Takashi Murakami (b. 1962), one of contemporary art s most widely recognized exponents, receives a long-awaited critical consideration in this important volume. Accompanying the first retrospective exhibition devoted solely to Murakami s paintings, this book traces Murakami s career from his earliest training to his current studio practice. Where other books address the commercial aspects of Murakami s work, this is the first serious survey of his work as a painter. Through essays and illustrations many previously unpublished it explores the artist s relationship to the tradition of Japanese painting and his facility in straddling high and low, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, commercial and high art. New texts address Murakami s output in the context of postwar Japan, situating the artist in relation to folklore, traditional Japanese painting, the Tokyo art scene in the 1980s and 1990s, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. This richly illustrated volume also includes a detailed biography and exhibition history. Takashi Murakami is a true essential for collectors and fans alike.

This volume will be the first monograph on the work of Chicago-based artist William J. O'Brien (born 1975), produced to accompany his first large-scale, solo exhibition opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in January 2014. The show demonstrates the broad range of O'Brien's work--from sculpture and ceramics to drawing, textiles and painting--and his guiding interest in physicality and the handmade. The catalogue expands the dominant narratives around his practice, which generally focus on his ceramics, to more accurately reflect his diverse, prolific practice as a whole. Exhibition curator Naomi Beckwith and contributing author and curator Trevor Smith contextualize the artist's work in light of recent modes in contemporary art history--l'informe, the handmade and semiotic play. Critic Jason Foumberg contributes a creative text inspired by the artist's working process. Together, the contributing essays make a strong contextual case for O'Brien's work that counters canonical themes of media-specificity and traditional art materials, producing a catalogue as expansive as the breadth of O'Brien's practice itself.

A beautifully produced, comprehensive examination of acclaimed American artist Sarah Sze's painting practice Since the late 1990s, Sarah Sze has developed a signature visual language that challenges the static nature of art with a dynamic body of work spanning sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, video and installation. In recent years, Sze has returned to painting, the medium in which she was first trained. Comprising constellations of painted and collaged elements, her expansive abstract landscapes explore a visual world that is constantly evolving, degrading, and generating new ways of seeing. This book, created in close collaboration with Sze, is the first monograph devoted to her painting practice.

Alfredo Jaar's immersive site-specific installation in the Chilean pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venezia Venezia is a call to examine how today's culture, composed of increasingly complex global networks, can be adequately represented on a world stage.This publication features essays by 18 prominent, international authors from different fields of work and thought, including political and philosophical thinkers, critics, theorists, art historians and curators. Their contributions consider Venezia Venezia in its critical context, as well d recent global developments and the volatile conditions of contemporary art practice.