Casual yet insightful, Duchamp reveals himself as a man and an artist whose playful principles toward living freed him to make art that was as unpredictable, complex, and surprising as life itself. Those interviews have never been edited and made public, until now. "The Afternoon Interviews," which includes an introductory interview with Tomkins reflecting on Duchamp as an artist, guide and friend, reintroduces the reader to key ideas of his artistic world and renews Duchamp as a vital model for a new generation of artists.Calvin Tomkins was born in 1925 in Orange, New Jersey. He joined the New Yorker as a staff writer in 1960. His many profiles include John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, Leo Castelli, Damien Hirst, Richard Serra, Bruce Nauman, Cindy Sherman and Jasper Johns. Tomkins is the author of 12 books, including "The Bride and the Bachelors" (1965), "Living Well Is the Best Revenge" (1971), "Lives of the Artists" (2008) and "Duchamp: A Biography" (1996).

    Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate the contributions of individual artists. At the same time, curatorial studies programs continue to grow in popularity, and businesses are increasingly adopting curation as a means of adding value to content and courting demographics. Everyone, it seems, is a now a curator. But what is a curator, exactly? And what does the explosive popularity of curating say about our culture’s relationship with taste, labour and the avant-garde?In this incisive and original study, critic David Balzer travels through art history and around the globe to explore the cult of curation – where it began, how it came to dominate museums and galleries, and how it was co-opted at the turn of the millennium as the dominant mode of organizing and giving value to content. At the centre of the book is a paradox: curation is institutionalized and expertise-driven like never before, yet the first independent curators were not formally trained, and any act of choosing has become ‘curating.’ Is the professional curator an oxymoron? Has curation reached a sort of endgame, where its widespread fetishization has led to its own demise?

    A must for all Rollins fans.

    Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of all ages and backgrounds have found in Professor Gombrich a true master, and one who combines knowledge and wisdom with a unique gift for communicating his deep love of the subject. The Story of Art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written, has been a world bestseller for over four decades. Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of all ages and backgrounds have found in Professor Gombrich a true master, and one who combines knowledge and wisdom with a unique gift for communicating his deep love of the subject.For the first time in many years the book has been completely redesigned. The illustrations, now in colour throughout, have all been improved and reoriginated, and include six fold-outs. The text has been revised and updated where appropriate, and a number of significant new artists have been incorporated. The bibliographies have been expanded and updated, and the maps and charts redrawn. The Story of Art has always been admired for two key qualities: it is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to handle. In these respects the new edition is true to its much-loved predecessors: the text runs as smoothly as ever and the improved illustrations are always on the page where the reader needs them. In its new edition, this classic work continues its triumphant progress tirelessly for yet another generation, to remain the title of first choice for any newcomer to art or the connoisseur. The Story of Art has always been admired for two key qualities: it is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to handle. In these respects the new edition is true to its much-loved predecessors: the text runs as smoothly as ever and the improved illustrations are always on the page where the reader needs them. In its new edition, this classic work continues its triumphant progress tirelessly for yet another generation, to remain the title of first choice for any newcomer to art or the connoisseur.

    Do you look up the lyrics and wonder what they mean or if there is a story behind them? What on earth does “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” mean, anyway? We’ve got those answers for you in The Great Book of Rock Music! This book contains hundreds of riveting facts about your favorite rock songs. Do you want to know how your favorite group got together and who is really the brains behind the band? Whether you’re interested in what your favorite musicians like to do in their spare time, where they get the ideas for their music, or which artist had an exorcism in his home, you’re in for a treat. This book will satisfy your curiosity and help you impress your friends with your rock and roll knowledge. As easy to follow as a good drummer, this book will take you through the early years of rock and its development through the hippie era, the synthesizer-filled eighties, and the grunge age. You’ll read about dramatic, absolutely hilarious, and downright odd moments during the concerts that shaped music history and defined generations. Whether you’re a passive listener of your friend’s rock playlists or a connoisseur of guitar riffs, you’re sure to learn something new that will increase your enjoyment of your favorite music. For an extra challenge, try the quizzes at the end of each chapter. So go ahead, open the cover and enter the world of rock!

     What do all these people have in common? Fame, of course, and undeniable talent. But most of all, they were cool. Birth of the Cool is a stunningly illustrated, brilliantly written cultural history of the American avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s -- the decades in which cool was born. From intimate interviews with cool icons like poet Allen Ginsberg, bop saxophonist Jackie McLean, and Living Theatre cofounder Judith Malina, award-winning journalist and poet Lewis MacAdams extracts the essence of cool. Taking us inside the most influential and experimental art movements of the twentieth century -- from the Harlem jazz joints where Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker invented bebop to the back room at Max's Kansas City when Andy Warhol was holding court to backstage at the Newport Folk Festival the night Bob Dylan went electric, from Surrealism to the Black Mountain School to Zen -- MacAdams traces the evolution of cool from the very fringes of society to the mainstream. Born of World War II, raised on atomic-age paranoia, cast out of the culture by the realities of racism and the insanity of the Cold War, cool is now, perversely, as conventional as you can get. Allen Ginsberg suited up for Gap ads. Volvo appropriated a phrase from Jack Kerouac's On the Road for its TV commercials. How one became the other is a terrific story, and it is presented here in a gorgeous package, rich with the coolest photographs of the black-and-white era from Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and many others. Drawing a direct line between Lester Young wearing his pork-pie hat and his crepe-sole shoes staring out his hotel window at Birdland to the author's three-year-old daughter saying "cool" while watching a Scooby-Doo cartoon at the cusp of a new millennium, Birth of the Cool is a cool book about a hot subject...maybe even the coolest book ever.

