Weschler chronicles Hockney's protean production and speculations, including his scenic designs for opera, his homemade xerographic prints, his exploration of physics in relation to Chinese landscape painting, his investigations into optical devices, his taking up of watercolor—and then his spectacular return to oil painting, around 2005, with a series of landscapes of the East Yorkshire countryside of his youth. These conversations provide an astonishing record of what has been Hockney's grand endeavor, nothing less than an exploration of "the structure of seeing" itself.

    Gary Panter has been one of the most influential figures in visual culture since the mid-1970s. From his era-defining punk graphics to his cartoon icon Jimbo to his visionary design for "Pee-wee's Playhouse," he has left his mark on every medium he's touched. Working in close collaboration with the artist, PictureBox has assembled the definitive volume on Panter's work from the early 1970s to the present. This monumental, slipcased set is split into two 350-page volumes. The first is a comprehensive monograph featuring over 700 images of paintings, drawings, sculptures, posters and comics, alongside essays by Robert Storr, Mike Kelley, Richard Klein, Richard Gehr, Karrie Jacobs and Byron Coley, as well a substantial commentary by the artist himself. The second volume features a selection from Panter's sketchbooks--the site of some of his most audacious work--most of which has never been published in any form.A three-time Emmy Award-winner for his production design on "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and the recipient of the 2000 Chrysler Award for Design Excellence, graphic artist Gary Panter has drawn inspiration from diverse vernacular and traditional art arenas over the course of the past four decades. Closely associated with the underground comics and music scenes on both coasts, he is responsible for designing the Screamers iconic 1970s poster, many record covers for Frank Zappa, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Residents and the ongoing comic character Jimbo. Most recently Panter has performed psychedelic light shows at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and at New York's Anthology Film Archives. He was a featured artist in the major 2006-2007 touring exhibition, "Masters of American Comics."

    This giant tome provides a timely look at the fascinating women who created and inhabit the SG community. With an introduction by SG founder, Missy Suicide and images of hundreds of SuicideGirls world-wide, this title shines a light on a new female aesthetic - a look reminiscent of vintage Betty Page and Bunny Yeager photos, but with a decisively 21st century edge. "There's no other place in the media to see girls (like these) who are tremendously smart and beautiful in their own way" says Missy, "Everywhere you look you just see the super-thin, super-tall, bleach blonde Baywatch babe. There are a lot of people out there who want to see a different kind of beauty."

    Between September 1978 and July 1986, Hsieh realized five separate one-year-long performance pieces in which he conformed to simple but highly restrictive rules throughout each entire year. Through the course of these lifeworks, Hsieh moved from a year of solitary confinement in a sealed cell to a year in which he punched a worker's time clock in his studio every hour on the hour to a year spent living without shelter in Manhattan to a year in which he was tied by an eight-foot rope to the artist Linda Montano and finally to a year of total abstention from all art activities and influences. These works were unparalleled in terms of their use of physical difficulty over extreme durations and in their absolute conception and enactment of art and life as simultaneous processes. In 1986 Hsieh announced that he would spend the next thirteen years making art but not showing it publicly. When this "final" lifework--an immense act of self-affirmation and self-erasure--came to a close at the turn of the Millennium, he tersely and enigmatically said that during this time he had simply kept himself alive. For many contemporary artists Hsieh is something of a cult figure. After years of near-invisibility, Hsieh has now collaborated with the British writer and curator Adrian Heathfield to create this meticulous and visually arresting documentary record of a contemporary artist's work- -- in this case, the complete body of Tehching Hsieh's performance projects from 1978 to 2000. Not only is this the first extensive critical account of these unusual works, it is also the first to discuss their significance for art history, visual and cultural studies, and the practice of performance.

