A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. From fashion sketches of smartly dressed Shanghai dandies in the 1920s, to multipanel drawings of refugee urbanites during the war against Japan, to panoramic pictures of anti-American propaganda rallies in the early 1950s, the polymorphic cartoon-style art known as manhua helped define China's modern experience. Manhua Modernity offers a richly illustrated, deeply contextualized analysis of these illustrations across the lively pages of popular pictorial magazines that entertained, informed, and mobilized a nation through a half century of political and cultural transformation. In this compelling media history, John Crespi argues that manhua must be understood in the context of the pictorial magazines that hosted them, and in turn these magazines must be seen as important mediators of the modern urban experience. Even as times changed-from interwar-era consumerism to war-time mobilization to Mao-style propaganda-the art form adapted to stay on the cutting edge of both politics and style.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: the man with the glasses and the woman with the red hair. Each one was born on the same day in 1935, and this unusual artist couple worked together until Jeanne-Claude's death in 2009, changing the art world in the process. In large-scale actions they enveloped buildings and entire landscapes in various materials, revealing at the same time their essence and beauty. In order to finance these enormous works of art by themselves, Christo and Jeanne-Claude began making editions early on in their career-prints, collages, and objects. This completely revised, expanded, and updated catalogue of works, Prints and Objects, is testimony to the artist's impressive scope and to their courage. Who else would have had the idea of building a 120-meter-tall truncated pyramid out of 410,000 oil barrels in the desert of the United Arab Emirates? Languages: German and English

An inspired collection of the authors' own work spanning 30 years into the 'Visual Art Language'. Demonstrates a variety of mediums including oil paint, etching and drawing. Will appeal to readers with an interest in Fine Art, practitioners or those with an interest in the development of a visual language. This is a book of original art works comprising 49 colour and 62 black and white images, most are at full page size. The book is divided into six sections which look at different aspects of visual language in terms of either subject matter or media. It contains works from memory, etchings, still life, portrait, figure drawings and student work which form these six sections. Readers are able to see the development of a language which has evolved from early student work to current work. There are brief introductions to each section which aim to explain how the ideas came about, providing some detail about the artistic process, the inspiration behind the work and the challenges encountered along the way. Complementing the visual art are short and concise introductions to each section. A biography of the author is included at the end.

Villa Rica, Georgia, December 5, 1957: This small Southern town was taken unaware and unprepared when a sudden, violent blast of a gas explosion ripped through the downtown business district killing twelve and injuring thirty-four. When the Associated Press picked up the news, the eyes and hearts of the world were focused on the survival of the town and its people.

Homelessness is a growing global problem that requires local discussions and solutions. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, it has noticeably become a collective concern. However, in recent years, the official political discourse in many countries around the world implies that poverty is a personal fault, and that if people experience homelessness, it is because they have not tried hard enough to secure shelter and livelihood.   Although architecture alone cannot solve the problem of homelessness, the question arises: What and which roles can it play? Or, to be more precise, how can architecture collaborate with other disciplines in developing ways to permanently house those who do not have a home? Who’s Next? Homelessness, Architecture, and Cities seeks to explore and understand a reality that involves the expertise of national, regional, and city agencies, non-governmental organizations, health-care fields, and academic disciplines.  Through scholarly essays, interviews, analyses of architectural case studies, and research on the historical and current situation in Los Angeles, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, São Paulo, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo, this book unfolds different entry points toward understanding homelessness and some of the many related problems.  The book is a polyphonic attempt to break down this topic into as many parts as needed, so that the specificities and complexities of one of the most urgent crises of our time rise to the fore.

Uninterrupted Fugue offers a selection of critical essays about the art of Palestinian artist Kamal Boullata, covering 40 years of his career. Written by an international constellation of critics, art historians and museum curators coming together for the first time in one book, they reveal a wide range of analytical perspectives on the unfolding of abstract art in exile. Readers interested in contemporary art beyond the Western canon, will find in this lavishly illustrated book rare insights into an aesthetic where frontiers are crossed between verbal and visual expression, between modernity and traditions rooted in Byzantine and Islamic art.

The book provides a comparison of contemporary art by analyzing female aesthetic subjectivity within a global context. The starting point is a comparison between the work of Tracey Karima Emin and He Chengyao. Kwan Kiu Leung demonstrates why their work constitutes not only the self, but they practice an ontological identification relationship between subjectivity and artwork that exhibits three aspects of their subjectivity: performativity, visibility, and univocity. Furthermore, it reveals an ontological and ethical self within their naked self-portraits.

