"Looking for Alfred" documents Johan Grimonprez's prize-winning film of the same name, an homage to Alfred Hitchcock in the form of a search for the perfect Hitchcock doppelganger and vignettes starring those multiple would-be Hitchcocks, reenacting his cameos. Casting calls and screen tests in London, Rotterdam, Los Angeles and New York are documented in film stills and photos. (Professional Hitchcock impersonator Rob Burrage says, "I thought I was safe until you guys came along, digging up all those other Hitchcock look-alikes. Now we will have to find ways of disposing of them.") Line-readings from Truffaut's famous 1960s interview with the master and scenes in which Hitchcock acted as an extra are further grist for the mill. Beyond the work's mockumentary structure, Grimonprez evokes the Hitchcockian universe uncannily, and connects back--through the recurring motif of a man in a suit and a bowler hat--to another great modern auteur, Rene Magritte.

This accessible and expertly written introduction and overview of Tracey Emin's life offers a completely up-to-date view on the work of one of the most important and respected artists working today. From some of her previously unpublished early works from the 1980s, through the period of the 'Young British Artists' when she first found international fame, and up to her very latest works - many also published here for the first time - The Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones brings together Tracey Emin's complete career into one concise and essential volume.

This is the first full-length study about the British artist Roy Ascott, one of the first cybernetic artists, with a career spanning seven decades to date. The book focuses on his early career, exploring the evolution of his early interests in communication in the context of the rich overlaps between art, science and engineering in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. The first part of the book looks at Ascott's training and early work. The second park looks solely at Groundcourse, Ascott's extraordinary pedagogical model for visual arts and cybernetics which used an integrative and systems-based model, drawing in behaviourism, analogue machines, performance and games. Using hitherto unpublished photographs and documents, this book will establish a more prominent place for cybernetics in post-war British art.

On June 10, 1935, Dorse Lanpher was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. After he was resuscitated by the doctor, Dorse began living a meaningful life ruled by his vivid imagination, artistic talent, and passion for creating unforgettable special effects environments for the animated characters.

In his memoir, Dorse shares a revealing glimpse into his fascinating life as an artist in the animated film industry. He begins by offering entertaining childhood anecdotes that describe cherished moments like skinny-dipping with his friends, saving his money and buying his family their first television, and constructing a homemade golf course in a field of wild grass. After he graduated from high school in California and entered the Art Center School of Los Angeles, Dorse's talent was recognized by his teachers; after five challenging semesters, however, he left the school. As Dorse embarked on a journey to conquer a new world with nothing but a portfolio of his best art and a desire to live his dream, he soon discovered that, with a little tenacity, he could do anything.

Dorse's captivating story proves that following one's passion is never free from struggle, but staying true to a dream can lead to a life fulfilled.

Step into a world of star-crossed lovers, magical winds, mischievous giants, and trolls, through some of the most exquisite illustrations in publishing history. In this gorgeous reprint, TASCHEN revives the most ambitious publication project of beloved Danish artist Kay Nielsen, one of the most famous children's book illustrators of all time. First published in 1914, East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a celebrated collection of fifteen fairy tales, gathered by legendary Norwegian folklorists Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Engebretsen Moe on their journeys across Norway in the mid-nineteenth century. Nielsen's illustration edition of Asbjornsen and Moe's tales is considered a jewel of early 20th-century children's literature, highly sought-after by art and book collectors worldwide. An original signed copy of the book sold at auction in 2008 commanded the highest price ever paid for an illustrated children's book. This finely crafted reprint restores the stunning detail and artistry of Nielsen's images to their original splendor. Featuring 46 illustrations, including many enlarged details from Nielsen's rare original watercolors, the book is printed in five colors. Three accompanying essays, illustrated with dozens of rare and previously unseen artworks by Nielsen, explore the history of Norwegian folktales, Nielsen's life and work, and how this masterpiece came to be.

'Ought to become a classic. It is an enshrinement of [Meades's] intense baroque and catholic cleverness' Roger Lewis, The Times 'One of the foremost prose stylists of his age in any register . . . Probably we don't deserve Meades, a man who apparently has never composed a dull paragraph' Steven Poole, Guardian 'There are more gems in this wonderful book than I could cram into a dozen of these columns' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph 'Such a useful and important critic . . . He is very much on the reader's side, bringing his full wit to bear on every single thing he writes' Nicholas Lezard, Spectator This landmark publication collects three decades of writing from one of the most original, provocative and consistently entertaining voices of our time. Anyone who cares about language and culture should have this book in their life. Thirty years ago, Jonathan Meades published a volume of reportorial journalism, essays, criticism, squibs and fictions called Peter Knows What Dick Likes. The critic James Wood was moved to write: 'When journalism is like this, journalism and literature become one.' Pedro and Ricky Come Again is every bit as rich and catholic as its predecessor. It is bigger, darker, funnier and just as impervious to taste and manners. It bristles with wit and pin-sharp eloquence, whether Meades is contemplating northernness in a German forest or hymning the virtues of slang. From the indefensibility of nationalism and the ubiquitous abuse of the word 'iconic', to John Lennon's shopping lists and the wine they call Black Tower, the work assembled here demonstrates Meades's unparalleled range and erudition, with pieces on cities, artists, sex, England, France, concrete, faith, politics, food, history and much, much more.

