Since its establishment in 1949, the People's Republic of China has upheld a nationwide ban on pornography, imposing harsh punishments on those caught purchasing, producing, or distributing materials deemed a violation of public morality. A provocative contribution to Chinese media studies by a well-known international media researcher, "People's Pornography" offers a wide-ranging overview of the political controversies surrounding the ban, as well as a fascinating glimpse into the many distinct media subcultures that have gained widespread popularity on the Chinese Internet as a result. Rounding out this exploration of the many new tendencies in digital citizenship, pornography, and activist media cultures in the greater China region are thought-provoking interviews with individuals involved.A timely contribution to the existing literature on sexuality, Chinese media, and Internet culture, "People's Pornography "provides a unique angle on the robust voices involved in the debate over about pornography's globalization.

Offering a fresh perspective on the making of the American nation, Forging America: New Lands and High Culture shows how the various "new" portions of the country--the Northeastern wilderness, the West, and later the South and Midwest--were assimilated into the national and intellectual consciousness of the young nation. Specifically, author David P. DeVenney examines the ways in which the arts helped achieve this assimilation, primarily through music and painting, but also through literature and architecture. The search for "American-ness" in the arts, for what it meant to be an American painter, composer, or writer, occupied artists for the entire 19th century and for the first part of the 20th. Intellectuals viewed America in the 1800s as a new Eden, a primordial wilderness, and viewed themselves as chosen by God to begin a new chapter in the development of the world. This Romantic idea included exploring and taming the vast regions of the country and making their beauties accessible to the nation's Eastern population centers, filtering notions of the West through the arts and arriving at an idyllic vision absent any signs of danger or exoticism. DeVenney writes for the educated nonspecialist as well as the scholar, making Forging America a fascinating and useful tool for understanding a key way in which America became America.

A multitude of literary and cinematic works were spawned by the Vietnam war, but this is a unique book, combining moving prose with powerful illustrations created by combat artists in the U.S. military. Dr. Noble has assembled a remarkable collection of 153 reproductions printed in black and white, arranged with oral histories, letters and other commentaries to give the reader a more intimate understanding of the combat soldier who served in Vietnam and what he had to endure. Forgotten Warriors is not intended to argue the merits of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Rather, through the visual impact of the illustrations, the soldiers themselves express what the Vietnam experience was like in a way that is different and more profound than perhaps any other work on the subject.

The main focus of the book is on the way artists saw the world of the grunt: patrols, life in the rear, fighting the terrain and weather, tests of endurance, the machines of war and the effects of combat and its aftermath. The reader is also given a sense of how some writers and artists felt about the country and the people of South Vietnam. To date, our perceptions of the Vietnam war have been influenced largely by movies, television and novels. Recognizing this, Dr. Noble enlisted Professor William J. Palmer, a noted authority on the media and their reportage fo the war, to provide an essay that allows the reader to compare his or her past impressions with the art works contained in this book. A moving collection, "Forgotten WarriorS" offers the truest picture of the Vietnam war in human terms.

Offering a wealth of perspectives on African modern and Modernist art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, this new Companion features essays by African, European, and North American authors who assess the work of individual artists as well as exploring broader themes such as discoveries of new technologies and globalization. * A pioneering continent-based assessment of modern art and modernity across Africa * Includes original and previously unpublished fieldwork-based material * Features new and complex theoretical arguments about the nature of modernity and Modernism * Addresses a widely acknowledged gap in the literature on African Art

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI

Constantin Brancusi is one of the greatest of all sculptors, and a key sculptor of the modern era, with Auguste Rodin and Pablo Picasso. Brancusi's influence can be seen in a wide range of Western sculptors, including Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Minimalists and land artists.

This new book studies the religious and mythical dimensions of Constantin Brancusi's distinctive scultpural forms, the 'eggs', 'fishes', 'heads' and 'columns'. His central quest was for the 'essence of things', which resulted in purifying a form until only the essence was left.

It was Constantin Brancusi's project to strip away the detritus that had accumulated around sculpture, Henry Moore said, and to offer the pure, simple shape. What Brancusi did was 'to concentrate on very simple shapes, to keep his sculpture, as it were, one-cylindered, to refine and polish a single shape to a degree almost too precious.'