    An American artist born in Cuba, she explored in her work her Caribbean roots through the lens of exile. She meticulously documented her ephemeral site-specific artworks, on beaches and in rivers, across flowery fields, and against walls of rock. Here for the first time, Olga Viso, the leading authority on the artist, presents a beautifully curated representative selection of photographs and drawings from the artist's archive, only a small selection of which has been previously published. The volume traces Mendieta's early studies as an art student in Iowa; the genesis of her signature works, the archetypal female forms known as siluetas; and public art projects, including ones being developed at the time of her tragic death in 1985. Interspersed throughout are revealing pages from Mendieta's notebooks: sketches, shopping lists for materials, recipes for gunpowder mixtures, and photographic source materials. Viso's accompanying essay reveals the artist's experimental approach and rigorous working methods, provides insights into the forces that inspired and shaped her work, and shows how the genius of Mendieta's vision has survived its physical manifestations.

    Where does this order and regularity come from? It creates itself. The patterns we see come from self-organization. Whether living or non-living, scientists have found that there is a pattern-forming tendency inherent in the basic structure and processes of nature, so that from a few simple themes, and the repetition of simple rules, endless beautiful variations can arise.Part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of patterns in nature, acclaimed science writer Philip Ball here looks at how shapes form. From soap bubbles to honeycombs, delicate shell patterns, and even the developing body parts of a complex animal like ourselves, he uncovers patterns in growth and form in all corners of the natural world, explains how these patterns are self-made, and why similar shapes and structures may be found in very different settings, orchestrated by nothing more than simple physical forces. This book will make you look at the world with fresh eyes, seeing order and form even in the places you'd least expect.

    From her evocative portraits, based on photographs of friends and family as well as figures culled from printed pornography, to her large-scale images highlighting charged relationships within groups, Dumas' work explores the contradictions behind the physical reality of the body, merging acute social commentary with personal experience and art-historical antecedent to create unsettling and ambiguous psychological statements.Accompanying Dumas' first major mid-career survey in the U.S., with stops in three major American cities, (one yet to be announced) this substantial, fully-illustrated publication features a newly commissioned essay by renowned scholar Richard Shiff, placing the artist's work in relation to both American figurative painting since the 1980s and Abstract Expressionism. The book also includes curator Cornelia H. Butler's examination of Dumas' photographic sources and shorter texts by Lisa Gabrielle Mark and Matthew Monahan. Writings by the artist, as well as an extensive illustrated exhibition history and bibliography, complete this comprehensive examination of the work of one of the most thought-provoking artists working today.Born in Capetown, South Africa, in 1953, Marlene Dumas has lived in Amsterdam since 1976. Over the last three decades she has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the U.S., including the Tate Gallery, London; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. In 1995 she represented The Netherlands at the 46th Venice Biennale.

    They illustrate the author's commitment to the fundamental idea that drawing is not simply a way to represent reality, but a way to understand and experience the world.

    After the dissolution of Guided by Voices in 2004, Robert Pollard launched his official solo career with the release of From a Compound Eye in 2006. In addition to being a prolific songwriter/recording artist, Pollard is a gifted and prolific visual artist, working mostly in the medium of collage (not surprising, given his interest in sound collage as a recording artist). His work has been exhibited at Michael Imperioli's Studio Dante in New York and the Rock Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. He has created the covers to almost every Guided By Voices record and countless other Pollard-related releases. Town of Mirrors collects the very best of Pollard's visual art and lyrics/poetry. Featuring over 175 of Pollard's favorite collages, hand-picked by the artist, as well as over a dozen new collages produced exclusively for this collection, Town of Mirrors is the first comprehensive collection of Pollard's visual art ever released. Pollard's collages are the visual equivalent of his poetic and imagistic lyrics, surreal and reminiscent of the collages of artists ranging from Jack Kirby to Winston Smith.

