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November 8, 2007
Murals: Walls That Sing by George Ancona
In their own way, community murals seem to say, "This is who we are, and we are here!" In this picture-book tribute, Ancona showcases a range of beautiful urban artwork, photographed mostly in major American cities. He begins with a short background, including images of the cave paintings in Lascaux, France; ancient Mexican frescos; and postrevolutionary Mexican murals. The rest of the book shows a diverse selection of murals. ...the beautiful, sharp color photos and the unusual subject will attract plenty of browsers, and the book is a great choice for starting classroom discussions about community. - Gillian Engberg, Booklist.
Khufu: The Secrets Behind the Building of the Great Pyramid by Jean-Pierre Houdin
For centuries, travelers to the Nile Valley have marveled at the pyramids and have asked enduring questions of why and how they were built. This handsome, profusely illustrated volume seeks to tell how the Great Pyramid of Khufu was constructed. French architect Houdin offers a novel interpretation for the methods used to build this enduring monument. - P. D. Thomas, Choice
The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964-1986 / edited by N. Elizabeth Schlatter and Joan Maitre
For the Russian nonconformist artists of the 1960s through the 1980s, a room or an apartment was a departure point into the world of art, a world free of limitations. The walls from floor to ceiling were covered with the art of unofficial artists who were forbidden to show their works in exhibiton halls and museums of the Soviet Union.This volume includes pieces by the most important figures in the history of these exhibitions and in the history of nonconformist painting. - Amazon.com
Anxious Objects: Willie Cole's Favorite Brands by Patterson Sims
This catalog for a retrospective exhibition of Willie Cole's work offers a comprehensive view of his work from the 1980s to the present. Curator Patterson Sims shows in his essay how Cole's work has been informed by art history, politics, and the artist's identity as an African American. Combining West African, Indian, and Buddhist sculptural references, Pop Art, Minimalism, and the found object tradition of Duchamp, Cole transforms such mundane things as high-heeled shoes, ironing boards, faucets, and hairdryers into elegant objects of beauty and, sometimes, political commentary. - K. N. Pinder, Choice
Elias Rivera by Edward Lucie-Smith
Lucie-Smith's book is a beautiful tribute to New Mexican artist Elias Rivera. Born in New York, this artist of Puerto Rican heritage has consistently experimented with representational strategies. In Rivera's earlier work, one could find traces of the social commitment characteristic of the Mexican mural movement and its impact on American art. Despite his growing success and numerous awards (not necessarily financial), Rivera moved to New Mexico in 1982. With this relocation, his themes changed: although still generally focused on social depictions, the paintings' primary subject matter is Native Americans and the peoples of Mexico and Central America, their traditions, typical dress, and labor. These are all beautifully reproduced in this book. - L. E. Carranza, Choice
Henri Rousseau: Jungles in Paris edited by Frances Morris and Christopher Green
Highlighting and emphasizing the particular iconographic theme of the jungle that Rousseau treated numerous times, this wonderful catalog's essayists stress the arguable point that the myth of the artist as naïf has had a deleterious effect, tending to inhibit more serious consideration of his achievements. Numerous documentary photographs provide stimulating visual speculations to accompany the 14 excellent essays, 7 of which are subsections for Nancy Ireson's 100-page essay on Rousseau's paintings. Informative, provocative, enjoyable, a fine contribution to burgeoning Rousseau scholarship - J. Weidman, Choice
Caravaggio: the Art of Realism by John Varriano
Caravaggio... was the most revolutionary artist of the Italian Baroque. Consistently emphasizing the humanity of his religious subjects, he established a new way of painting. The intensity of his chiaroscuro style is matched only by the drama of his life. Outlaw, heretic, murderer, and sensualist were a few of the charges brought against him by his contemporaries. Patrick Hunt's wide-ranging professional and personal scholarship allows him to interpret Caravaggio's complicated religious and classical imagery while anchoring his art in his life. - Amazon.com
Magritte and Contemporary Art: the Treachery of Images by Stephanie Barron, Michel Draguet
This important exhibition catalog recontextualizes the work of Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte in light of Pop and Conceptual Art, as well as postmodern art and theory. As the extremely well-illustrated catalog amply demonstrates, Magritte has had a lasting influence on contemporary artists. Must reading for modernists and postmodernists alike, this catalog perfectly balances historical context with creative thinking. - E. K. Menon, Choice
Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties by Steven Watson
In his latest scintillating mosaic, [Watson] charts the coalescence and violent disintegration of Andy Warhol's infamous and enormously influential Silver Factory... From 1964 through 1968, a former Manhattan hat factory served as a feverishly productive and indulgently sleazy art, music, and film studio and ultra-hip hangout. With a cast of dozens of extreme individuals and shrewd assessment of the Factory's radical output, Watson's many-faceted chronicle illuminates one of art's riskiest and most sardonic and eviscerating movements. - Donna Seaman, Booklist
Unknown Weegee, essays by Luc Sante, Cynthia Young, Paul Strand, and Ralph Steiner
This exhibition catalog of 46 unknown photographs has four succinct essays. They summarize essentials of Weegee's imagery, attitude, and life. Between these essays one glimpses Weegee's genuine humanism in his identification with and understanding of the common person responding to events mostly of the night, mostly in New York City; his working actuality and ambience; and his peak with publication of Naked City in 1945 and decline following Hollywood celebrity. - C. Chiarenza, Choice
More new books
The above is just a sampling of the new art books added this semester. See our new art books lists for even more.
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