Published on the occasion of the Liverpool Biennial 2012, this book addresses the theme of the exhibition: notions of hospitality. Hospitality is the welcome we extend to strangers, an attitude and a code of conduct, as well as a metaphor that encompasses issues of the body, territory, geopolitics, ecology, trade and the hosting of data. In this era of unprecedented movement of both people and knowledge, different cultures of hospitality jostle for space as never before. Where lies the threshold between host and guest, if there is one at all, and who has the power to decide? How does our view of hospitality change when seen through the lens of time? The ethics underlying these questions are shaped by traditions that date back to the classical world and the ancient cultures of central Asia and the Indian sub-continent. In more recent times, philosophers from Kant to Derrida have provided influential comment on the subject, establishing the terms of a discourse that now spans myriad disciplines, among them anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy, theology, politics and art. Responding to this growing academic and cultural interest, The Unexpected Guest is the first publication to bring together an anthology of key historical and contemporary texts with new contributions by writers from a variety of fields, alongside artists' responses commissioned especially for the book. Uniquely, it introduces time as a window onto hospitality, offering fresh perspectives and new thinking on the issue.

Gary Indiana's collected columns of art criticism from the Village Voice, documenting, from the front lines, the 1980s New York art scene. In 1985, the Village Voice offered me a job as senior art critic. This made my life easier and lousy at the same time. I now had to actually enter all those galleries instead of peeking in the windows. At times, the only tangible perk was having the chump for a fifth of vodka whenever twenty more phonies had flattered my ass off in the course of a working week. -from Vile Days From March 1985 through June 1988 in The Village Voice, Gary Indiana reimagined the weekly art column. Thirty years later, Vile Days brings together for the first time all of those vivid dispatches, too long stuck in archival limbo, so that the fire of Indiana's observations can burn again. In the midst of Reaganism, the grim toll of AIDS, and the frequent jingoism of postmodern theory, Indiana found a way to be the moment's Baudelaire. He turned the art review into a chronicle of life under siege. As a critic, Indiana combines his novelistic and theatrical gifts with a startling political acumen to assess art and the unruly environments that give it context. No one was better positioned to elucidate the work of key artists at crucial junctures of their early careers, from Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince to Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman, among others. But Indiana also remained alert to the aesthetic consequence of sumo wrestling, flower shows, public art, corporate galleries, and furniture design. Edited and prefaced by Bruce Hainley, Vile Days provides an opportunity to track Indiana's emergence as one of the most prescient writers of his generation.

Soul Mates takes a serious and ironic look at popular icons in western American culture--cowboy boots and masterpieces in western art--to explore American cultural values and pervasive themes in twentieth century art. Cowboy boots are examined as markers of western life, as works of art, and subjects of works of art. The author has selected stellar examples of boots made by skilled and famous boot makers, including Lucchese, Tony Lama, and C. C. McGuffin, to offer a counterpoint to the "fine art" more typically considered. He has also selected drawings, paintings, prints, and photographs that reflect the changing attitudes and perceptions of western culture over the past 50 years and raise conceptual issues about western mores and modern life. Featured are works by Barbara Van Cleve, Frederick Hammersley, Bruce Nauman, Hal West, Luis A. Jimenez, Jr., and many others whose art define and redefine aspects of Western mythology and culture. The text examines the contemporary art forms that shape the current representation of the cowboy and the West in modern life and explores the origins of cowboy imagery; the isolation of ranch life; the non-traditional roles of female cobblers; and the depictions of boot wearers (both male and female) as powerful, sexual, and independent. Soul Mates is published to coincide with an exhibition to open at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico in May 2010.

A complex and elusive artist, Gino De Dominicis is considered one of the key figures in contemporary Italian art and a reference point for both the artists of his time and younger generations. Gino De Dominicis' life has always been shrouded in mystery. He chose to stay outside the sphere of media attention and due to this intransigent position no catalogs or books on his works were published. The work entitled "Seconda soluzione di immortalita. L'universo e immobile," presented at the Venice Art Biennale in 1972, was remembered however: Gino de Dominicis faced charges for having exhibited a young man with Down's Syndrome as an art object. The absolute originality of much of his intuition has anticipated artistic experiences that came to fruit in the 21st century. The catalog, edited by Italo Tomassoni, brings together more than 700 artworks, each one accompanied by a dossier which, alongside the usual technical, chronological and bibliographic data, provides information regarding the context and circumstances that led to the work's creation.The volume also includes a section devoted to the artist's writings, a critical anthology and a catalogue raisonne of his works. The book concludes with appendices reproducing rare and unpublished documents dealing with the artist's life, a complete list of his solo exhibitions, his participation in group shows and an extensive bibliography.

From the fan-favorite Pop Surrealist painter and graphic artist, this coloring book features stunningly beautiful black-and-white images of mermaids and other legendary beasts of the ocean drawn in Camilla d'Errico's signature manga-inspired style. Following the success of her first coloring book, Pop Manga Coloring Book, artist Camilla d'Errico takes fans beneath the waves with 70 black-and-white images of beloved characters from undersea fairy tales and myths in this stunning coloring book. Along with beautiful and haunting images of mermaids, d'Errico also includes many-tentacled krakens, giant seahorses, narwhals, and more in pieces that you'll want to start coloring as soon as you open the book. Select pieces include designed, patterned backgrounds to keep colorists working away hour after hour in this underwater kingdom of cute.

This ultimate picture book packed with wonderful, quirky, amusing and delightful images from the British Museum. There is no text at all: the pictures, and combinations of pictures, speak for themselves. This makes the book accessible to all ages. Quite young children will enjoy examining and talking about the pictures; even adult visitors familiar with the museums galleries will find much to surprise and entertain them. Every reader is likely to be surprised at the breadth and variety of images, all of which come from the British Museum.