Best of
Visual-Art

2006

Kingdom Hearts II: Official Strategy Guide


Elizabeth M. Hollinger - 2006
    Includes subtle hints for area-specific objectives, detailed strategies and tips, and illustrated maps packed with callouts! Gummi Ship Foldout: Two-sided foldout contains expert tactics to decisively win each Gummi Ship battle, plus cool artwork of the heroes in their alternate costumes! Expert Boss Tactics: Game-tested strategies and tips to deveat the game's evil minions. These proven techniques and tips will ensure a quick and painful demise for every boss! Bestiary: A comprehensive analysis of each enemy in the game, including their strengths, weaknesses, and attacks. Gummi Garage: Construct a top-notch Gummi Ship with an all-inclusive list of blueprints and various blocks. Every Mini-Game Revealed: Master each mini-game with uncanny efficiency. Try to beat the times set by the BradyGames editors! Plus much more: A comprehensive list of items, magic spells and summons -- it's all here!Platform: PlayStation 2Genre:Role-Playing Game

Van Gogh's Letters: The Mind of the Artist in Paintings, Drawings, and Words, 1875-1890


Vincent van Gogh - 2006
    In many of them he described, in painstaking detail and beautiful prose, the progress of his work. Van Gogh's Letters presents more than 150 of these stirring letters, excerpted and newly translated, and set side-by-side with the art it describes, including sketches, drawings, and paintings. The result is an elegantly rendered collection that allows us to see the world through the eyes of one of the greatest artists of all time. Previously published in hardcover as Vincent van Gogh: A Self-Portrait in Art and Letters

Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album


Matthew Robertson - 2006
    music explosion of the late '70s through the '90s with groups like Joy Division (soon to be the subject of an Anton Corbijn movie), New Order, and Happy Mondays leading the New Wave. At Factory, musicians and designers commingled creatively, with innovators such as Peter Saville, Den Kelly, Mark Farrow, 8VO, and Barbara Kruger elevating album covers to a new art form. The label broke further ground when it opened its own disco, the legendary Hacienda. Factory Records is the ultimate and only collection of Factory's complete graphic output, including every single piece it produced: extremely rare record sleeves, club flyers, and posters all gathered together for the first time. A must for collectors and enthusiasts, Matthew Robertson's meticulous compilation of underground ephemera is poised to introduce a new generation of music and design fans to the creative genius of Factory.

Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation


Amid Amidi - 2006
    Amid Amidi, of the influential Animation Blast magazine and CartoonBrew blog, charts the evolution of the modern style in animation, which largely discarded the "lifelike" aesthetic for a more graphic and often abstract approach. Abundantly found in commercials, industrial and educational films, fair and expo infotainment, and more, this quickly popular cartoon modernism shared much with the painting and graphic design movements of the era. Showcasing hundreds of rare and forgotten sketches, model boards, cels, and film stills, Cartoon Modern is a thoroughly researched, eye-popping, and delightful account of a vital decade of animation design.

Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt


Paul ArnettJoanne Cubbs - 2006
    Critics and popular audiences alike marveled at these quilts that combined the best of contemporary design with a deeply rooted ethnic heritage and compelling human stories about the women. Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt is a major book and museum exhibition that will premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), in June 2006 before traveling to seven American museums through 2008. The book's 330 color illustrations and insightful text bring home the exciting experience to readers while displaying all the cultural heritage and craftsmanship that have gone into these remarkable quilts.

Egon Schiele


Klaus Albrecht Schröder - 2006
    Born in 1890, Schiele sloughed off the tradition of Viennese Art Nouveau and became the founder of Austrian Early Expressionism. Between 1910 and 1918 he created an oeuvre in which, for the first time in the history of art, the body in its explicit nakedness became the symbol of the human being's existential loneliness and homelessness. Nor, in his self-portraits, did Egon Schiele shy away from drastic uglification and obscene self-stigmatization.

