Self-Portrait explores 30 years of artistic research by Paolo Canevari (Rome, 1963), proposing a series of sculptures, drawings and installations ranging from the first creations in the wake of Arte Povera, to those made of rubber from the 1990s, up to the more recent series Monuments of the Memory: Landscape and Constellations. The works tell of Canevari's vision of art-making, which moves from a classical training combined with a profound conceptual research, while also animated by a strong political character. Through the use of different media and materials - with a predilection for the rubber of inner tubes and tyres - Canevari adopts a language that is sometimes brutal, often ambiguous, certainly evocative, to bring light into the dark territories of man, understood both as an individual and as humanity. His radical and subversive approach aims to stimulate a reaction in the observer, with the intention, on the one hand, of breaking prejudices and cliches, on the other of investigating personal, intimate and inner aspects in relation to the work of art and its universal meaning. The volume includes a critical text by Robert Storr, two interviews with the artist collected respectively by Robert Storr and Francesca Pietropaolo and by Shirin Neshat, and a tribute to Canevari written by late Sicilian novelist Andrea Camilleri. Text in English and Italian.

A vivid and compelling collection of quotations from the influential contemporary artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat Neshat-isms is an exciting collection of quotations from award-winning Iranian-American visual artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat. Her experiences of loss and grief as an Iranian woman living in exile are central themes of her work in photography, video, and film. She is known for her outspoken advocacy for Iranian women and human rights, and for poetic and politically charged images and narratives that raise questions about power, religion, race, and gender. Gathered from interviews, talks, and writings, these powerful and thought-provoking quotations showcase the voice of one of the most important artists of our time. “Through my work I have continued to defy and resist the Western clichéd image of Iranian women as passive victims. While acknowledging the repressive situation in Iran, I have continued to represent Iranian women as empowered, courageous, defiant, and rebellious.” “Every Iranian artist, in one form or another, is political. Politics has defined our lives.” “I’ve done a lot of work about women in a state of madness, where ultimately they find a kind of freedom.” “You can’t demystify a myth.”

Video art dominates the international art world to such an extent that its heady days on the radical fringes are sometimes overlooked--often unknown. This book is an essential and highly entertaining guide to video art and its history. Elwes, herself a pioneer of early video, traces the story from the weighty Portapak equipment of the '60s and '70s to today's digital technology, from early experiments in "real time" to the "new narrative" movement of the 1980s. She also examines video's love-hate relationship with television, from its literal destruction in "scratch" video to its apparent absorption into the mainstream with works commissioned by Channel Four. Throughout its forty-year history, video has been allied to self-portraiture, landscape, painting and sculpture and has been co-opted as a political tool. Artists discussed include amongst many others Nam June Paik, Nan Hoover, The Duvet Brothers, Dara Birnbaum, Bill Viola, Pipilloti Rist, David Hall, Stuart Marshall, Shirin Neshat, Smith & Stewart, Steve McQueen and Sam Taylor-Wood.