Best of
Art-Design

1995

Felix Gonzalez-Torres


Julie Ault - 1995
    His work challenged the notions of public and private space, originality, authorship and--most significantly--the authoritative structures in which he and his viewers functioned. Editor Julie Ault has amassed the first comprehensive monograph to span Gonzalez-Torres's career. In the spirit of his method, she rethinks the very idea of what a monograph should be. The book, which places strong emphasis on the written word, contains newly commissioned texts by Robert Storr and Miwon Kwon among other notables, as well as significant critical essays, exhibition statements, transcripts from lectures, personal correspondence, and writings that influenced Gonzalez-Torres and his work. Ample visual documentation adds another important layer of content. We see works not just in their completed state, but often in process, which for Gonzalez-Torres could mean the process of disappearing as viewers interacted with them. A crucial reference.

Elegant Stitches: An Illustrated Stitch Guide & Source Book of Inspiration


Judith Baker Montano - 1995
    Helps readers learn about silk ribbon stitches, crazy-quilt stitches, composite stitches, and left-handed stitches.

Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings


Kristine Stiles - 1995
    These influential essays, interviews, and critical and theoretical comments provide bold and fertile insights into the construction of visual knowledge. Featuring a wide range of leading and emerging artists since 1945, the collection—while comprehensive and authoritative—offers the reader some eclectic surprises as well.Included here are texts that have become pivotal documents in contemporary art, along with writings that cover unfamiliar ground. Some are newly translated, others have never before been published. Together they address visual literacy, cultural studies, and the theoretical debates regarding modernism and postmodernism. The full panoply of visual media is represented, from painting and sculpture to environments, installations, performance, conceptual art, video, photography, and virtual reality. Thematic concerns range from figuration and process to popular culture, art and technology, and politics and the media. Contemporary issues of gender, race, class, and sexuality are also addressed.Kristine Stiles's general introduction is a succinct overview of artists' theories in the evolution of contemporary discourse around art. Introductions to each chapter provide synopses of the cultural contexts in which the texts originated and brief biographies of individual artists. The text is augmented by outstanding photographs, many of artists in their studios, and vivid, contemporary art images.Reflecting the editors' shared belief that artists' own theories provide unparalleled access to visual knowledge, this book, like its distinguished predecessors, Hershel Chipp's Theories of Modern Art (with Peter Selz and Joshua Taylor) and Joshua Taylor's Nineteenth-Century Theories of Art, will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in contemporary art."In New York in 1915 I bought at a hardware store a snow shovel on which I wrote 'in advance of the broken arm.' It was around that time that the word 'readymade' came to mind to designate this form of manifestation."—Marcel Duchamp (1961)"Women have always collected things and saved and recycled them because leftovers yielded nourishment in new forms. The decorative functional objects women made often spoke in a secret language, bore a covert imagery. When we read these images in needlework, in paintings, in quilts, rugs and scrapbooks, we sometimes find a cry for help, sometimes an allusion to a secret political alignment, sometimes a moving symbol about the relationships between men and women."—Miriam Schapiro and Melissa Meyer (1978)"I want to create a fusion of art and life, Asia and America, Duchampiana modernism and Levi-Straussian savagism, cool form and hot video, dealing with all of those complex problems, spanning the tribal memory of the Nomadic Asians who crossed over the Bering Strait over 10,000 years ago."—Shigeko Kubota (1976)"Black for me is a lot more peaceful and gentle than white. White marble may be very beautiful, but you can't read anything on it. I wanted something that would be soft on the eyes, and turn into a mirror if you polished it. The point is to see yourself reflected in the names. Also the mirror image doubles and triples the space."—Maya Lin (1983)"Artists often depend on the manipulation of symbols to present ideas and associations not always apparent in such symbols. If all such ideas and associations were evident there would be little need for artists to give expression to them. In short, there would be no need to make art."—Andres Serrano (1989)

Vertigo Tarot Deck Set


Rachel Pollack - 1995
    Includes a black, velvet-like drawstring bag to hold the cards.

Cover to Cover: Creative Techniques for Making Beautiful Books, Journals & Albums


Shereen LaPlantz - 1995
    Envision handmade books to hold your writings, poems, photos, and keepsakes. More than 170 photos to inspire, and hundreds of illustrations to guide readers through the basics of an almost infinite variety of imaginative styles.

Water/Dance


Howard Schatz - 1995
    Truly extraordinary photographs of classical ballet dancers moving weightlessly underwater, unecumbered by gravity, make this book a remarkable celebration of movement, the grace of line, the expressiveness of dance, and the magic produced by a camera in the hands of an innovative photographer.

Wiener Werkstatte: 1903-1932


Gabriele Fahr-Becker - 1995
    The buildings and objects that resulted combine classical elegance with streamlined functionality. No everyday object was too banal, no architectural task too complex for the artists of the Wiener Werkstdtte. They experimented with an endless variety of materials, from gold and precious stones to papier mbchi and glass beads, and their work still bears lasting witness to a unique and vital artistic movement. Even today, architects and designers continue to cite in their work the innovations and ideas of Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstdtte.

Art Through the Ages: Ancient, Medieval & Non-European Art


Helen Gardner - 1995
    

Temples of convenience and chambers of delight


Lucinda Lambton - 1995
    She describes over 150 jewels of sanitation, all of them eag erly nosed out in private houses, pubs, gentlemen''s clubs an d department stores. '

Painting Light and Shadow in Watercolor


Skip Lawrence - 1995
    Simple concept -- powerful results.

Greek Sculpture: The Late Classical Period and Sculpture in Colonies and Overseas


John Boardman - 1995
    Here, the story continues through the fourth century B.C. to the days of Alexander the Great. The innovations of the period are discussed, such as the female nude and portraiture, along with many important monuments including the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and several of the great names such as Praxiteles and Lysippus who were lionized by later generations. The volume also presents Greek sculpture made in the colonies of Italy and Sicily from the Archaic period onwards, as well as that made for eastern, non-Greek rulers. A final section considers the role of Greek sculpture in moulding western taste to the present day.