LITMIR.BIZ

The 23 essays (or «love songs») that make up the now classic volume Air Guitar trawl a «vast, invisible underground empire» of pleasure, through record stores, honky-tonks, art galleries, jazz clubs, cocktail lounges, surf shops and hot-rod stores, as restlessly on the move as the America they depict. Air Guitar pioneered a kind of plain-talking in cultural criticism, willingly subjective and always candid and direct. A valuable reading tool for art lovers, neophytes, students and teachers alike, Hickey's book—now in its third edition—has galvanized a generation of art lovers, with new takes on Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol and Perry Mason. In June 2009, Newsweek voted Air Guitar one of the top 50 books that «open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways,» and described the book as «a seamless blend of criticism, personal history, and a deep appreciation for the sheer nuttiness of American life.» This is the eBook edition of Air Guitar, originally published in print form in August 1997.

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Powering Down on Authority is Avital Ronell’s response to Witte de With’s invitation for her to reflect, in lengthy essay form, on the questions of power and authority in our time.

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Part of JRP|Ringier's innovative Documents series, published with Les Presses du Réel and dedicated to critical writings, this publication comprises a unique collection of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist mapping the development of the curatorial field–from early independent curators in the 1960s and 70s and the experimental institutional programs developed in Europe and the U.S. through the inception of Documenta and the various biennales and fairs–with pioneering curators Anne D'Harnoncourt, Werner Hoffman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten and Harald Szeemann. Speaking of Szeemann on the occasion of this legendary curator's death in 2005, critic Aaron Schuster summed up, «the image we have of the curator today: the curator-as-artist, a roaming, freelance designer of exhibitions, or in his own witty formulation, a 'spiritual guest worker'… If artists since Marcel Duchamp have affirmed selection and arrangement as legitimate artistic strategies, was it not simply a matter of time before curatorial practice–itself defined by selection and arrangement–would come to be seen as an art that operates on the field of art itself?» This is the ebook edition of A Brief History of Curating, originally published in print form in October, 2008.

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Hailed simultaneously as a provocateur, prankster and tragic poet of our times, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has created some of the most unforgettable images in recent contemporary art–most notoriously with “The Ninth Hour,” his 1999 sculpture of Pope John Paul II struck by a meteorite. Cattelan's subjects range widely, being derived from popular culture, history and organized religion; while bold and irreverent, the work is also deadly serious in its scathing cultural critique. Maurizio Cattelan: All accompanies the Guggenheim Museum's retrospective survey of the artist. For the exhibition, the museum has devised a site-specific installation intended to sidestep the totalizing effect of a retrospective, and for this catalogue the museum has produced an equally unique response to this dilemma and to the conventions of the catalogue format. All is a faux-leather-bound hardcover with gold stamping and thin paper that is designed to resemble an old textbook or bible. The volume catalogues almost every work of Cattelan's from the late '80s to the present within a double-column page format, reproducing them in full color with accompanying entries. One of the wittiest and most beautiful art books of recent years, All includes a detailed critical overview by Nancy Spector, documenting not only Cattelan's artistic output but also his ongoing activities as a curator, editor and publisher, plus a comprehensive exhibition history and bibliography. Needless to say, All is indeed the definitive Cattelan bible.Maurizio Cattelan (born 1960) began his career as a furniture designer, transitioning to art through his realistic sculptures. He has had solo exhibitions at some of the most distinguished museums in the world, such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. He has also founded and edited magazines such as Charley, Permanent Food and Toilet Paper. This is the ebook edition of Maurizio Cattelan: All, originally published in print in November, 2011.

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John Singer Sargent’s renowned portrait “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit” is examined in an aesthetic, philosophical, and personal tour de force that has been called “thoroughly absorbing” (New York Times Book Review); “brilliant and insightful”?(Wall Street Journal); “an attractive, well-illustrated scholarly book, further enlivened by the author’s warm and friendly tone” (Times Literary Supplement); “a uniquely crafted history” (The Magazine Antiques); “a brilliant work of criticism, without a word of jargon in it” (Maine Antique Digest); “sensitive and penetrating” (Choice); and “a meticulously researched account of [the Boits’] milieu, their eccentric lifestyle, its unintended effects on their daughters, and of the creation of the enchanting masterwork” (Cape Cod Times).

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What is the function of art in the era of digital globalization? In Duty Free Art, filmmaker and writer Hito Steyerl wonders how we can appreciate, or even make art in the present age. What can we do when arms manufacturers sponsor museums and some of the world’s most valuable artworks are used as a fictional currency in a global futures market that has nothing to do with the works themselves? Can we distinguish between creativity and the digital white noise that bombards our everyday lives? Exploring artifacts as diverse as video games, Wikileaks files, the proliferation of spam, and political actions, she exposes the paradoxes within globalization, political economies, visual culture, and the status of art production.

