it's accessible and thematic approach will expand the audience for this book far beyond the specialist."

In August 1946, Marcel Duchamp spent five weeks in Switzerland, and stayed at the Hotel Bellevue (today, Le Baron Tavernier) near Chexbres, on Lake Geneva. It was here that he discovered the Forestay waterfall, which was to become the starting point for (and ultimately the landscape of) his enigmatic and final masterpiece, "Etant donnes: 1 la chute d'eau, 2 le gaz d'eclairage" ("Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas"). Now, for the first time, the full significance of the choice of this waterfall is explored. Among the contributors to this volume are Caroline Bachmann, Stefan Banz, Etienne Barilier, Lars Blunck, Ecke Bonk, Paul B. Franklin, Antje von Graevenitz, Dalia Judovitz, Michael Luthy, Bernard Marcade, Herbert Molderings, Adeena Mey, Stanislaus von Moos, Francis M. Naumann, Mark Nelson, Molly Nesbit, Dominique Radrizzani, Roman Signer, Michael R. Taylor, Hans Maria de Wolf and Philip Ursprung.

Attention is fundamental to how we experience reality, and yet this notion has been understood and practised in very different ways across history. This interdisciplinary study explores the dynamic relationship between attention and its supposed opposite, distraction, as it unfolds from the eighteenth century to the present day. Its primary focus is on twentieth-century Germany and Austria, where matters of (in)attention gained a unique urgency during a period of social change and political crisis. Building on Enlightenment practices of self-observation, nineteenth-century Germany was the birthplace of experimental psychology, a discipline which sought to measure and potentially enhance human attention. This approach was also adopted outside the psychological laboratory-for instance in the First World War, when psychological testing was used to select soldiers for particular strategic positions. After the war these techniques filtered through into everyday life. Weimar Germany was unique in the western world in rolling out the methods of 'psychotechnics' across civilian society-in fields such as work and education, advertising and mass entertainment. This state-sponsored programme aimed to reshape people's minds and behaviour in order to build a more efficient, streamlined society. But as this study shows, this initiative also had profound repercussions in the fields of thought, literature, and culture. New readings of leading writers and intellectuals of the period-Kafka, Musil, Kracauer, Benjamin, and Adorno-are interspersed with broader cultural-historical chapters dedicated to the history of psychology and psychiatry, to Weimar self-help literature, portrait photography, and musical culture.

Throughout his career, Gustav Klimt completed hundreds of paintings and thousands of drawings of delicate beauty, many of them featuring the female form. Designed to imitate an artist's sketchbook, this gorgeous volume reproduces Klimt's most beautiful erotic sketches and watercolors. The experience of viewing them will awaken the senses and afford the reader the guilty pleasure of leafing through an artist's most private visions.

A comprehensive look at an important member of the artistic vanguard of late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe In this beautifully illustrated book, Michel Draguet, an internationally recognized authority on fin-de-siecle art, offers an enlightening examination of the life and art of Belgian Symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921). Khnopff achieved widespread acclaim during his lifetime for his moody, dreamlike paintings, as well as his numerous commissioned portraits, designs for costumes and sets for the theater and opera, photography, sculpture, book illustrations, and writings. Khnopff was a reclusive personality, and in 1900 he focused his attention on the design and construction of a lavish, secluded home and studio in Brussels, a structure that became deeply entwined with the artist's work and sense of self. Although the house was demolished in 1936, Draguet uses new archival research to reconstruct its spaces and explore the home as emblematic of the artist, guiding the reader through Khnopff's very personal world and analyzing his art in the context of its generative surroundings. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

"The Graphic Design Reader" brings together key readings in this exciting and dynamic field to provide an essential resource for students, reseachers and pracitioners. Taking as its starting point an exploration of the ways in which theory and practice, canons and anti-canons have operated within the discipline, the Reader brings together writings by key international design and cultural critics, including Leslie Atzmon, Dick Hebdige, Steven Heller, Victor Margolin, Rick Poynor and Adrian Shaughnessy. Extracts are structured into thematic sections addressing graphic design history; education and the profession; type and typography; critical writing and practice; political and social change; the visual landscapes of graphic design, and graphic design futures. Each section has a contextual introduction by the editors outlining key ideas and debates, as well as an annotated guide to further reading and a comprehensive bibliography.The reader features original visual essays that provide a critical platform for understanding and interpreting graphic design practice, as well as a wealth of illustrations accompanying key historical and contemporary texts from the 1920s to the present day.

The painful, exquisite art of Mexico's favourite artist was a product of immense physical pain, and an emotional tumultuous life. The new book features the range and power of her heavily autobiographical work, from the early, disturbing explorations of personal suffering to the more dulled, painkiller-drenched paintings of her later life.

