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.

How have artists responded to our market-driven, tech-enabled culture of speed? Viewing Velocities explores a contemporary art scene caught in the gears of 24/7 capitalism. It looks at artists who embrace the high-octane experience economy and others who are closer to the slow movement. Some of the most compelling artworks addressing the cadences of contemporary work and leisure play on distinct, even contradictory conceptions of time. From Danh Vo's relics to Moyra Davey's photographs of dust-covered belongings, from Roman Ondak's queuing performers and Susan Hiller's outdoor sleepers to Maria Eichhorn's art strike and Ruth Ewan's giant reconstruction of the French revolutionary calendar, artists have drawn out aspects of the present temporal order that are familiar to the point of near-invisibility, while outlining other, more liberating ways of conceiving, organising and experiencing time. Marcus Verhagen builds on the work of theorists Jonathan Crary, Hartmut Rosa and Jacques Rancière to trace lines of insurgent art that recast struggles over time and history in novel and revealing terms.

This comprehensive monograph offers a detailed examination of the paintings of the acclaimed German painter Neo Rauch (b.1960). Rauch's paintings deftly blend the iconography of Socialist Realism from his upbringing and art-school training in GDR-era Leipzig with the stylistic mannerisms of the Baroque and Romantic past, conjuring heavily populated sites of great commotion and complexity, remarkably without recourse to preliminary drawing. His compositions and their enigmatic figures are rich with reference and allusion, but the stories they tell are indistinct and somehow out of time. They have an ancient modernity - or the freshness of renewed antiquity. Michael Glover discloses Rauch's working methods, revealing how the artist approaches the making of his work, how his images come into being, and the importance of words and their etymology to the creation or disruption of an artwork. These are works that interrogate the very meaning of the artistic impulse; ruminations in the guise of history painting that in fact question what a painter could and should be creating at this particular historical moment.

For more than ten years, the internationally oriented Daimler Art Collection has committed itself to presenting and promoting South African artists. Highly regarded both in South Africa and beyond, its Mercedes-Benz Award has been awarded to authors, musicians, artists, architects, and fashion designers whose works have been prominently displayed in galleries and at biennials worldwide, including Germany's Documenta exhibition--widely regarded as one of the most important gatherings in contemporary art.
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Ampersand" presents more than fifty works of contemporary South African photography, sculpture, video art, and installation pieces side by side with selected works from the Daimler Art Collection, bringing together a startling array of talent, including established artists like Robert Filliou, Jan Henderikse, Sue Williamson, and Willem Boshoff as well as promising representatives of the younger generation.

On the trail of air, wind, and breath Wind moves - both things and human thought. The wind is also a harbinger both of new beginnings and of decay, of control and chaos, and the destructive force of the wind is central to the debate on climate change. The book Wenn der Wind weht / When the Wind Blows is being published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name at KUNST HAUS WIEN, in cooperation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna. It presents more than twenty artistic projects that render the unseen elements air, wind, and breath visible in different ways. Ernst Strouhal traces (cultural) stories of the wind in his text "Flying Robert and His Kin," while curators Verena Kaspar-Eisert and Liddy Scheffknecht look at air as a medium in contemporary art. Publication to accompany the exhibition at KUNST HAUS WIEN (12/03-28/08/2022) Works by Hoda Afshar, Olafur Eliasson, Ulay / Marina Abramovic, and others With a conversation between historian/author Philipp Blom and climate researcher Helga Kromp-Kolb

Monterrey means mountain king, a name befitting its location surrounded by the Sierra Madre in north-eastern Mexico. It was founded in 1596 near the natural springs of Santa Lucia, a luscious oasis in an otherwise arid landscape. Its colonial beginnings are still visible in the architecture of the Barrio Antiguo district in the city centre. In the late 19th century, industrial development transformed the modest town into a flourishing, modern city. Its foundries and breweries reflect its industry, while its skyscrapers, universities, churches, and monuments designed by celebrated Mexican modernist architects like Mario Pani, Enrique de la Mora, Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, and Luis Barragan reflect its modernity. Today, Monterrey is an important cultural, educational, medical, and business metropolis with buildings by Ricardo Legorreta, Nicholas Grimshaw, and Tadao Ando. Its fast growing residential, corporate, and commercial developments feature designs by Norman Foster, Cesar Pelli, Zaha Hadid , and Alejandro Aravena. This book presents the role of architecture in the continuous transformation of this city.

Dan Klein and Alan J. Poole began collecting in the late 1970s and over the subsequent thirty years assembled on the most comprehensive collections of modern British and Irish glass. The book includes work by over one hundred makers at the very cutting edge of their art. This dazzling collection was gifted to National Museums Scotland in 2009.

