Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems, and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Arts and Performance offers a unique discourse and an original aesthetic theory. It argues that fusing perspectives from the philosophy of Existentialism with insights from the 'universal science' of cybernetics provides a new analytical lens and deconstructive methodology to critique art. In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists' works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir, and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, eternal recurrence, the absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and 'noise', feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon's groundbreaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system.

An evocative chronicle of the power of solitude in the natural world I'm often asked, but have no idea why I chose Iceland, why I first started going, why I still go. In truth I believe Iceland chose me.-from the introduction Contemporary artist Roni Horn first visited Iceland in 1975 at the age of nineteen, and since then, the island's treeless expanse has had an enduring hold on Horn's creative work. Through a series of remarkable and poetic reflections, vignettes, episodes, and illustrated essays, Island Zombie distills the artist's lifelong experience of Iceland's natural environment. Together, these pieces offer an unforgettable exploration of the indefinable and inescapable force of remote, elemental places, and provide a sustained look at how an island and its atmosphere can take possession of the innermost self. Island Zombie is a meditation on being present. It vividly conveys Horn's experiences, from the deeply profound to the joyful and absurd. Through powerful evocations of the changing weather and other natural phenomena-the violence of the wind, the often aggressive birds, the imposing influence of glaciers, and the ubiquitous presence of water in all its variety-we come to understand the author's abiding need for Iceland, a place uniquely essential to Horn's creative and spiritual life. The dramatic surroundings provoke examinations of self-sufficiency and isolation, and these ruminations summon a range of cultural companions, including El Greco, Emily Dickinson, Judy Garland, Wallace Stevens, Edgar Allan Poe, William Morris, and Rachel Carson. While brilliantly portraying nature's sublime energy, Horn also confronts issues of consumption, destruction, and loss, as the industrial and man-made encroach on Icelandic wilderness. Filled with musings on a secluded region that perpetually encourages a sense of discovery, Island Zombie illuminates a wild and beautiful Iceland that remains essential and new.

This retrospective brings insight into hundreds of stunning rock posters by Jim Phillips made over 40 years, from 1965 to 2005, and counting. Phillips tells his life story and how the posters record an evolution of Rock Age music. Containing iconic images that advertise concerts featuring both emerging and established musicians, this collection will delight and astound you. Jim's original, ground-breaking computer painted posters, along with his old-world style techniques are a real wonder sure to bring a smile. A bonus section presents Phillips' son Jimbo's rock posters. Rock musicians, fans, and hip audiences today all will pour over the fabulous images and lettering that set this work apart.

In the 21st century photography has come of age as a contemporary art form. Almost two centuries after photographic technology was first invented, the art world has fully embraced it as a legitimate medium, equal in status to painting and sculpture. This book provides an introduction to the extraordinary range of contemporary art photography, from portraits of intimate life to highly staged, 'directorial' spectacle. The vast span of photographers whose work is reproduced includes established artists such as Isa Genzken, Jeff Wall, Sophie Calle, Thomas Demand, Nan Goldin and Sherry Levine, as well as emerging talents such as Sara VanDerBeek, Rashid Johnson, Viviane Sassen and Amalia Ulman. This new edition revitalizes previous discussion of works from the 2000s through dialogue with more recent practice. Adding to the wide selection featured of work, Cotton celebrates a new generation of artists, who are shaping photography as a culturally significant medium for our current socio-political climate.

Can fine art survive in an age of mass media? If so, in what forms and to what purpose? And can radical art still play a critical role in today's divided world? These are the questions addressed in the Art in the Age of Mass Media, as John Walker examines the fascinating relationship between art and mass media, and the myriad interactions between

The Sketchbook of Loish offers readers a unique look into Loish's creative processes and idea generation, providing an insight into the role her sketches play in her extremely popular work. Peek inside Loish's sketchbook and discover how she explores gesture, stylization, and sketching for animation. Learn the different techniques she uses when sketching with traditional and digital tools, and follow the book's two detailed tutorials on character construction and sketching digitally to improve your own processes. The book also features handy quick tips for capturing movement, using different line weights, shading, and using textured brushes. Including an insight into Loish's character sketching, development sketches, landscape, and reference studies this book will show you how Loish captures the spirit of her finished artworks in her exquisite preliminary work. In addition to showcasing a comprehensive collection of Loish's sketches, this book features exclusive artwork, and a special chapter exploring Loish's personal concepts to give an in-depth look at how her initial ideas evolve through sketches to culminate in her accomplished concept designs. A truly inspiring and informative book with a high-quality finish and slipcase, The Sketchbook of Loish will have you itching to get sketching!

