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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles
On the southern end of the Grand Rue, a major thoroughfare that
runs through the center of Port-au-Prince, waits the Haitian
capital's automobile repair district. This veritable junkyard of
steel and rubber, recycled parts, old tires, and scrap metal might
seem an unlikely foundry for art. Yet, on the street's opposite end
thrives the Grand Rue Galerie, a working studio of assembled art
and sculptures wrought from the refuse. Established by artists
Andre Eugene and Celeur in the late 1990s, the Grand Rue's urban
environmental aesthetics-defined by motifs of machinic urbanism,
Vodou bricolage, the postprimitivist altermodern, and performative
politics-radically challenge ideas about consumption, waste, and
environmental hazards, as well as consider innovative solutions to
these problems in the midst of poverty, insufficient social
welfare, lack of access to arts, education, and basic needs. In
Riding with Death, Jana Braziel explores the urban environmental
aesthetics of the Grand Rue Sculptors and the beautifully
constructed sculptures they have designed from salvaged automobile
parts, rubber tires, carved wood, and other recycled
materials.Through first-person accounts and fieldwork, Braziel
constructs an urban ecological framework for understanding these
sculptures amid environmental degradation and grinding poverty.
Influenced by urban geographers, art historians, and political
theorists, the book regards the underdeveloped cities of the Global
South as alternate spaces for challenging the profit-driven
machinations of global capitalism. Above all, Braziel presents
Haitian artists who live on the most challenged Caribbean island,
yet who thrive as creators reinventing refuse as art and resisting
the abjection of their circumstances.
This stunning catalogue presents The Courtauld's outstanding
collection of works by Renaissance artist Girolamo Francesco Maria
Mazzola, better known as Parmigianino (1503-1540). This catalogue
accompanies a display of works by Parmigianino at The Courtauld,
including his famous and enigmatic painting of the Virgin and
Child, as well as drawn studies for his most ambitious projects
such as the Madonna of the Long Neck and the frescoes of the church
of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma. The latter was the last and
most important commission of his life and would have been his
triumphal homecoming. Instead, Parmigianino became entangled in his
experimental processes and failed to complete it, leading to his
brief imprisonment for breach of contract. Fundamentally a
draftsman at heart, Parmigianino drew relentlessly during his
relatively short life, and around a thousand of his drawings have
survived. The Courtauld's collection comprises twenty-four sheets.
In preparation for the catalogue, new photography and technical
examinations have been carried out on all the works revealing two
new drawings that were previously unknown, hidden underneath their
historic mounts. They have also helped to better identify
connections between some of the drawings and the finished paintings
for which they were conceived. The catalogue illustrates the whole
Courtauld collection, which also includes two paintings and more
than ten prints. As a printmaker, Parmigianino is considered to
have been the first to experiment with etching in Italy and was a
pioneer of the chiaroscuro woodcut technique. His refined and
graceful compositions were much appreciated by his contemporaries
and exalted by the artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari (1511-74).
This catalogue and display have been curated by Gottardo and
Rebecchini in collaboration with former and current research
students at The Courtauld, and technical research has been
conducted by members of The Courtauld Conservation Institute. A
truly collaborative project, the catalogue sheds light on an artist
who approached every technique with unprecedented freedom and
produced innovative works which were studied and admired by artists
and collectors for many years to come.
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