As well as being a sculptor, Constantin Brancusi was also an accomplished photographer. Quite a few artists (not all of them sculptors) have expressed for Brancusi's photographs, and the way he would set up his sculptures inhis studio and photograph them at particular times of the day, when the lightingwas just right. They are early examples of installation art (and some of the best, too). Andy Goldsworthy said he admired how Brancusi created the right conditions in his studio so that his work 'comes alive at a particular time of the day as the light momentarily touches it'. For Goldsworthy, Brancusi's works were at their best when they were arranged by the sculptor in his studio and photographed. Somehow, it wasn't quite the same when they were displayed in modern art museums (such as the Pompidou Centre in Paris or the Museum of Modern Art in Gotham, which have important Brancusi pieces).

Fully illustrated, including many photos of Brancusi's studio in Paris, Brancusi's works in museums in New York, Washington and L.A., and the art of his contemporaries.

With bibliography and notes. ISBN 9781861713391. 180 pages.

This new (4th) edition has been revised.

www.crmoon.com

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The art of Constantin Brancusi never ceases to fascinate and inspire, and it always seems fresh, as if it had been created fives minutes ago, no matter how many times you look at it. When you encounter a Brancusi sculpture in a museum, it pops out, clear and direct; there is simply nothing else like Brancusi's art in history. I have tried to explore the key elements of Brancusi's art, and the important events in his development as a sculptor. I have also included comparisons with other artists of the period, and also how Brancusi's art has influenced many subsequent artists.

Now available in paperback, this is the first work in English to tell the full story of Claude Cahun’s art and life. It both recounts her life and analyses her complex writings and images, making them available to a wide audience. Shaw’s account embeds Cahun’s work in the exciting milieu of Paris between the wars and follows it into the dangerous territory of the Nazi-occupied Isle of Jersey. Using letters and diaries, Shaw brings Cahun’s ideas and feelings to life and contributes to our understanding of photography, Surrealism and the histories of women artists and queer culture. This book includes a full range of illustrations by Cahun and other renowned photographers, as well as writings never before translated into English. Shaw’s book will appeal to art and photography lovers and scholars alike.

Sometimes considered to be America's first indigenous modernist art style, Precisionism, a movement principally of the 1920s and 1930s, concentrated on depicting the urban and industrial landscape, emphasizing the formal geometrical qualities of solid mass and clean lines and rendering these vistas with simplified, sharp-edged shapes and smooth, unmodulated application of pigment, void of extraneous details and impersonal in tone. This annotated bibliography deals with Precisionism and its ten leading practitioners: George Ault, Peter Blume, Ralston Crawford, Charles Demuth, Preston Dickinson, O. Louis Guglielmi, Louis Lozowick, Morton L. Schamberg, Charles Sheeler, and Niles Spencer. Each artist's chapter begins with a biographical sketch and includes sections for Writings, Statements, and Interviews; Monographs and Exhibition Catalogues; Articles and Essays; Exhibition Reviews; Book Reviews; Dissertations and Theses; Reference Sources; and Archival Sources. A special section at the end of each chapter lists annotated reproductions of the artist's work appearing in any of approximately 225 source volumes. Coverage extends to painting, drawings, lithographs, and photographs. An opening chapter, also divided by types of materials, covers Precisionism in general and cites material in which two or more of the ten artists are discussed. A keyword index provides full citations for the source volumes. Three other indexes facilitate access by author, short-title of exhibition catalogues, and subjects. The only annotated bibliography on Precisionism, this volume will be a valuable aid to research on a variety of subjects relating to modern American art.

This guide summarizes and evaluates the available literature concerning the Dutch artistic movement De Stijl, which was headed by art critic and painter Theo van Doesburg and was comprised of such architects and artists as J.J.P. Oud, Piet Mondrian, Rovbert van 't Hoff and Georges Vantongerloo. The loose-knit group took its name from the avant garde journal they first published in October 1917: "De Stijl" (The Style). Although it was limited to Holland, De Stijl promoted ideas about a universal art, combining tenets of theosophy, an holistic view of the oneness of all things, including arts and culture, and socialism. This bibliography examines publications that deal with the movement and with affiliated groups and individual members.

Art historians and scholars of modern and of Dutch art and architecture will appreciate this comprehensive tool for further research. Within individual sections for the movement and for its members, entries are chronologically arranged with separate categories for books, monographs and catalogs, and periodicals. A final section analyzes and presents the contents of the journal "De Stijl."

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.