    But hip-hop deejays and producers have collectively developed an artistic system that features a complex aesthetic, a detailed array of social protocols, a rigorous set of ethical expectations and a rich historical consciousness. Based on ten years of research among hip-hop producers, Making Beats is the first work of scholarship to explore the goals, methods and values of this surprisingly insular community. Focusing on a variety of subjects--from hip-hop artists' pedagogical methods to the Afro-diasporic roots of the sampling process to the social significance of "digging" for rare records--Joseph G. Schloss examines the way hip-hop artists have managed to create a form of expression that reflects their creative aspirations, moral beliefs, political values and cultural realities.

    The direct descendent of slaves, she graduated from Princeton University and the Harvard Law School, and she seemed primed for a life of prestige and wealth. Then she left that path for a life of public service and marriage to Barack Obama. Here’s her inspiring story.

    David Hockney has worked in almost every medium - painting, drawing, stage design, photography and printmaking. He has undertaken an ambitious experiment with ways of seeing and ways of representing sight - ranging from his paintings, with their challenges to perspective and brilliant colours, to his vivid multi-dimensional photo-collages and his fax art, computer printings and coloured laser prints.

    The films of the New Wave in Japan have, until now, been largely overlooked. Eros plus Massacre (taking its title from a 1969 Yoshida Yoshishige film) is the first major study devoted to the examination and explanation of Japanese New Wave film.Desser organizes his volume around the defining motifs of the New Wave. Chapters examine in depth such themes as youth, identity, sexuality, and women, as they are revealed in the Japanese film of the sixties. Desser's research in Japanese film archives, his interviews with major figures of the movement, and his keen insight into Japanese culture combine to offer a solid and balanced analysis of films by Oshima, Shinoda, Imamura, Yoshida, Suzuki, and others.

    The first part deals with the subject of our aesthetic sensibility; we respond to certain natural phenomena as beautiful, says Kant, when we recognize in nature a harmonious order that satisfies the mind's own need for order. The second half of the critique concentrates on the apparent teleology in nature's design of organisms. Kant argues that our minds are inclined to see purpose and order in nature and this is the main principle underlying all of our judgments. Although this might imply a super sensible Designer, Kant insists that we cannot prove a supernatural dimension or the existence of God. Such considerations are beyond reason and are solely the province of faith.

    Contains more than 400 letters and poems written to family, creditors, debtors, and bankers.

    It offers an unprecedented look inside this secretive, glamorous, gold-plated industry, describing just how Sotheby's and Christie's grew from clubby, aristocratic businesses into slick international corporations. And it shows how the groundwork for the most recent illegal activities was laid decades before the perpetrators were caught by federal prosecutors.

    The book contains the crazy, funny and sometimes horrifying anecdotes musicians have told about a lifestyle both invigorating and at times self-destructive. The metal genre has always been populated by colorful individuals who have thwarted convention and lived by their own rules. For many, vice has been virtue, and the opportunity to record albums and tour has been an invitation to push boundaries and open a Pandora ’s Box of wild experiences. Even before they joined bands, the urge for metalheads to rebel and a seemingly contradictory need to belong was ingrained in their DNA. Whether they were oddballs who didn’t fit in or angry kids from troubled backgrounds, metal gave them a sense of identity and became more than a form of music. From the author of the classic collection of Metal music-making tales Louder Than Hell comes a collection that goes behind the music with the lead singers, guitarists, bassists, drummers, stage hands, roadies, groupies, fans, and more. These are the stories of the parties, the tours, the rage, the joy, . . . the Heavy Metal life!

    Has the 21st century resolved the question of postmodernism or are we more than ever ensnared in its perplexities? Postmodernism seemed to promise an end to the grim Cold War era of nuclear confrontation and oppressive ideologies. Fukuyama's notoriously proclaimed end of history, the triumph of liberal democracy over Communist tyranny, has proved an illusion. We awoke in the anxious grip of globalization, unpredictable terrorism and unforeseen war. Introducing Postmodernism traces the pedigrees of postmodernism in art, theory, science and history, providing an urgent guide to the present. Derrida, Baudrillard, Foucault and many other icons of postmodern complexity are brilliantly elucidated by Richard Appignanesi and enlivened by the Guardian's Biff cartoonist Chris Garratt.