    Accompanying a major touring retrospective to mark Twombly's eightieth year, it surveys a vast output of paintings, drawings and sculpture by an artist whose indifference to supposed distinctions between Pop and abstraction, between writing, drawing and painting, and between literature and art had, for many years, brought his work severe neglect. Twombly's art upsets the prudish purist with its hybridism; as he declares, "I'm not a pure; I'm not an abstractionist completely. There has to be a history behind the thought." For Twombly, this history entails a wealth of literary and mythic allusion and an openness to all kinds of forms. Alongside contributions from Richard Shiff, Nicolas Cullinan and Tacita Dean, this essential volume also presents a rare and revealing interview with the artist by Nicholas Serota, an illustrated chronology, an exhibition history and an extensive biography. It will be the most thorough examination of the life and work of this extraordinary artist for years to come. Cy Twombly is a leading figure in a heterogeneous generation of American artists that also includes Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Unlike these others, he left America early in his career to live and work in Italy, where he has drawn inspiration from European literature, classical culture and the Italian landscape.

    The collection represents all the various expressive techniques used by Morandi over the years, including paint, etching, drawing and watercolor.The volume is the catalog of an outstanding exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum in New York and by the Museo d’Arte Moderna in Bologna. The exhibition will be open in New York from September 16 to December 14, 2008 and in Bologna from January 22 to April 12, 2009.The exhibition and the catalog also contain a number of photographs of Morandi’s studio and quotes from his admirers, as well as the memorable 1958 interview with Edouard Roditi.

    How to "read" it to understand what the artist was trying to achieve.

    Cool has ancient roots in Nigeria, is still evident in "shared traits" of West African dance, and came to the Americas with slaves who wove it into a rich and dynamic creole civilization. No one is better able to uncover and recount this extraordinary story of change and survival than Thompson, a polymath with a gift for insights into the interconnectedness of cultures. He shows us the cool's reinvention in terminologies galore; clothing, gesture, and body language; sports, especially basketball; music and dance; religious practices; and art in various guises, yardshows and quilts, paintings and gallery installations. Cool is "the mask of mind itself," Thompson concludes, the means for attaining the calm and balance of transcendence when facing difficulty, whether playing bebop and/or confronting racist brutality.This book brings together all Thompson's writings on the cool, some hitherto unpublished, many in out-of-print and hard-to-find publications.Together they form an incomparable record of encounters and recognitions that began when the U.S. was still segregated and unwilling to acknowledge the existence, let alone the powers, of Black Atlantic culture. Thompson has played a leading role in gaining recognition for the Black Atlantic and making African American experiences into a subject of study at schools and universities. Aesthetic of the Cool is one of his monumental achievements.

    By employing such classic techniques as tonal underpainting, chiaroscuro and color layering, you will achieve a depth and intensity of color that rivals the celebrated paintings of the Old Masters.15 step-by-step demonstrations teach a classic approach to color, value and compositionfeatures a gorgeous range of subject matter, from luscious fruits and flowers to shimmering porcelain, crystal, silver, glass and moreall the lessons come together in a grand, start-to-finish painting demonstration, from initial concept to final touchesIdeal for artists at any stage of their colored pencil journey and applicable to any subject matter, Masterful Color is the key to creating glowing paintings that stand the test of time.

    BradyGames’ FINAL FANTASY TACTICS A2: Grimoire of the Rift Official Strategy Guide includes the following: A complete walkthrough of all main missions.Detailed maps covering all missions and side quests.Full list of Character Jobs with strategies to master each one.In-depth listing of items and how to collect them.Extensive bestiary with information on strengths, weaknesses, and more!Plus comprehensive coverage of all subquests!Platform: Nintendo Ds Genre: Role-Playing GameThis product is available for sale in North America only.

    Often biomorphic or topographical in character, her large-scale abstract works utilize systematic arrangements of thousands or even millions of units. Visually evocative and perceptually seductive, her pieces are at once organic and highly structured. Donovan has been recognized for her commitment to process and her ability to discover how the inherent physical characteristics of an object might allow it to be transformed into art.Published in conjunction with a major solo exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston, this book is the first to document Donovan's complete oeuvre, from her beginnings working in ink to her most recent pieces. Among the many works shown are Untitled (Plastic Cups), a 50-by-60-foot landscape of plastic cups; Haze, a 42-foot-long wall of over two million clear plastic drinking straws stacked like wood; and her three 40-inch cubes, one of steel pins, one of toothpicks, and one of shattered glass. An in-depth conversation between Donovan and Lawrence Weschler traces the artist's schooling, early career, and current work.