Painting People: Figure Painting Today


Charlotte Mullins - 2006
    A new generation of artists--as well as some who never abandoned figurative painting in the first place--is relishing the solitary, slow, subtle set of processes involved in not just painting, but painting people. They are choosing paint's unique ability to distill a lifetime of events rather than photography's glimpse of a frozen moment. Painting People, edited by the prominent London art historian and critic Charlotte Mullins, unites and contrasts the work of a key group of artists from around the world, and investigates their richly varied accomplishments in lucid text with detailed commentaries, accompanied by more than 150 reproductions. The list of contributing artists is stellar, ranging from photo-based painters like Luc Tuymans, Peter Doig and Marlene Dumas to Pop artists like Sigmar Polke and Alex Katz, photorealists like Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter, Neoexpressionists like Cecily Brown, and comics-inspired painters like Yoshitomo Nara, Inka Essenhigh and Takashi Murakami. There are erotic grotesques from John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage, meditations on the muse by Elizabeth Peyton and Lucian Freud, "Repro-realistic" work from Neo Rauch and of course self-portraits by Philip Akkerman and Marcel Dzama, among others.

Josef Albers: Formulation: Articulation


Josef Albers - 2006
    Albers drew on over forty years' work in a variety of media - woodcuts, sandblasted glass pictures and oil paintings - to create the 127 abstract images, which explore colour and form. This volume retains the layout of the original portfolios, with one, two or four images across two pages, and Albers' comments, including key passages from his own writings, are supplied in two fold-out sections.

Auguste Rodin: Drawings Watercolors


Antoinette Le Normand-Romain - 2006
    The accompanying essays analyze the complex relationships between Rodin's drawings and his sculptures, the problems of attribution, and the role of sensuality in his work.Rodin's rich graphic oeuvre has until now been a little-known aspect of his art, yet it is crucial to a full understanding of his work. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the great sculptor's achievements.

Cowboy Kate and Other Stories: Director's Cut


Sam Haskins - 2006
    In Cowboy Kate, a lyrical tale of the triumph of youth played out by cowgirls of the old west, Haskins reinvented the genre of the nude with stunningly well-executed photographs, a cinematic approach, and a subtly engaging narrative. Often copied but rarely equaled, Haskins has an exceptional ability to photograph women with a sensitivity that has won him accolades from men and women alike. The "Director's Cut" is revised to include new and previously unpublished photographs.

Joseph Albers: To Open Eyes: At the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale


Frederick A. Horowitz - 2006
    Providing a study of the revolutionary painter and teacher, Josef Albers, this book takes the reader through Albers's life in teaching, from his first years at the pioneering Bauhaus; to his 1933 emigration to the US; and again to his 1950 appointment to head Yale University's restructured Department of Design.

1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die


Stephen Farthing - 2006
    A visually arresting reference for art lovers and students, it provides a truly comprehensive worldwide gazeteer of paintings organized chronologically by date of completion. Each entry includes the history of the painting, information about the artist or artistic movement, the current location of the painting (all are on view to the public), as well as other details. The works are also indexed by artist and by title, making for easy cross-referencing. Included are popular paintings, key works that are the most breathtaking for their extraordinary power and beauty, paintings that were turning points in the history of art, and rediscovered masterpieces, making 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die an art museum in its own right.

Francis Bacon: Incunabula


Martin Harrison - 2006
    But he did not paint from life. Instead he appropriated images from the mass media that he manipulated into his "studies." This book presents over 200 of these documents, about which Bacon was secretive but which, it emerges, were integral to his creative process.Culled from thousands of pieces of original material found in his studio, including newspapers, magazines, books, and photographs, these items have each been exhaustively and minutely researched, providing for the first time comprehensive details of the artist's sources. Previously unseen, these visually thrilling documents demonstrate Bacon's tactile, visceral relationship with his sources and his unerring eye for seeking out visual stimulation in the most unexpected places.This unique selection of material from Bacon's sudio--meticulously documented and compellingly presented--will provide an invaluable insight into both the artist's work and his working methods.Martin Harrison is the author of In Camera: Francis Bacon.

M.C. Escher


Julius Wiedemann - 2006
    Escher's artwork. His two-dimensional drawings bring to life a fourth dimension where the surfaces of things come together like a Mobius strip. The profoundly original work of Escher has inspired countless artists, designers, and filmmakers and can be considered a genre in itself. This guide provides a mind-bending introduction to the great master's work.

