The immediate physical presence of color is central to Katharina Grosse's creative endeavor. Through an open-ended creative process in which painting takes on the form of a performance, color embodies movement, making its emotional potential tangible. These issues are not only driving her dramatically large in situ works painted across various surfaces in public places. They also inform her studio paintings, which have played an equally central role in her practice from the start. This book is the first study focusing on Grosse's studio practice from the late 1980s to the present. Five essays and an insightful interview with the artist explore how Grosse expands the concept of painting - not just in open space, but also on canvas - through creating an ephemeral character and removing the limitations of its traditional frame.

Pursuing a new and timely line of research in world art studies, Humor in Global Contemporary Art is the first edited collection to thoroughly examine the role of culture-specific and transcultural humor in contemporary art from a global perspective. Since the 1960s, an increasing number of artists from across the world have applied humor in their work, often to ridicule ethical transgressions such as corruption, inequality, humiliation, greed, and abuse of power. Exploring the degree to which humor has played a role in art created from the 1960s onwards, its function as a cultural signifier, and the tensions that arise from the transcultural movement of art in different contexts, this book opens new conversations regarding the significant role that humor plays in politically and socially-engaged art. With an impressive array of global scholars, covering four major continental regions, the book moves through four distinct sections: Africa and the Middle East; Asia and Oceania; South and North America; and Europe, in turn highlighting the cultural specificity of each region. In these times of globalization and biennialization, when we are increasingly confronted with humorous art from a variety of cultures and countries, this book will provide readers with a culturally sensitive understanding of the ways in humor has become vital to many contemporary artists working in a globally-connected world.

"Permission to Laugh" explores the work of three generations of German artists who, beginning in the 1960s, turned to jokes and wit in an effort to confront complex questions regarding German politics and history. Gregory H. Williams highlights six of them - Martin Kippenberger, Isa Genzken, Rosemarie Trockel, Albert Oehlen, Georg Herold, and Werner Buttner - who came of age in the mid-1970s in the art scenes of West Berlin, Cologne, and Hamburg. Williams argues that each employed a distinctive brand of humor that responded to the period of political apathy that followed a decade of intense political ferment in West Germany. Situating these artists between the politically motivated art of 1960s West Germany and the trends that followed German unification in 1990, Williams describes how they no longer heeded calls for a brighter future, turning to jokes, anecdotes, and linguistic play in their work instead of overt political messages. He reveals that behind these practices is a profound loss of faith in the belief that art has the force to promulgate political change, and humor enabled artists to register this changed perspective while still supporting isolated instances of critical social commentary. Providing a much-needed examination of the development of postmodernism in Germany, "Permission to Laugh" will appeal to scholars, curators, and critics invested in modern and contemporary German art, as well as fans of these internationally renowned artists.