    Her idealized and highly stylized oil paintings and drawings of willowy, melancholy figures -- often contemporary celebrities, artists or friends -- raise questions around the possible role of the genre today. Elizabeth Peyton is published in conjunction with the artist's major solo exhibition at the New Museum in New York, which will travel to the Whitechapel in London, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht.

    Bringing his profound visual sensitivity and mastery of light to bear on a range of deliberately quotidian subjects, Lopez Garcia imbues them with an extraordinary and haunting character. In 1993, his paintings and drawings were given a major retrospective at the Reina Sofia, Madrid, while Victor Erice's 1992 documentary about Lopez Garcia, The Quince Tree of the Sun, received the Critics' Prize at that year's Cannes and top prize at the Chicago Film Festival. Yet Lopez Garcia's work has rarely been exhibited outside his native country. This book, published to accompany the first major exhibition of his art in the United States (in tandem with the monumental El Greco to Velazquez exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), offers the first comprehensive overview in English of this extraordinary oeuvre. An essay by curator Cheryl Brutvan discusses Lopez Garcia as a descendant of the great Spanish naturalists, as well as his indebtedness to Surrealism and Magic Realism, while individual appreciations of some 50 paintings offer English-speaking readers their first opportunity to appreciate in depth the remarkable poetry and atmospheric density of this major world artist.

    Superb artwork and photographs spanning three centuries document landmark advances made in the field and bring to life the fascinating stories of the explorers, naturalists, artists and photographers.The book is fully illustrated in color with informative text and captions. Highlights include:Sir Hans Sloane's 1687 voyage to Jamaica, where he collected and recorded plant specimens, including cocoa, which are preserved to this day Maria Sybilla Merian's personal journey to Surinam in 1699, where in brilliant detail she recorded butterflies and exotic insects Charles Darwin's fateful trip to the Galapagos Islands, on which he cataloged finches and fossils William Bartram's fanciful documentation of North American wildlife Matthew Flinders' mapping of Australia, where he was accompanied by Ferdinand Bauer, perhaps the greatest of all natural science artists. The Natural History Museum in London has the world's most comprehensive collection of natural science specimens and artworks. Voyages of Discovery offers readers a privileged opportunity to explore that collection.

    Walker's art continues, in other words, to pose awkward questions straightforwardly. Her imagery derives from the visual language of the antebellum South and the tradition of the minstrel show, which she directs to more disquieting ends. Where her source material parodied African-American culture with a terrifyingly casual jocularity--permitting white Americans to vicariously transgress their own taboos by depicting social chaos and unbridled sexuality--Walker applies that jocularity to her depictions of violence against African-Americans, lending them a hollow, almost slapstick character that is very much at odds with their original function. This latest book features work from a new series that addresses, among other themes, the atrocities committed against former slaves after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Reconstruction program implemented by Congress between 1866 and 1877. These narratives are elaborated into or against geometric scenarios more abstract and compacted than previous sequences by Walker, and with a more extensive use of color.

    This book offers the first critical exploration of the many creative genres of this self-taught artist, who first came to notice in the 1950s and 1960s but has only recently been recognized by major museums.Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 full-colour reproductions and packaged with an original documentary DVD illuminating fascinating aspects of his life and art, this book examines Castle's drawings, colour-wash works, idiosyncratic cardboard and paper constructions, and word, sign, and symbol pieces. As a child he developed his favourite medium and method of working, mixing stove soot with saliva and applying this "ink" with sharpened sticks and cotton wads to such found materials as product packaging and discarded paper. These everyday materials have given his works a singular, immediate, and appealing natural quality.This engaging volume considers Castle's remarkable art from a variety of perspectives, examining his life, modes of depiction, working methods and materials, and the "visual poetry" of his text works.