Animals and Artists discusses a selection of modern and contemporary artworks that challenge traditional representations of nonhuman animals, and that expose human viewers to animal otherness. It argues that the individuated and discrete human self in possession of consciousness, rationality, empathy, a voice, and a face, is open to challenge by nonhuman capacities such as distributed cognition, gender ambiguity, metamorphosis, mimicry and avian speech. In traditional philosophy, animals represent all that is lacking in humankind. However, Animals and Artists argues that just because humans frame 'the animal' as a negative term, their binary opposite and everything that they are not, does not mean that animals have no meaning in themselves. Rather, animals in their very unknowability, mark the limits of human thinking. By combining art analysis with poststructuralist, post humanist and animal studies theories as well as scientific research, Elizabeth decentres the human and establishes a new position where differences are embraced. In our current moment of ecological crisis, Animals and Artists brings readers into solidarity with other animal species, among them spiders, silkworms, bees, parrots and octopuses. The book raises empathy for other live forms, drawing attention to the shared vulnerabilities of human and nonhuman animals, and in so doing underlines the power of art to bring about social change. Readers will include animal studies scholars, artists, art historians, Jean Painleve scholars, Surrealist enthusiasts, non-academics who are concerned about the human-animal relationship, the environment or larger identity politics issues.

Hogarth was one of the great 18th-century painters, a marvellous colourist and innovator at all levels of artistic expression. Art historian David Bindman surveys the works of this artist whose wry humour and sharp wit were reflected in his prolific paintings and prints including The Rake's Progress and Marriage-A-la-Mode. Hogarth was also a master of pictorial satire, highlighting the moral and political hypocrisies of the day with delightful detail and comedy - themes that resonate deeply with our times. The artist was a keen observer of class and society; this new edition has been specially updated to include a discussion of Hogarth's many representations of Black people in 18th-century Britain, a subject that has long been overlooked. Now revised with additional material and illustrated in colour throughout, this is a vivid and incisive study of the man and his art. With 172 illustrations in colour

The reception of Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy from its origins to its appearances in contemporary visual culture reveals how its popularity was achieved and maintained by diverse audiences and in varied venues. Performative manifestations resulted in contradictory characterizations of the painted youth as an aristocrat or a "regular fellow," as masculine or feminine, or as heterosexual or gay. In private and public spaces where viewers saw the actual painting and where living and rendered replicas circulated, Gainsborough's painting was often the centerpiece where dominant and subordinate classes met, gender identities were enacted, and sexuality was implicitly or overtly expressed.

The great 6th-century BCE Attic potter-painter Exekias is acclaimed as the most accomplished exponent of late 'black-figure' art. His vases, vessels, bowls and amphorae are reproduced on postcards and in other media all over the world. Despite his importance in the history of art and archaeology, little has been written about Exekias in his own right. Elizabeth Moignard, a leading historian of classical art, here corrects that neglect by addressing her subject as more than just a painter. She positions Exekias as a remarkable but nevertheless grounded and receptive man of his age, working in an Athens that was sensitive to Homeric literature and drawing on that great corpus of poetry to explore its own emerging concepts of honour, heroism, leadership and military tradition. Discussing a range of ceramic pieces, Moignard illustrates their impact and meaning, deconstructing iconic images like the suicide of Ajax; the voyage of Dionysus surrounded by dolphins; and the killing by Achilles of the Amazon queen Penthesilea. This book is the most complete introduction to its subject to be published in English.

Examining the literary career of the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry, 1741-1806 through an interdisciplinary methodology, The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting, 1775-1809 is the first full-length study of the artist's writings. Liam Lenihan critically assesses the artist's own aesthetic philosophy about painting and printmaking, and reveals the extent to which Barry wrestles with the significant stylistic transformations of the pre-eminent artistic genre of his age: history painting. Lenihan's book delves into the connections between Barry's writings and art, and the cultural and political issues that dominated the public sphere in London during the American and French Revolutions. Barry's writings are read within the context of the political and aesthetic thought of his distinguished friends and contemporaries, such as Edmund Burke, his first patron; Joshua Reynolds, his sometime friend and rival; Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, with whom he was later friends; and his students and adversaries, William Blake and Henry Fuseli. Ultimately, Lenihan's interdisciplinary reading shows the extent to which Barry's faith in the classical tradition in general, and the genre of history painting in particular, is permeated by the hermeneutics of suspicion. This study explores and contextualizes Barry's attempt to rethink and remake the preeminent art form of his era.

A one-of-a-kind book of pop-ups based on the works of the Japanese artist Hokusai

Hokusai (1760–1849) was an extraordinarily prolific Japanese master artist and printmaker of the ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’) genre. More than 150 years after his death, his legacy remains as important as any Western painter’s. His work inspired a roll-call of great artists including Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Gauguin, Manet, Degas and Klimt as well as craftsmen and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright.