This is the most comprehensive monograph to-date on the innovative abstract site-related installations of German artist Katharina Grosse (b.1961). Grosse's daring move from the canvas into both architectural space and the landscape, with her signature colourful spray paintings, has resulted in a deeply compelling body of work. From a Toronto airport to a decrepit beach structure on the New York coast and the spaces of major museums worldwide, Grosse's works present thorough, yet temporary, carnivalesque transformations of extant places and situations. Author Gregory Volk has known Katharina Grosse and written about her work since the very outset of her career, and has witnessed her journey from unique talent to radical visionary. As he suggests here, Grosse's continually developing practice, simultaneously ungainly and exhilarating, bewildering and liberating, radically extends the possibilities for contemporary abstract painting.

Since its Tokyo debut in 1995, Gunther von Hagens' 'Body Worlds' exhibition has been visited by more than 25 million people at museums and science centers across North America, Europe, and Asia. Preserved through von Hagens' unique process of plastination, the bodies shown in the controversial exhibit are posed to mimic life and art, from a striking re-creation of Rodin's ""The Thinker"" to a preserved horse and its human rider, a basketball player, and a reclining pregnant woman - complete with fetus in its eighth month. This interdisciplinary volume analyzes ""Body Worlds"" from a number of perspectives, describing the legal, ethical, sociological, and religious concerns which seem to accompany the exhibition as it travels the world.Section One focuses on the ways in which von Hagens' exhibit is designed to elicit a constrained and manipulated viewer response, investigating rhetorical persuasion embedded in the 'Body Worlds' exhibition and literature along with the linguistic trickery of donor consent forms. Section Two examines the historical antecedents of 'Body Worlds', focusing on how Victorian anatomical museums and freak shows have shaped and informed the contemporary exhibit.Section Three describes the exhibition's engagement with European historical contexts, including the motif of bodily degradation and the rise of abstractionist art. Section Four focuses on queer or gendered readings of 'Body Worlds', while Section Five addresses concerns about the exhibit's bio-ethical, religious, and spiritual controversies, including arguments that it commodifies the human body and depoliticizes the dead. The book includes photographs of plastinated cadavers and Ron Mueck's hyper-realist sculptures, along with several anatomical drawings and facsimiles of Victorian anatomical museum catalogs.

Korea's transformation over the last thirty years has been unique in the world and this is the most comprehensive English language survey of contemporary art from Korea ever published 120 artists, museum and gallery directors, curators and collectors are represented in this lavishly illustrated book making it a vital resource for both those in the know and readers wishing to acquaint themselves with Korea's contemporary scene for the first time. As a nation prospers, so does its art. Although Korean contemporary artists take both global and local issues into account in their work, what makes Korean art unique are its diversity and its individuality, informed and enriched by rigorous experimentation and cultural exploration. In recent years, Korean contemporary art's vibrancy has been recognised in the international arena, with artists such as Do Ho Suh, Kimsooja, Michael Joo and Koo Jeong-A appearing as major figures. The book presents profiles of these internationally recognised figures as well as of such up-and-coming artists as Lee Yongbaek, Jeon Joonho, Moon Kyungwon and Nikki S. Lee. Further texts also profile influential curators, as well as the country's leading arts institutions, among them the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art; the Nam June Paik Art Center and the Seoul Museum of Art. The Gwangju Biennale is also highlighted.

The shape, lineation, and prosody of postmodern poems are extravagantly inventive, imbuing both form and content with meaning. Through a survey of American poetry and poetics from the end of World War II to the present, Michael Golston traces the proliferation of these experiments to a growing fascination with allegory in philosophy, linguistics, critical theory, and aesthetics, introducing new strategies for reading American poetry while embedding its formal innovations within the history of intellectual thought. Beginning with Walter Benjamin's explicit understanding of Surrealism as an allegorical art, Golston defines a distinct engagement with allegory among philosophers, theorists, and critics from 1950 to today. Reading Fredric Jameson, Angus Fletcher, Roland Barthes, and Craig Owens, and working with the semiotics of Charles Sanders Pierce, Golston develops a theory of allegory he then applies to the poems of Louis Zukofsky and Lorine Niedecker, who, he argues, wrote in response to the Surrealists; the poems of John Ashbery and Clark Coolidge, who incorporated formal aspects of filmmaking and photography into their work; the groundbreaking configurations of P. Inman, Lyn Hejinian, Myung Mi Kim, and the Language poets; Susan Howe's "Pierce-Arrow," which he submits to semiotic analysis; and the innovations of Craig Dworkin and the conceptualists. Revitalizing what many consider to be a staid rhetorical trope, Golston positions allegory as a creative catalyst behind American poetry's postwar avant-garde achievements.

The early 21st century has seen contemporary art make continued use of audience participation, in which the spectator becomes part of the artwork itself. In this book, Kaija Kaitavuori claims that the `participator' is a new artistic role that does not fall under the auspices of artist or spectator and in proving such she devises a four-group typology of involvement. Her classification distinguishes between different forms of engagement and identifies their specific features. The key criteria she proposes are how concepts of authorship and ownership shift in relation to collectively created work, how contracts regulating the use and production of shared work are arranged and the extent to which involvement in making art can be regarded as democratic. This highly original book thus offers students and teachers the tools with which to improve their understanding of participatory art and removes the confusing terminology that has characterized so many other discussions.