Since the mid-1970s, American painter Stanley Whitney has been exploring the formal possibilities of colour within grids of multi-coloured blocks. Matthew Jeffrey Abrams's thoughtful book, the first full monograph on the artist, highlights Whitney's unique and sophisticated understanding of line and colour and his commitment to abstract painting over four decades of consistent practice. Abrams brings together Whitney's personal and professional narratives to weave a chronological analysis of the work and the artist's wider cultural contribution. Born in Philadelphia in 1946, Whitney moved to New York in 1968, and under the guidance of Philip Guston he began to experiment with abstraction, drawn to the basic formal qualities of Abstract Expressionism, the pure chroma of the Color Field movement, and the minimalist approach of such artists as Donald Judd. Steadfastly pursuing abstraction at a time when critical interest was focussed on figurative art and photography, Whitney has not received the critical recognition due to him until late in his career. This book affirms his outstanding achievement.

From Victorian breakthroughs in synthesising pigments to the BBC’s conversion to chromatic broadcasting, the story of colour’s technological development is inseparable from wider processes of modernisation that transformed Britain. This revolutionary history brings to light how new colour technologies informed ideas about national identity during a period of profound social change, when the challenges of industrialisation, decolonisation of the Empire and evolving attitudes to race and gender reshaped the nation. Offering a compelling new account of modern British visual culture that reveals colour to be central to its aesthetic trajectories and political formations, this chromatic lens deepens our understanding of how British art is made and what it means, offering a new way to assess the visual landscape of the period and interpret its colourful objects.   Across a kaleidoscopic array of materials, from radiant paintings by major Victorian artists, vivid print advertisements and vibrant interwar fashion photographs, to glorious Technicolor films and the prismatic programmes of the BBC’s early years of colour television, The Rainbow’s Gravity reveals how Britain modernised colour and how colour, in turn, modernised Britain. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

This volume looks at the politics of communication and culture in contemporary South Asia. It explores languages, signs and symbols reflective of current mythologies that underpin instances of performance in present-day India and its neighbouring countries. From gender performances and stage depictions to protest movements, folk songs to cinematic reconstructions and elections to war-torn regions, the chapters in the book bring the multiple voices embedded within the grand theatre of popular performance and the cultural landscape of the region to the fore. Breaking new ground, this work will prove useful to students and researchers in sociology and social anthropology, art and performance studies, political studies and international relations, communication and media studies and culture studies.

The story of how plants and flowers have shaped interior design for over 200 years From ferns in 19th-century British parlors to contemporary "living walls" in commercial spaces, plants and flowers have long been incorporated into the design of public and private spaces. Spanning two centuries, Nature Inside explores the history and popularity of indoor plants, revealing the close relationship between architecture, interior design, and nature. Studying the international modern interior through the lens of plants in the human environment, author Penny Sparke attributes a degree of the interest in indoor plants to urbanization, and, more recently, the climate crisis, which serve as ongoing reminders that people must maintain a connection to, and respect for, the natural world. While architectural and interior design styles have evolved alongside the popularity of various plant species, the human need to bring nature indoors has remained constant.

LAND ART: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO LANDSCAPE, ENVIRONMENTAL, EARTHWORKS, NATURE, SCULPTURE AND INSTALLATION ART

A fully illustrated guide to land and environmental art. A newly updated and revised edition of our best-selling book.

For the land artist, the whole planet is an artist's studio. The land artist ranges over the whole globe. A desert, a beach, a field, a forest becomes a studio, a place of creative activity. This means the very texture and colour and shape and dampness and springiness and strength and size of moss, for instance. Or a stone. Or a crevice in a rock formation. The way the light falls on a patch of grass, the little bits of dead, yellowish grass on top of the newer, green grass. Pine cones, closed-up. Flowers turning sunward in the late afternoon. These are the things land artists deal with in making art. These are the actualities that artists employ when they create artworks.