Freud at Work: Lucian Freud in Conversation with Sebastian Smee


Lucian Freud - 2006
    Though in his eighties, this great figurative artist continues to paint with undiminished energy and discipline.In 120 revealing black-and-white and color photographs taken in Lucian Freud’s London studio, and in a fascinating in-depth interview, we come to understand the stages of the artist’s work and the intensity of his interaction with his subjects—whether fellow artist David Hockney, the Queen of England, or performance artist Leigh Bowery, among others. Two remarkable photographers have been recording Freud at work over the past twenty years . The artist, uncharacteristically, allowed Bruce Bernard, the acclaimed picture editor, to photograph him in the studio, especially during the years he was working with Bowery as his model. Following Bernard’s death in 2000, David Dawson, the painter’s assistant, began photographing the daily life of the studio, showing us the progress of Freud’s paintings, his models—some naked, some famous—and the painter himself caught in moments of intense concentration. Though Freud has always been reluctant to give interviews, talk about the painters he admires, or discuss how he works, his conversation here with the Australian writer Sebastian Smee is frank and revealing. Unlike any other book we have seen about Freud—comparable to David Douglas Duncan’s books of photographs of Picasso—this important document invites us for the first time into the secret domain of the artist.

Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects


Ann Hamilton - 2006
    The book is a comprehensive catalogue of Hamilton's object-based work from 1984 to 2006. The more than 130 color plates document photographs, sculpture, video, audio and language pieces (both unique and editioned), as well as multiples and prints. Many of the objects relate to the large-scale installations for which Hamilton is internationally known. Each object in the inventory is accompanied by a text by Joan Simon, who also contributes a significant new essay setting Hamilton's objects in critical context. The complete inventory of Hamilton's objects made over the past 20-plus years is reproduced in this essential publication, which also contains an extensive biography, bibliography and index. The book, designed by the Swedish designer Hans Cogne in conversation with Ann Hamilton, is a beautiful object in its own right and evokes many of the conceptual qualities of Hamilton's art.

Japanese Comickers 2


Comickers Magazine - 2006
    Some featured artists use digital tools to create their work, while others work in more traditional media.Each of the twelve profiles in Japanese Comickers 2 includes a brief biography of the artist, a visual of his or her most representative work, and a pictorial gallery with detailed explanations of their techniques. Also included is information on the materials used by each artist and a glossary of terms unique to manga and anime.A showcase of the cutting-edge vanguard of anime and manga illustration and a valuable how-to guide for aspiring artists, Japanese Comickers 2 is an essential addition to every fan's library.

Trenton Doyle Hancock: Me a Mound


Trenton Doyle Hancock - 2006
    This first monograph and storybook from a major young African-American artist describes an ancient conflict: the peaceful, organic Mounds may have been created by the same father, Homerbuctas, who made their violent, nightmarish enemies the Vegans, but the two clans have been caught up in a tragi-comic struggle through nearly a decade's installations, paintings, drawings and etchings. Me a Mound combines biblical allusions, gags, food, and sex as it describes their saga in Hancock's laconic Texan prose and lays it out in his explosively colorful paintings. It's filled with new work created just for the book and a comprehensive overview of Hancock's oeuvre, on top of the entire Mounds versus Vegans saga to date, plus trading cards and inserts. Once readers have ventured through the die-cut cover into Hancock's universe--whether they are followers of contemporary art who recognize his name from two successive recent Whitney Biennials, fans of graphic novels, or general-interest browsers drawn in by the book's bright, cartoonish look--they will find it hard to see the world in quite the same way again.

Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne


Callie Angell - 2006
    Angell illustrates and describes the 189 people who were captured by Warhol's lens, discussing their relationships with him. These people include superstars, artists, musicians, and others.

Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination


Martin Myrone - 2006
    In 1782, the unveiling of Henry Fuseli's painting The Nightmare was met with a mixture of shock and fascination. The cosmic visions of William Blake, the vast, neo-classical history paintings of James Barry and the searing, grotesque caricatures of James Gilray all emerged during a time of political and social upheaval, matched by similarly extreme developments in the literature of the period. While there have been several critical reassessments of Gothic literature in recent years, Gothic Nightmares, which accompanies a groundbreaking exhibition at Tate Britain, will be the first serious consideration of these themes in visual art.Six sections explore individual themes: the Gothic nightmare, examining Fuseli's famous painting in context; the Sublime vision of the Gothic hero, tortured and imprisoned;