Pays homage to 'the Chelsea Set', a bohemian, progressive clique that would change the course of sixties contemporary design, with a focus on Mary Quant and Terence Conran. Narrates the history of an era through a meld of biography, fashion photography and vintage ads. Informative, attractive, stylish - the perfect gift for someone with an eye for fashion. Transporting you back to London at the height of the Swinging Sixties, this book provides vital context for two of the biggest and boldest names in 'Pop' fashion: Mary Quant, alleged mother of the miniskirt, and Terence Conran, the entrepreneur behind the new wave of 'lifestyle' stores. Friends, associates and allies in design, Quant and Conran stood at the head of an informal but influential bohemian group who steered the rudder of style during the Pop era. 'The Chelsea Set' resist definition; there was no comprehensive members list. Conran/Quant: Swinging London - A Lifestyle Revolution explores the contributions of designers and artists from Laura and Bernard Ashley to Eduardo Paolozzi, Nigen Henderson and Alexander Plunket Greene, all of whom were essential generators of Sixties Style.

A lavishly illustrated monograph that spans the entire career of Gerhard Richter, one of the most celebrated contemporary artists "Spans the contemporary German artist's six-decade career. . . . [A] stirring exhibition in [its] own right."-New York Times "[A] weighty catalogue... illuminat[es] some less-visited corners of Richter's oeuvre."-New York Review of Books Over the course of his acclaimed 60-year career, Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) has employed both representation and abstraction as a means of reckoning with the legacy, collective memory, and national sensibility of post-Second World War Germany, in both broad and very personal terms. This handsomely designed book features approximately 100 of his key canvases, from photo paintings created in the early 1960s to portraits and later large-scale abstract series, as well as select works in glass. New essays by eminent scholars address a variety of themes: Sheena Wagstaff evaluates the conceptual import of the artist's technique; Benjamin H. D. Buchloh discusses the poignant Birkenau paintings (2014); Peter Geimer explores the artist's enduring interest in photographic imagery; Briony Fer looks at Richter's family pictures against traditional painting genres and conventions; Brinda Kumar investigates the artist's engagement with landscape as a site of memory; Andre Rottmann considers the impact of randomization and chance on Richter's abstract works; and Hal Foster examines the glass and mirror works. As this book demonstrates, Richter's rich and varied oeuvre is a testament to the continued relevance of painting in contemporary art. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Met Breuer, New York (March 4-July 5, 2020) Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (August 14, 2020-January 19, 2021)

In four decades of abstract art practice, Lynda Benglis has not merely challenged the status quo. She has tied it in knots, melted it down and poured it across the floor, cast it in glass, clay and bronze. Daring and sometimes outrageous, her intense and provocative practice has produced some of the most iconic pieces of art from the late twentieth century. Richmond gives serious critical attention to work often dismissed as trivial and rootless, recovering the themes that link the different phases of the artist's quest to capture the 'frozen gesture'. Whether challenging popular tastes and definitions of art with her 1970s abstract knotwork or mocking puritanical aesthetics of gender with her colourful latex pourings and their allusions to corporeal topographies, Benglis never failed to provoke. Her sculptures commemorate and celebrate the processes of creation themselves, combining architectonic abstraction and feminized sensuality in a haunting, visceral theme of the strangeness of the body that runs through all her experiments in glass, video, metals, ceramics, gold leaf, paper and plastics. Lynda Benglis: Beyond Process examines in depth the work and critical neglect of an artist who, perhaps more than any of her contemporaries, changed the face of American art in the 1960s and 1970s, and continues to fetishise, provoke and demand your attention.

With dozens of full-color illustrations! This is a retrospective of musical poetry by heavy metal guitarist and frontman, Matt Pike, which spans twenty years beginning in 1998 with the album Art of Self Defense up to the latest release, the 2019 Grammy-Award winning record, Electric Messiah. Every chapter features brand-new artistic interpretations from the minds and hearts of an incredible cast of illustrators, tattooers, printmakers, and painters Pike has been trusted since the beginning to depict his vision. The cast of artists are Arik Roper, David V. D'Andrea, Santos, Brian Mercer, Skinner, Jondix,Stash, Tim Lehi, Jordan Barlow, and Derrick Snodgrass created brand new, never before seen works specifically inspired by each album, including one large illustration to define the chapter ahead and two additional vignettes that are directly inspired by the songs. Each has their own bold and iconic style that perfectly compliments the breadth of Pike's various works. These prolific artists transport the reader further into a far-away landscape of ominous Lovecraftian entities, shrouded in wondrous and esoteric darkness. Together, they have redefined the way we perceive Underground Doom Metal these past twenty years and it is our honor to showcase them together along with the incredible written word of Pike.