An engaging and accessible introduction to one of the 20th century's greatest and most enigmatic artists This richly illustrated publication explores the full career of the hugely influential and endlessly fascinating French-American artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). A pioneer whose creative output was predicated on a fundamental questioning of what art is, Duchamp is well known despite remaining mysterious as an artist, owing to his elusive persona and the unconventional nature of his work. Focusing on the world-renowned Duchamp collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Essential Duchamp tells the artist's story through four key periods. The book begins with his early paintings and engagement with the avant-garde, then charts his abandonment of painting and invention of the readymade. This is followed by the creation of his alter ego Rrose Selavy and the optical experiments of the interwar years, and, finally, by the making of Etant donnes (1946-66), the project that occupied the artist in the final two decades of his life. Shorter accompanying texts include explanations of key terms Duchamp used for his innovative ideas-readymade, precision optics, pictorial nominalism, and infrathin-as well as interviews and statements by the artist about his own art and ideas. Published in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Tokyo National Museum (10/02/18-12/09/18) National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (12/22/18-04/07/19) Art Gallery New South Wales, Sydney (April-August 2019)

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) was a major figure in modern American art for some seven decades. Importantly, her fame was not associated with shifting art styles and trends, but rather with her own unique vision, based on finding essential and abstract forms in nature. O'Keeffe's primary subjects were landscapes, flowers, and bones, each explored in successive series over several years. Certain works went on for decades, producing 12 or more variations of an original image. Among these, O'Keeffe's magnified pictures of calla lilies and irises are her most famous. Enlarging the tiniest petals to fill an entire canvas, O'Keeffe created a proto-abstract vocabulary of shapes and lines, earning her the moniker "mother of American modernism." In 1946, O'Keeffe became the first female artist to be given a solo show at the MoMA in New York. This introductory book from TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 traces O'Keeffe's long and luminous career through key paintings, contemporary photographs, and portraits taken by Alfred Stieglitz, to whom O'Keeffe was married. We follow the artist through her pioneering innovations, major breakthroughs, and her travels and inspirations in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and, above all, New Mexico, where she was particularly inspired by the majestic landscapes, vivid colors and exotic vegetation. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

In April 1937, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted an exhibition that served as a catalyst for the appropriation of prehistoric rock art in postwar abstract painting. With the title "Prehistoric Rock Pictures in Europe and Africa", it displayed a range of copies from the influential collection of the German ethnologist Leo Frobenius. Largely disregarded in modern American art history up until now, this book highlights the importance of this exhibition to artists such as Josef Albers, Adolph Gottlieb, David Smith, and The American Abstract Artists group, who sought inspiration from the prehistoric images’ primordial creativity. With a transnational scope, this book reveals new facts about the connections between Paris and New York, and the importance of communication and collaboration between them for these artists. In doing so, Seibert shows that this debate was about more than just legitimizing abstract art forms from the past, but about recognizing an autonomous American abstract art. Presenting unseen archival material, letters, and exhibition documentation, Prehistoric Pictures and American Modernism offers a new reading of the development of modern American abstraction, and will hold an important place in the historiography of the movement, its global traditions, and its legacy.

The story of their salt-glazed pottery that has a special place in the history of ceramic art.

Often regarded as an artistic movement of interwar Paris, Surrealism comprised an international community of artists, writers, and intellectuals who have aspired to change the conditions of life itself over the course of the past century. Consisting of a wide range of dedicated case studies from the 1920s to the 1970s, this book highlights the international dimensions of the Surrealist Movement, and the radical chains of thought that linked its followers across the globe: from France to Romania, and from Canada to the former Czechoslovakia. From very early on, the surrealists approached magic as a means of bypassing, discrediting, and combatting rationalism, capitalism, and other institutionalized systems and values that they saw to be constraining influences upon modern life. Surrealist Sorcery maps out how this interest in magic developed into a major area of surrealist research that led not only to theoretical but also practical explorations of the subject. Taking an international perspective, Atkin surveys this important quality of the movement and how it's remained an important element in the surrealist project and its ongoing legacy.

The Soviet avant-garde architecture of the 1920s to the mid-1930s has increasingly been attracting attention from researchers worldwide. Yet, in spite of this, entire regions remain unstudied. One of these is the south of Russia. Based on extensive research, this guidebook aims to correct the omission. It explores Russia's South and North Caucasus federal districts: Astrakhanskaya, Volgogradskaya, and Rostovskaya regions, Krasnodarsky kray, Crimea, Kalmykiya, Mineralnye Vody, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkariya, Karachaevo-Cherkesiya, Severnaya Osetiya, and Chechnya. During the Second World War, the south of Russia was the scene of fighting and mass destruction. Post-war reconstruction saw many buildings redesigned in the neoclassical style and the loss of an entire stratum of avant-garde structures. Since the end of the USSR, the way the surviving buildings have been used and run has been equally destructive. For this reason, the structures examined here are divided into two categories: those that have survived and those that have been lost forever. This volume enables readers to view 100 Soviet avant-garde buildings with their own eyes.