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With Portraits, world-renowned art writer John Berger took us on a captivating journey through centuries of art, situating each artist in the proper political and historical contexts. In Landscapes, a narrative of Berger’s own journey emerges. Through his penetrating engagement with the writers and artists who shaped his own thought, Walter Benjamin, Rosa Luxemburg and Bertolt Brecht among them, Landscapes allows us to understand how Berger came to his own way of seeing. As always, Berger pushes at the limits of art writing, demonstrating beautifully how his painter’s eyes lead him to refer to himself only as a storyteller. A landscape is, to John Berger, like a portrait, an animating, liberating metaphor rather than a rigid definition. It’s a term, too, that reminds us that there is more here than simply the backdrop or ‘by-work’ of a portrait. Landscapes offers a tour of the history of art, but not as you know it.

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A new reading of the philosophy of contemporary art by the author of The Politics of Time. Contemporary art is the object of inflated and widely divergent claims. What kind of discourse can help us give it a critical sense? Anywhere or Not At All is a major philosophical intervention in art theory that challenges the terms of established positions through a new approach at once philosophical, historical, social and art-critical. Setting out the claim that ‘contemporary art is postconceptual art’, the book elaborates a series of conceptual constructions and interpretations of works by Navjot Altaf, the Atlas Group, Amar Kanwar, Sol LeWitt, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gerhard Richter and Robert Smithson, among others. It concludes with new accounts of the institutional and existential complexities of ‘art space’ and ‘art time’. Anywhere or Not At All maps out the conceptual coordinates for an art that is both critical and contemporary in the era of global capitalism.

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Artists do a number of things that are very useful. In this deceptively modest






book, some of these things are described. Seminal works by artists Marcel






Duchamp, John Cage, Richard Serra, Christo & Jean-Claude, Donald Judd, and






On Kawara are used to illustrate (in words only) these points. This book is highly






recommended for parents of children thinking of embarking on a career in the






arts, for policymakers confused about the function of art in society, and for artists






suffering a bout of self-doubt. By the author of <i>Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers,






Poets & Philosophers</i>.

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One of the Huffington Post's Best Art Books of 2015"[Peaches] has teamed up with her longtime tour photographer Holger Talinski to look back at a brazen career that has captured the attention of outsider artists and massive pop stars alike, ranging from Michael Stipe to PJ Harvey to Iggy Pop…Along with Holger's uncompromising, often raw imagery, the book includes stories from artists who have championed Peaches's work over the years."–New York Times T Magazine"It takes a lot of grueling work to pull off what Peaches does so subversively night after night on tour and in theater productions. That's the takeaway from this revealing (and NSFW) photo book on the electro-pop provocateur, as seen through the lens of photographer Talinski and featuring essays by Michael Stipe, Yoko Ono, and Ellen Page."–Boston Globe"Electronic musician and performance artist Peaches has made a career out of pushing boundaries, and her new book is equally transgressive. Photographer Holger Talinski captures the artist onstage and off in the outrageous costumes that have been a performance signature for her, and in quieter moments away from the strobe lights."–San Francisco Chronicle"One flip through the glossy new monograph What Else Is In the Teaches of Peaches is all it takes to get absorbed into the post-punk wonderland of pop culture icon Peaches."–W Magazine"Peaches is an attitude and a sensibility....She's iconic, and her iconography is important."–The Globe and MailOne of Loud and Quiet Magazine's Best Books of 2015"The bare-all book shows Peaches on and off stage, focusing on her efforts to shatter gender stereotypes, promote sex positivity, and push the boundaries of art and performance."–Vice Magazine, The Creators Project"What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches, a new book of photography, attempts to capture more: Peaches onstage, backstage, in her 30-boob breastplate, on the crapper, on a cross, passed out, convalescing, performing for Yoko Ono, curled up with family, recording with Iggy Pop. It's a groupie's delight."–SF Weekly"For Peaches fans, the collection offers glimpses into both the public and private life of the artist who put feminist electroclash on the map. Peaches led the way, not only for other underground electronic acts like Le Tigre, Ladytron, and Chicks on Speed, but also artists that went on to major mainstream success. Would M.I.A. exist without Peaches? Lady Gaga? In her current iteration, Miley Cyrus?…In the end, [What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches] is a reminder that Peaches, the artist and the musician…forged a vibrant, genre-bending career that continues to throb with spirit, transgression, energy, and ambition."–KQED Arts"Perhaps what hits you most of all, maybe more than the striking costumes and occasional nudity, is how much fun Peaches' life appears to be. Less than halfway into the book, you start to trust the Peaches/Talinski collaborative union, and you somehow come to realise that it's all authentic, magic and reality. There's none of the staginess that you sometimes see in photo books of pop stars, particularly those who are led around by their egos."–PopMattersThis volume presents a mesmerizing collection of Holger Talinski's evocative and sometimes erotic photos of transgressive musical icon Peaches, on and off stage, with accompanying text by Peaches, Michael Stipe (R.E.M.), Yoko Ono, and the actress Ellen Page, best known for her lead role in the film Juno, which garnered her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

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