'The avant-garde' is perhaps the most important and influential concept in the history of modern culture. For over a hundred years it has governed critical and historical assessment of the quality and significance of an artist or a work of art, in any medium-if these have been judged to be 'avant-garde', then they have been worthy of consideration. If not, then by and large they have not, and neither critics nor historians have paid them much attention. In short, modern art is and has been whatever the 'avant-garde' has made, or has said it is. But very little attempt has been made to explore why 'the avant-garde' carries so much authority, or how it came to do so. What is more, the term remains a difficult one to define, and is often used in a variety of ways. What is the relation between 'the avant-garde' - that is, the social entity (the 'club') - and 'avant-garde' qualities in a work of art (or design, or architecture, or any other cultural product)? What does 'avant-gardism mean? Moreover, now that contemporary art seems to have broken all taboos and is at the centre of a billion-pound art market, is there still an 'avant-garde'? If so, what is the point of it and who are the artists concerned? In this Very Short Introduction, David Cottington explores the concept of the 'avant-garde' and examines its wider context through the development of western modernity, capitalist culture, and the global impact of both. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Since 1993, Beijing-based Ai Weiwei has created a cohesive body of work in the various guises of artist, architect, curator, writer and critic. This overview, an in-depth reflection on the artist's most vibrant and celebrated projects, features works from 2004-2007--including installation projects, objects and videos. Focusing on thematic topics, materials and media, it includes screenshots from Ai's influential blog, as well as a discussion of his infamous social sculpture "Fairytale," which debuted at 2007's Documenta 12, inviting 1,001 Chinese citizens to participate in hopes of finding, "a way to bring China's current social condition to Kassel and thus allow Westerners to view a sample of modern Chinese society." Ai's most recent wood and porcelain series is also featured here, positing a new understanding of traditional Chinese forms, aesthetics and production. This publication includes texts by Charles Merewether, Peter Pakesch and Philip Tinari.
The son of the famous Chinese poet Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 in Beijing. He collaborated with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron on the design for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Emerging from the unlikely background of the Scottish coalfields, unknown and untutored, Jack Vettriano has become Scotland's most successful and controversial contemporary artist. Appearing on posters and cards, mugs and umbrellas, prints of his work outsell van Gogh, Dali and Monet and his paintings have been acquired by celebrities around the world. Vettriano's images are a gateway to an alluring yet sinister world; a timeless place where past and present intertwine. Daylight scenes of heady optimism, painted against backdrops of beaches and racetracks, are counterbalanced by more disquieting canvases of complex night-time liaisons in bars, clubs, bedrooms and ballrooms. His powerful canvases are beautifully captured in this new edition of Jack Vettriano, which includes 15 more recent images, from exhibitions between 2006 and 2010.

An urban history of modern Britain, and how the built environment shaped the nation's politics Foundations is a history of twentieth-century Britain told through the rise, fall, and reinvention of six different types of urban space: the industrial estate, shopping precinct, council estate, private flats, shopping mall, and suburban office park. Sam Wetherell shows how these spaces transformed Britain's politics, economy, and society, helping forge a midcentury developmental state and shaping the rise of neoliberalism after 1980. From the mid-twentieth century, spectacular new types of urban space were created in order to help remake Britain's economy and society. Government-financed industrial estates laid down infrastructure to entice footloose capitalists to move to depressed regions of the country. Shopping precincts allowed politicians to plan precisely for postwar consumer demand. Public housing modernized domestic life and attempted to create new communities out of erstwhile strangers. In the latter part of the twentieth century many of these spaces were privatized and reimagined as their developmental aims were abandoned. Industrial estates became suburban business parks. State-owned shopping precincts became private shopping malls. The council estate was securitized and enclosed. New types of urban space were imported from American suburbia, and planners and politicians became increasingly skeptical that the built environment could remake society. With the midcentury built environment becoming obsolete, British neoliberalism emerged in tense negotiation with the awkward remains of built spaces that had to be navigated and remade. Taking readers to almost every major British city as well as to places in the United States and Britain's empire, Foundations highlights how some of the major transformations of twentieth-century British history were forged in the everyday spaces where people lived, worked, and shopped.

A leading figure of photorealist painting, Franz Gertsch (born 1930, Switzerland) has created monumental portraits of charismatic youths and meditative depictions of nature in vivid and pains- taking detail for over fifty years. Polyfocal Allover surveys Gertsch's paintings from 1970 to 1982 and woodcut prints from 1979 to 2019, reflecting a vision in which all that lies within the frame is accorded equal value. The essays, interviews, and conversations in this publication bring further definition to the lives and landscapes Gertsch renders with such virtuosic, eerie precision.

Ronald Lockett (1965-1998) stands out among southern artists in the late twentieth century. Raised in the African American industrial city of Bessemer, Alabama, Lockett explored a range of recurring themes through his art: faith, the endless cycle of life, environmental degradation, historical events, the sweetness of idealized love, mourning, human emotion, and personal struggle. By the time Lockett died at age thirty-two, he had created an estimated four hundred works that document an extraordinary artistic evolution. This book offers the first in-depth critical treatment of Lockett's art, alongside sixty full-color plates of the artist's paintings and assemblages, shedding light on Lockett's career and work. By placing Lockett at its center, contributors contextualize what might be best understood as the Birmingham-Bessemer School of art, which includes Thornton Dial, Joe Minter, and Lonnie Holley, and its turbulent social, economic, and personal contexts. While broadening our understanding of southern contemporary art, Fever Within uncovers how one artist's work has become emblematic of the frustrated, yearning, unredeemed promises, and family and community resilience expressed by a generation of African American artists at the close of the twentieth century. Contributors include Paul Arnett, Sharon Patricia Holland, Katherine L. Jentleson, Thomas J. Lax, and Colin Rhodes.