This book explores all of the major land, environmental and earthwork artists of the past 40 years, including James Turrell and his vast volcano site Hans Haacke's Conceptual art Michael Heizer's Mid-West earthworks Robert Smithson and his giant spiral, entropic earthworks Christo's wrapped buildings and islands, Robert Morris's environments Walter de Maria's Romantic Lightning Field David Nash's stoves, stones, trees and North Wales environments Hamish Fulton's walks and words Dennis Oppenheim's concentric snow circles Richard Long and his art of walking Andy Goldsworthy's natural, spontaneous, eco-friendly sculptures Alice Aycock's mysterious underground mazes Mary Miss's sunken pools and pavilions Wolfgang Laib's delicate, luminous pollen spreads Nancy Holt and her observation sculptures and the enigmatic floor sculptures of Carl Andre.

William Malpas has written books on Richard Long and land art, as well as three books on Andy Goldsworthy, including the forthcoming Andy Goldsworthy In America. Malpas's books on Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy are the only full-length studies of these artists available.

Includes new illustrations, bibliography, notes. 380 pages. ISBN 9781861714008. www.crmoon.com

"The Ordinary and The Odd" is the first book from artist and graphic designer, Swen Swenson. Swenson's use of simple and minimilst illustrations, evoking playful and sometimes odd encounters is a pleasure for any viewer of his work. His style is instantly recognisable and each image conjures the imagination to create stories that can be both quirky and also calming. In this book we see Swenson encapsulate a variety of themes including: urban landscape, nature, transport and engineering and human life. Through subtle and peaceful tones, each image touches on a quiet moment that is perhaps contrasted with a surprising twist or sense of anticipation. Graphic illustration is ever more present in our visual world and media. Characters and scenes depicted are relatable to a wide audience and Swenson's work is relates to our lives through recognisable content in his art, requiring us to stay still, consider the scene and reflect.

Arts Programming for the Anthropocene argues for a role for the arts as an engaged, professional practice in contemporary culture, charting the evolution of arts over the previous half century from a primarily solitary practice involved with its own internal dialogue to one actively seeking a larger discourse. The chapters investigate the origin and evolution of five academic field programs on three continents, mapping developments in field pedagogy in the arts over the past twenty years. Drawing upon the collective experience of artists and academicians in the United States, Australia, and Greece operating in a wide range of social and environmental contexts, it makes the case for the necessity of an update to ensure the real world relevance and applicability of tertiary arts education. Based on thirty years of experimentation in arts pedagogy, including the creation of the Land Arts of the American West (LAAW) program and Art and Ecology discipline at the University of New Mexico, this book is written for arts practitioners, aspiring artists, art educators, and those interested in how the arts can contribute to strengthening cultural resiliency in the face of rapid environmental change.

A magisterial study of celebrated photographer Walker Evans Walker Evans (1903-75) was a great American artist photographing people and places in the United States in unforgettable ways. He is known for his work for the Farm Security Administration, addressing the Great Depression, but what he actually saw was the diversity of people and the damage of the long Civil War. In Walker Evans, renowned art historian Svetlana Alpers explores how Evans made his distinctive photographs. Delving into a lavish selection of Evans's work, Alpers uncovers rich parallels between his creative approach and those of numerous literary and cultural figures, locating Evans within the wide context of a truly international circle. Alpers demonstrates that Evans's practice relied on his camera choices and willingness to edit multiple versions of a shot, as well as his keen eye and his distant straight-on view of visual objects. Illustrating the vital role of Evans's dual love of text and images, Alpers places his writings in conversation with his photographs. She brings his techniques into dialogue with the work of a global cast of important artists-from Flaubert and Baudelaire to Elizabeth Bishop and William Faulkner-underscoring how Evans's travels abroad in such places as France and Cuba, along with his expansive literary and artistic tastes, informed his quintessentially American photographic style. A magisterial account of a great twentieth-century artist, Walker Evans urges us to look anew at the act of seeing the world-to reconsider how Evans saw his subjects, how he saw his photographs, and how we can see his images as if for the first time.