The most influential 20th century architects espousing modernism are brought together in critical discussion and independent profiles. This is accomplished through a short but discriminating examination of each architect's design work, an essay outlining the historical course and events that confirms his or her vital position, and a substantial bibliography at the completion of each profile. This sourcebook examines the life and creative activities of such founding architects as Wright, Eisenman, Van der Rohe, and Kahn, as well as their disciples. This volume will be of interest to social and cultural historians, scholars, students of all ages, architects, and the appreciative lay audience.

The architects and or firms chosen for the sourcebook were selected as a result of many years of research that required extensive reading of materials by respected experts. From such research, the editors were able to determine the individuals or groups who have been most influential in charting the course of a Westernized modern architecture. From evidence of their productive activities--proof in timber--there is a consensus that each made a unique contribution. The nature and measure of the contribution is discussed within each profile. Those whose reputations are based on paper only, with few buildings to prove their worth, are not included. The editors believe that architecture is an experiential art: all the senses must participate, and that requires the actual built product.

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,

Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots―which are then sold, collected, and handed on―he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive.

And so begins The Hare with Amber Eyes, this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the story of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations.

A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire.

Beginning in late Edo, the Japanese faced a rapidly and irreversibly changing world in which industrialization, westernization, and internationalization was exerting pressure upon an entrenched traditional culture. The Japanese themselves felt threatened by Western powers, with their sense of superiority and military might. Yet, the Japanese were more prepared to meet this challenge than was thought at the time, and they used a variety of strategies to address the tension between modernity and tradition. Inexorable Modernity illuminates our understanding of how Japan has dealt with modernity and of what mechanisms, universal and local, we can attribute to the mode of negotiation between tradition and modernity in three major forms of art-theater, the visual arts, and literature. Dr. Hiroshi Nara brings together a thoughtful collection of essays that demonstrate that traditional and modern approaches to life feed off of one other, and tradition, whether real or created, was sought out in order to find a way to live with the burden of modernity. Inexorable Modernity is a valuable and enlightening read for those interested in Asian studies and history.

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.

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.

Christopher Neve's classic book is a journey into the imagination through the English landscape. How is it that artists, by thinking in paint, have come to regard the landscape as representing states of mind? 'Painting', says Neve, 'is a process of finding out, and landscape can be its thesis.' What he is writing is not precisely art history: it is about pictures, about landscape and about thought. Over the years, he was able to have discussions with many of the thirty or so artists he focuses on, the inspiration for the book having come from his talks with Ben Nicholson; and he has immersed himself in their work, their countryside, their ideas. Because he is a painter himself, and an expert on 20th-century art, Neve is well equipped for such a journey. Few writers have conveyed more vividly the mixture of motives, emotions, unconscious forces and contradictions which culminate in the creative act of painting. Each of the thirteen chapters has a theme and explores its significance for one or more of the artists. The problem of time, for instance, is considered in relation to Paul Nash, God in relation to David Jones, music to Ivon Hitchens, hysteria to Edward Burra, abstraction to Ben Nicholson, 'the spirit in the mass' to David Bomberg. There are also chapters about painters' ideas on specific types of country: about Eric Ravilious and the chalk landscape, Joan Eardley and the sea, and Cedric Morris and the garden.

The New Press is proud to publish a new paperback edition of "Mixed Blessings," the first book to discuss the cross-cultural process taking place in the work of contemporary Latino, Native, African, and Asian American artists. Rich with illustrations of artworks in many different media, and filled with incisive quotes and unsettling reports, it is more than a book about art; it is a complex meditation on the relationships of people to their cultures. Lucy R. Lippard, one of our most original and insightful writers on art, challenges conventional approaches and explores the role of images in a changing society. Among her subjects are the uncertainty of exile; the confusion of identity in attempts to climb out of the melting pot; and art that speaks for itself, reversing stereotypes and reclaiming history and memory. The New Press edition features a new introduction by Lippard that reconsiders the issues first presented in "Mixed Blessings " when it appeared in 1990 and evaluates the state of multicultural art today.

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp sent out a 'telegram' in the guise of a urinal signed R. Mutt. When it arrived at its destination a good forty years later it was both celebrated and vilified as proclaiming that anything could be art; from that point on, the whole Western art world reconfigured itself as 'post-Duchamp'. This book offers a reading of Duchamp's telegram that sheds new light onto its first reception, corrects some historical mistakes and reveals that Duchamp's urinal in fact heralds the demise of the fine arts system and the advent of what Thierry de Duve calls the 'Art-in-General' system. Further, the author shows that this new system does not date from the 1960s but rather from the 1880s. Duchamp was neither its author nor its agent, but rather its brilliant messenger.