A dynamic new look at the legendary college that was a major incubator of the arts in midcentury America In 1933, John Rice founded Black Mountain College in North Carolina as an experiment in making artistic experience central to learning. Though it operated for only 24 years, this pioneering school played a significant role in fostering avant-garde art, music, dance, and poetry, and an astonishing number of important artists taught or studied there. Among the instructors were Josef and Anni Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Karen Karnes, M. C. Richards, and Willem de Kooning, and students included Ruth Asawa, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly. Leap Before You Look is a singular exploration of this legendary school and of the work of the artists who spent time there. Scholars from a variety of fields contribute original essays about diverse aspects of the College-spanning everything from its farm program to the influence of Bauhaus principles-and about the people and ideas that gave it such a lasting impact. In addition, catalogue entries highlight selected works, including writings, musical compositions, visual arts, and crafts. The book's fresh approach and rich illustration program convey the atmosphere of creativity and experimentation that was unique to Black Mountain College, and that served as an inspiration to so many. This timely volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the College and its enduring legacy.

Insightful and interdisciplinary, this book considers the movement of people around the world and how contemporary artists contribute to our understanding of it In this timely volume, artists and thinkers join in conversation around the topic of global migration, examining both its cultural impact and the culture of migration itself. Individual voices shed light on the societal transformations related to migration and its representation in 21st-century art, offering diverse points of entry into this massive phenomenon and its many manifestations. The featured artworks range from painting, sculpture, and photography to installation, video, and sound art, and their makers-including Isaac Julien, Richard Mosse, Reena Saini Kallat, Yinka Shonibare MBE, and Do Ho Suh, among many others-hail from around the world. Texts by experts in political science, Latin American studies, and human rights, as well as contemporary art, expand upon the political, economic, and social contexts of migration and its representation. The book also includes three conversations in which artists discuss the complexity of making work about migration. Amid worldwide tensions surrounding refugee crises and border security, this publication provides a nuanced interpretation of the current cultural moment. Intertwining themes of memory, home, activism, and more, When Home Won't Let You Stay meditates on how art both shapes and is shaped by the public discourse on migration. Published in association with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Exhibition Schedule: Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (October 23, 2019-January 26, 2020) Minneapolis Institute of Art (February 22-May 24, 2020) Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University (February 5-May 30, 2021)

A comprehensive survey of American artist Mark Dion, examining three decades of his critically engaged practice interrogating our relationship with nature The first book in two decades to consider the entire oeuvre of Mark Dion (b. 1961), this volume examines thirty years of the American artist's pioneering inquiries into how we collect, interpret, and display nature. Part of a generation of artists expanding institutional critique in the 1990s, Dion adopted the methods of the archaeologist or the natural history museum, juxtaposing natural objects, taxidermy, books, and more to reorganize the natural and the manmade in poetic, witty ways. These sculptures, installations, and interventions offer novel approaches to questioning institutional power, which he sees as connected to the control and representation of nature. Generously illustrated, this publication introduces new insights and features more than seventy-five artworks. Essays address topics ranging from Dion's ecological activism to his loving critique of museums. A diverse group of contributors explores his work as a teacher, his public artworks such as Neukom Vivarium in Seattle, and his intricate curiosity cabinets installed throughout the world. They reveal how Dion's practice and formal investigations-which are rooted in history-connect to contemporary questions of disciplinary boundaries and the acquisition of knowledge in the age of the Anthropocene. Published in association with The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston Exhibition Schedule: Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (10/04/17-01/07/18)

A man caught in and behind wallpaper, a chimpanzee in a lifeboat, mountain climbers and hikers in the middle of a polar sea a la Caspar David Friedrich: Ethan Murrow (*1975 in Greenfield, Massachusetts) plays with the dimensions we are familiar with and tells a scarcely conceivable story with each of his pictures. Their references lie in personal experiences, historical sources, or in the romanticizing landscapes of the Hudson River School, from which his fantasy springs. At first glance one believes to be looking at edited black-and-white photographs, until it quickly becomes apparent that these are meticulously prepared pencil drawings. Murrow examines the boundary between the artist's fiction and depicted reality. Yet this volume deals not just with his pencil drawings-for the first time, one can also marvel at the extensive works he magically conjures on walls with a ballpoint pen.