The Routledge Companion to Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century brings together a wide range of geographical, cultural, historical, and conceptual perspectives in a single volume of new essays that facilitate a deeper understanding of the field of art activism as it stands today and as it looks towards the future. The book is a resource for multiple fields, including art activism, socially engaged art, and contemporary art, that represent the depth and breadth of contemporary activist art worldwide. Contributors highlight predominant lines of inquiry, uncover challenges faced by scholars and practitioners of activist art, and facilitate dialogue that might lead to new directions for research and practice. The editors hope that the volume will incite further conversation and collaboration among the various participants, practitioners, and researchers concerned with the relationship between art and activism. The audience includes scholars and professors of modern and contemporary art, students in both graduate and upper-level undergraduate programs, as well as artists, curators, and museum professionals. Each chapter can stand on its own, making the companion a flexible resource for students and educators working in art history, museum studies, community practice/socially engaged art, political science, sociology, and ethnic and cultural studies.

On New Year's Day 1986, encouraged by her dealer Andras Kalman, artist Mary Newcomb, then aged 64, began to keep a diary. She wrote in its opening pages: 'I wanted ... to remind ourselves that - in our haste - in this century - we may not give time to pause and look - and may pass on our way unheeding'. This beautiful new book, compiled by the artist's daughter and grandson, reveals Mary Newcomb as an acute observer of her surroundings, reproducing her copious sketches alongside more finished paintings and short diary extracts to draw out the many themes which preoccupied her throughout her career as an artist. Mary Newcomb's world was rural East Anglia, where she managed a small mixed farm with her husband Godfrey Newcomb. The working life of the countryside engrossed her quite as much as the cycle of Nature: she noticed and relished everything, with as keen an eye for the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses at a wedding as for the yellow and brown of a dragonfly's body. Mary's daughter Tessa Newcomb, also an artist, introduces the key themes of the book with short texts which provide fascinating insight into her mother's world. A reflective introductory essay by art critic William Packer considers Mary Newcomb's written diary observations alongside the poetic language of her art.

Encountering the work of Alan Davie (1920-2014) at Wakefield Art Gallery in 1958, a young David Hockney (b.1937) was struck by Davie's landmark Abstract Expressionist paintings, which mirrored and stimulated his own fledgling experimentation with colourful abstraction. Juxtaposing the remarkable early work of two greats of post-war painting, this book provides an original perspective on an important aspect of two significant artistic careers. A richly illustrated text demonstrates points of convergence - such as the painterly surface, passion and poetry, and an exploration of text within the pictorial frame - while also presenting divergence, moving the discussion beyond comparison to reveal a moment when each artist expanded the expressive potential of the painted canvas. Seeking to suggest new relationships and continuities between two generations previously segregated, this beautifully produced publication is ambitious in its intention, pushing the boundaries of traditional interpretations of British art history.

'Ashley Jackson The Yorkshire Artist' contains a collection of paintings that have been personally chosen by the artist to bring together his personal memories and intimate reflections of the emotions and atmosphere that he has captured in each watercolour painting. As he explains, 'All artists paint what inspires them, what allows them to capture what they see with their eyes with their hands and heart. We all have differing inspirations, mediums and connections with our subject mine is the Yorkshire Moors.' From the open moorland of Marsden Moor to the inhabited landscape of Whitby, this book brims with what Ashley does best; capturing the atmospheric skies and drama of the landscape. As Ashley explains, 'I have strived throughout my life to witness and portray every mood swing of nature as she takes a stand against all that the elements throw at her, whether that be rain, wind, snow or fire.' You will truly find Ashley Jackson and his 'Yorkshire Mistress', as he calls the Yorkshire landscape, laid bare in these stunning paintings.

New expanded 248pp 2019 Edition. The single best collection of photography of Banksy's street work that has ever been assembled for print. If that isn't enough there are some words too. You Are An Acceptable Level of Threat covers his entire street art career, spanning the late '90s right up to the 'Seasons Greetings' Christmas 2018 piece in Port Talbot, Wales. This new edition includes his self-destructing 'Love is in the Bin' intervention, which according to Sotheby's is "the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction." The groundbreaking 'Dismaland' show, his Paris '68 revisited works, The Walled Off Hotel, Brexit, Cans Festival, Brookyln and Basquiat, as well as new works from Gaza and New York. Also featuring the controversial 'Cheltenham Spies' as well as 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', 'Art Buff' and the spectacular 'Mobile Lovers' which appeared outside Bristol Boys Boxing Club. 248 pages featuring his greatest works of art in context.