This book features six meticulously crafted pop-ups of some of his most famous works: 'The Great Wave'; 'Chrysanthemums and Horsefly'; 'The Poem of Ariwara no Narihira or Autumn Leaves'; 'Kirituri Waterfall'; 'Phoenix'; and 'A Sudden Gust of Wind'.

Anton van Dalen: Community of Many chronicles the historic artist Anton van Dalen's lifelong visual investigation informed by the influences of war, religion and migration, his devotion to nature, and his dedication to documenting the technological and cultural evolutions within our society across a variety of mediums, from drawing and sculpture to collage and painting. Born in the Netherlands in 1938 to a conservative Calvinist family, Anton witnessed first-hand the terrors of both technological and human destruction during the Second World War. Since he immigrated to New York in 1966 and settled in the East Village, Anton has served as witness, storyteller and documentarian of the dramatic cultural shifts in the neighbourhood through his masterfully honed and singular iconography. Featuring critical essays by John Yau and Tiernan Morgan, this heavily illustrated publication is the first comprehensive monograph on Anton van Dalen's work that provides a language by which to discuss the consequences of human brutality towards nature and our entanglement with technology. Anton has been included in group exhibitions at notable institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; New Museum, New York; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; and the New-York Historical Society. He has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia; University Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Exit Art, New York. His Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre has toured since 1995 both nationally and internationally and has been shown at numerous institutions including The Drawing Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and The New-York Historical Society.

James Lawrence Isherwood (1917-1989) is widely regarded by his followers as one of the best impressionist painters this country has produced. Born and bred in Wigan, now part of Greater Manchester, England, he was a prolific painter and produced his best work from the early 1960s on. His work has always been considered truly original and is typified by strong brushwork and extravagant colours. His subjects ranged from rural and industrial landscapes to nudes and portraiture, and his work has found its way into art collections across the world. Now Dr. Brian Iddon has written this authoritative biography about James Isherwood and his work.

In the mid-1950s, Yves Klein (1928-1962) declared that "a new world calls for a new man." With his idiosyncratic style and huge charisma, this bold artist would go on to pursue a brief but bountiful career, producing more than 1,000 paintings over seven years in an oeuvre now considered a mainstay of postwar modernism. Klein made his name above all with his large monochrome canvases in his own patented hue of blue. International Klein Blue (IKB), composed of pure pigment and binding medium, is at once rich and luminous, evocative and decorative, and was conceived by Klein as a means of evoking the immateriality and infinitude of the world. The works of this "Blue Revolution" seem to draw us into another dimension, as if hypnotized by a perfect summer sky. Klein was also renowned for his deployment of "living brushes," in which naked women, daubed in International Klein Blue, would make imprints of their bodies on large sheets of paper. This Basic Art introduction presents key Klein works to introduce an artist who was at once a showman, inventor, and pioneer of performance art. With page after page of the ever-alluring International Klein Blue, it is both an essential guide to a modern art master and a meditation on the unique effects of a single color. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

This major new biography recounts the extraordinary life of one of the most creative figures in Western culture, weaving together the multiple threads of Michelangelo's life and times with a brilliant analysis of his greatest works. The author retraces Michelangelo's journey from Rome to Florence, explores his changing religious views and examines the complicated politics of patronage in Renaissance Italy. The psychological portrait of Michelangelo is constantly foregrounded, depicting with great conviction a tormented man, solitary and avaricious, burdened with repressed homosexuality and a surplus of creative enthusiasm. Michelangelo's acts of self-representation and his pivotal role in constructing his own myth are compellingly unveiled.
Antonio Forcellino is one of the world's leading authorities on Michelangelo and an expert art historian and restorer. He has been involved in the restoration of numerous masterpieces, including Michelangelo's Moses. He combines his firsthand knowledge of Michelangelo's work with a lively literary style to draw the reader into the very heart of Michelangelo's genius.

Anselm Kiefer, born in 1945, is one of the most important and controversial artists at work in the world today. Through such diverse mediums as painting, photography, artists books, installations, and sculpture, he has interpreted the great political and cultural issues at the heart of the modern European sensibility: the connections between memory, history, and mythology; war; the Holocaust; and ethnic and national identity. In this extensively illustrated, thoughtful survey of his work, available again in a new and compact format, author Daniel Arasse analyzes Kiefer s education, influences, philosophy, and art, while demonstrating the unity and continuity of his work. Arasse takes as his starting point the 1980 Venice Biennale, a key moment in Kiefer s career that marked the birth of both his international reputation and the controversy over the strong focus on German civilization that characterized much of his work. Equal parts eloquent tribute and respected monograph, Anselm Kiefer is organized both chronologically and to reflect the artist s recurrent motifs, including Nordic and Germanic mythologies, Jewish mysticism, the cosmos, the legends of the ancient world, and many more. Approximately 250 full-color images reproduce his art at the highest possible quality, to trace Kiefer s creative evolution and reveal as fully as possible his works scope and power."