Something strange is going on in the photographs by Frank Kunert (*1963 in Frankfurt am Main): the table set for two has been so cleverly built around a corner that neither of the diners has to see the other, yet they can both watch their own television. Or a desk has a built-in bed for the much-desired office nap. And the outdoor toilet is located further away than one might hope for in an emergency-namely, on the moon. Kunert, a model builder and photographer, creates images of this kind in weeks of painstaking attention to detail, lending expression to the grotesque outgrowths of civilized life that is as humorous and exhilarating as it is profound. The ambivalence between tragedy and humor piques the artist time and again and permeates his surreal-looking visual worlds in an inexhaustible variety of ways. Melancholy and skewed wit are closely related in this wonderland of absurdities-surprising and thought provoking.

The decade of the 1990s was one of the most turbulent periods in recent Mexican history marked by political assassinations, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the signing of NAFTA, a catastrophic economic crisis, and the defeat of the PRI after seventy years of one-party rule. How did art respond to these events? To answer this question, Gallo examines some of the most radical artistic experiments produced in this period, from Daniela Rossell's photographs of Mexican millionaires to Teresa Margolles's manipulations of human remains, from Santiago Sierra's controversial work with human subjects to Vicente Razo's creation of a Salinas museum.

Sarah Lowndes looks back at the rise of the Glasgow art scene through the decades, from community art to Thatcher, New Wave to Teenage Fanclub. Charting the emergence of performance and conceptual-related art, she looks at the background from which the art of the last 40 years emerged, the social atmosphere which was able to influence artists, musicians and writers who would go on to be known worldwide.

Positioning Alice Neel as a champion of civil rights, this book explores how her paintings convey her humanist politics and capture the humanity, strength, and vulnerability of her subjects   “One of the most ambitious and thorough collections of Neel’s work to date.�—Allison Schaller, Vanity Fair   “For me, people come first,� Alice Neel (1900–1984) declared in 1950. “I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.� This ambitious publication surveys Neel’s nearly 70-year career through the lens of her radical humanism. Remarkable portraits of victims of the Great Depression, fellow residents of Spanish Harlem, leaders of political organizations, queer artists, visibly pregnant women, and members of New York’s global diaspora reveal that Neel viewed humanism as both a political and philosophical ideal. In addition to these paintings of famous and unknown sitters, the more than 100 works highlighted include Neel’s emotionally charged cityscapes and still lifes as well as the artist’s erotic pastels and watercolors. Essays tackle Neel’s portrayal of LGBTQ subjects; her unique aesthetic language, which merged abstraction and figuration; and her commitment to progressive politics, civil rights, feminism, and racial diversity. The authors also explore Neel’s highly personal preoccupations with death, illness, and motherhood while reasserting her place in the broader cultural history of the 20th century. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (March 22–August 1, 2021)   Guggenheim, Bilbao (September 17, 2021–January 30, 2022)   de Young Museum, San Francisco (March 12–July 10, 2022)

Let Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts guide your tarot practice with this beautifully illustrated tarot deck inspired by Disney's classic animated film Alice in Wonderland. Experience the magic of Disney's Alice in Wonderland like never before in this enchanting and delightfully unique take on the traditional 78-card tarot deck. This set features beloved characters from Alice to the Cheshire Cat to the White Rabbit and more in gorgeous original illustrations based on classic tarot iconography. Featuring both major and minor arcana, the set also comes with a helpful guidebook explaining each card's meaning, as well as simple instructions for easy readings. Packaged in a sturdy, decorative gift box, this charming tarot deck is the perfect gift for the Alice in Wonderland fan or tarot enthusiast. ORIGINAL ART: The booklet and each of the 78 cards in this deck feature never-before-seen original Alice in Wonderland-themed art. GUIDEBOOK INCLUDED: This unique deck includes a guidebook to help tarot practitioners of all skill levels perform fun and informed readings. BEAUTIFUL GIFT: The tarot deck and guidebook are packaged in a deluxe gift box perfect for gift giving. OFFICIAL DISNEY DECK: The only official Disney Alice in Wonderland tarot deck and guide. 70th ANNIVERSARY: This deck is the perfect way to celebrate 70 years of the beloved Disney film.

The first-ever monograph on Reynaud-Dewar, one of today’s most celebrated multimedia artists

French artist Lili Reynaud-Dewar creates environments and situations in which she uses her own body to examine the dual experience of vulnerability and empowerment that results from acts of exposing oneself to the world. Evolving through a range of media such as performance, video, installation, sound, and literature, her work considers the fluid border between public and private space, challenging conventions related to the body, sexuality, power relations, and institutional spaces. This is the first book to document her remarkable career.