An introduction to the rich and diverse art of California, this book highlights its distinctive role in the history of American art, from early-20th-century photography to Chicanx mural painting, the Fiber Art Movement and beyond. Shaped by a compelling network of geopolitical influences including waves of migration and exchange from the Pacific Rim and Mexico, the influx of African Americans immediately after World War II, and global immigration after quotas were lifted in the 1960s, California is a centre of artistic activity whose influence extends far beyond its physical boundaries. Furthermore, California was at the forefront of radical developments in artistic culture, most notably conceptual art and feminism, and its education system continues to nurture and encourage avant-garde creativity. Organized chronologically and thematically with illustrations throughout, this attractive study stands as an important reassessment of California's contribution to modern and contemporary art in the United States and globally. With 168 illustrations in colour

The Richter Interviews collects together a series of conversations between Hans Ulrich Obrist and Gerhard Richter over the course of more than two decades of discussion and collaboration. Subjects range from Richter's place within art history to artists books, architecture, religion, unrealised projects and his advice for young artists. The collection also includes a previously unpublished interview focused on Richter's much-lauded window for Cologne Cathedral, unveiled in 2007. Obrist's vast knowledge and interrogating mind coupled with his longstanding friendship with Richter make him a unique interlocutor for an artist whose work spans more than 60 years and ranges from painting to photography, glass to printmaking, watercolours to books. Obrist deftly guides the reader through a dazzling array of topics and offers an invaluable historical perspective on Richter s place within the art world of the 20th and 21st centuries. Illustrations of discussed artworks by Richter feature thro

Italian-born American artist Harry Bertoia (1915-1978) was one of the most prolific, innovative artists of the post-war period. Trained at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he met future colleagues and collaborators Charles and Ray Eames, Florence Knoll, and Eero Saarinen, he went on to make one-of-a kind jewellery, design iconic chairs, create thousands of unique sculptures including large-scale commissions for significant buildings, and advance the use of sound as sculptural material. His work speaks to the confluence of numerous fields of endeavour, but is united throughout by a sculptural approach to making and an experimental embrace of metal. Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life accompanies the first U.S. museum retrospective of the artist's career to examine the full scope of his broad, interdisciplinary practice, and feature important examples of his furniture, jewellery, monotypes, and diverse sculptural output. Lavishly illustrated, the book offers new scholarly essays as well as a catalogue of the artists numerous large-scale commissions. It questions how and why we distinguish between a chair, a necklace, a screen, and a freestanding sculpture and what Bertoia's sculptural things, when taken together, say about the fluidity of visual language across culture, both at mid-century and now.

Reading Graphic Design in Cultural Context explains key ways of understanding and interpreting the graphic designs we see all around us, in advertising, branding, packaging and fashion. It situates these designs in their cultural and social contexts. Drawing examples from a range of design genres, leading design historians Grace Lees-Maffei and Nicolas P. Maffei explain theories of semiotics, postmodernism and globalisation, and consider issues and debates within visual communication theory such as legibility, the relationship of word and image, gender and identity, and the impact of digital forms on design. Their discussion takes in well-known brands like Alessi, Nike, Unilever and Tate, and everyday designed things including slogan t-shirts, car advertising, ebooks, corporate logos, posters and music packaging.

Isamu Noguchi, born in Los Angeles as the illegitimate son of an American mother and a Japanese poet father, was one of the most prolific yet enigmatic figures in the history of twentieth-century American art. Throughout his life, Noguchi (1904-1988) grappled with the ambiguity of his identity as an artist caught up in two cultures.

His personal struggles--as well as his many personal triumphs--are vividly chronicled in "The Life of Isamu Noguchi," the first full-length biography of this remarkable artist. Published in connection with the centennial of the artist's birth, the book draws on Noguchi's letters, his reminiscences, and interviews with his friends and colleagues to cast new light on his youth, his creativity, and his relationships.

During his sixty-year career, there was hardly a genre that Noguchi failed to explore. He produced more than 2,500 works of sculpture, designed furniture, lamps, and stage sets, created dramatic public gardens all over the world, and pioneered the development of environmental art. After studying in Paris, where he befriended Alexander Calder and worked as an assistant to Constantin Brancusi, he became an ardent advocate for abstract sculpture.

Noguchi's private life was no less passionate than his artistic career. The book describes his romances with many women, among them the dancer Ruth Page, the painter Frida Kahlo, and the writer Anais Nin.

Despite his fame, Noguchi always felt himself an outsider. "With my double nationality and my double upbringing, where was my home?" he once wrote. "Where were my affections? Where my identity?" Never entirely comfortable in the New York art world, he inevitably returned to his father's homeland, where he had spent a troubled childhood. This prize-winning biography, first published in Japanese, traces Isamu Noguchi's lifelong journey across these artistic and cultural borders in search of his personal identity."

'Art is not a luxury. Art is a basic social need to which everyone has a right'. This extraordinary collection of 100 artists' manifestos from across the globe over the last 100 years brings together activists, post-colonialists, surrealists, socialists, nihilists and a host of other voices. From the Negritude movement in Africa and Martinique to Brazil's Mud/Meat Sewer Manifesto, from Iraqi modernism to Australia's Cyberfeminist Manifesto, they are by turns personal, political, utopian, angry, sublime and revolutionary. Some have not been published in English before; some were written in climates of censorship and brutality; some contain visions of a future still on the horizon. What unites them is the belief that art can change the world.