Banksy.: You Are an Acceptable Level of Threat


Gary Shove - 2012
    You Are An Acceptable Level of Threat concentrates on this singular artist's iconic imagery, spanning the late '90s up until the end of 2011. The locations are from around the world (predominantly the UK, US and Europe), and many images have never been seen before. When Banksy started out painting, the political landscape was bleak. Fortunately now, it's ten times worse. As Banksy's cheerfully aggressive political work becomes ever more relevant, this comprehensive tome sets about presenting his art in the context of the era he was responding to.

Doodle Diary of a New Mom: An Illustrated Journey Through One Mommy’s First Year


Lucy Scott - 2015
    Despite her extensive pre-baby research, nothing prepared her for the momentous task of caring for this new little person. Featuring dozens of funny moments like baby's first lunch out to a forensic view of the living room, this charming doodle collection includes 120 two-color illustrations and is the perfect gift for Mother's Day, baby showers, or year-round fun. Also included are a few doodling prompts in the back of the book so moms can doodle their own first-year memories.

Monet: Itinerant of Light


Salva Rubio - 2017
    From the Salon des Refuses (“Salon of the Rejected”) and many struggling years without recognition, money, and yet a family to raise, all the way to great success, critically and financially, Monet pursued insistently one vision: catching the light in painting, refusing to compromise on this ethereal pursuit. It cost him dearly but he was a beacon for his contemporaries. We discover in this comics biography how he came to this vision as well as his turbulent life pursuing it.

Remote Control: Power, Cultures, and the World of Appearances


Barbara Kruger - 1993
    On both an emotional and an economic level, images and texts have the power to make us rich or poor. In these essays and reviews, written over the last decade, Barbara Kruger addresses that power with intelligence and wit, in the hope of engaging both our criticality and our dreams of affirmation.

Abstract Art Painting: Expressions in Mixed Media


Debora Stewart - 2015
    You'll learn how to explore the use of color theory in abstraction and to use underpainting to bring structure and depth to your art. In addition you'll begin to understand how to work in a series and how this can help you develop your own personal style. A sampling of what you'll add to your creative toolbox: Pastel and acrylic techniques to use to complete your own paintings The benefits of expressing your ideas abstractly How to loosen up by using your nondominant hand and drawing to music Ways to express emotions through mark-making Using color and symbolism for expression Working with photos for inspiration Tips for using color studies Step into your own abstract frame of mind today!

Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods


Hilma af Klint - 2018
    Many consider her the first trained artist to create abstract paintings. With Hilma af Klint: Notes and Methods, we get to experience the arc of af Klint’s artistic investigation in her own words. Hilma af Klint studied at the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm where she was part of the first generation of female students.  Up until the beginning of the century, she painted mainly landscapes and detailed botanical studies. Her work from this period was that of a young artist of her time who meticulously observed the world around her. But, like many of her contemporaries, af Klint was also interested in the invisible relationships that shape our world, believing strongly in a spiritual dimension. She joined the Theosophical Society, and, with four fellow female members who together called themselves “The Five,” began to study mediumship.  Between 1906 and 1915, purportedly guided by a higher power, af Klint created 193 individual works that, in both scale and scope of imagery, are like no other art created at that time.  Botanically inspired images and mystical symbols, diagrams, words, and geometric series, all form part of af Klint’s abstract language. These abstract techniques would not be seen again until years later.            Notes and Methods presents facsimile reproductions of a wide array of af Klint’s early notebooks accompanied by the first English translation of af Klint’s extensive writings. It contains the rarely seen “Blue Notebooks,” hand-painted and annotated catalogues af Klint created of her most famous series “Paintings for the Temple,” and a dictionary compiled by af Klint of the words and letters found in her work. An introduction by Iris Müller-Westermann illuminates this unique and important contribution to the legacy of Hilma af Klint.

Michelangelo: A Tormented Life


Antonio Forcellino - 2002
    The author retraces Michelangelo's journey from Rome to Florence, explores his changing religious views and examines the complicated politics of patronage in Renaissance Italy. The psychological portrait of Michelangelo is constantly foregrounded, depicting with great conviction a tormented man, solitary and avaricious, burdened with repressed homosexuality and a surplus of creative enthusiasm. Michelangelo's acts of self-representation and his pivotal role in constructing his own myth are compellingly unveiled. Antonio Forcellino is one of the world's leading authorities on Michelangelo and an expert art historian and restorer. He has been involved in the restoration of numerous masterpieces, including Michelangelo's Moses. He combines his firsthand knowledge of Michelangelo's work with a lively literary style to draw the reader into the very heart of Michelangelo's genius.

Visionmongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography


David duChemin - 2009
    With a voice equally realistic and encouraging, photographer David duChemin discusses the experiences he's had, the lessons he's learned, and the practices he's adopted in his own winding journey to becoming a successful working photographer.When it comes to this personal, honest combination of craft and commerce, there is no single path to success. Everyone's goals are different, as is everyone's definition of success. As such, VisionMongers does not prescribe a one size-fits-all program. Instead, duChemin candidly shares ideas, wisdom, and inspiration to introduce you to, and help you navigate, the many aspects of transforming your passion into your vocation. He addresses everything from the anxiety-riddled question "Am I good enough?" to the basics--and beyond--of marketing, business, and finance, as well as the core assumption that your product is great and your craft is always improving.Along the way, duChemin features the stories of nine other photographers--including Chase Jarvis, Gavin Gough, and Zack Arias--whose paths, while unique, have all shared a commitment and passion for bringing their own vision to market. With VisionMongers, you'll learn what paths have been taken--what has worked for these photographers--and you'll be equipped to begin the process of forging your own.

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present


Eric R. Kandel - 2012
    Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind—our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions—and how mind and brain relate to art.   At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today.   The Vienna School of Medicine led the way with its realization that truth lies hidden beneath the surface. That principle infused Viennese culture and strongly influenced the other pioneers of Vienna 1900. Sigmund Freud shocked the world with his insights into how our everyday unconscious aggressive and erotic desires are repressed and disguised in symbols, dreams, and behavior. Arthur Schnitzler revealed women’s unconscious sexuality in his novels through his innovative use of the interior monologue. Gustav Klimt, Oscar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele created startlingly evocative and honest portraits that expressed unconscious lust, desire, anxiety, and the fear of death.   Kandel tells the story of how these pioneers—Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele—inspired by the Vienna School of Medicine, in turn influenced the founders of the Vienna School of Art History to ask pivotal questions such as What does the viewer bring to a work of art? How does the beholder respond to it? These questions prompted new and ongoing discoveries in psychology and brain biology, leading to revelations about how we see and perceive, how we think and feel, and how we respond to and create works of art. Kandel, one of the leading scientific thinkers of our time, places these five innovators in the context of today’s cutting-edge science and gives us a new understanding of the modernist art of Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele, as well as the school of thought of Freud and Schnitzler. Reinvigorating the intellectual enquiry that began in Vienna 1900, The Age of Insight is a wonderfully written, superbly researched, and beautifully illustrated book that also provides a foundation for future work in neuroscience and the humanities. It is an extraordinary book from an international leader in neuroscience and intellectual history.

Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open


Phoebe Hoban - 2014
    Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open is the first biography to assess Freud's work and life, showing how the two converge.   In Hoban's dramatic and fast-paced narrative, we follow Freud from his birthplace in Berlin to London, where he fled with his family in the 1930s, and then to Paris, where he mixed with Picasso and Giacometti. He led a dissolute life in Soho after the war, gambling and womanizing with fierce energy. He painted his wives nude, his children nude, himself nude. He married twice, had an uncountable number of children, and kept working through it all, painting everyone from close friend and rival Francis Bacon to Kate Moss and Queen Elizabeth. He sometimes spent years on a single painting, which could require hundreds of hours of sittings. However various his subjects, his intent was always the same: to find and reveal the character hidden within by means of his intense visual imagination.   Along with its startling biographical revelations, the great thrill of Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open is the way Hoban deconstructs the art itself—its influences, models, and technique—to show how Freud reproduced reality on the canvas while breaking down the illusion that what we see is real.

Tape Delay


Charles Neal - 1987
    A virtual Who's Who of people who've done the most in the eighties to drag music out of commercial confinement."--NMEContributors: Marc Almond, Dave Ball, Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Cave, Chris & Cosey, Coil, Einsturzende Neubauten, The Fall, Diamanda Galas, Genesis P-Orridge, Michael Gira, The Hafler Trio, Matt Johnson (The The), Laibach, Lydia Lunch, New Order, Psychic TV, Boyd Rice, Henry Rollins, Clint Ruin, Silverstar Amoeba, Mark E. Smith (The Fall), Sonic Youth, Stevo, Mark Stewart, Swans, Test Dept, David Tibet (Current 93), Touch.

Chroma


Derek Jarman - 1994
    From the explosions of image and color in In The Shadow of the Sun, The Last of England, The Garden and Wittgenstein, to the somber blacks of his collages and tar paintings, Jarman has consistently used color in unprecedented ways, making his ideas on the subject of interest to filmmakers, film audiences, artists and students alike. Blue, his most personal and innovative film, consists of a compelling soundtrack accompanied by a monochrome blue image and is, among other things, a comment on Jarman's diminishing eyesight due to AIDS. In his signature style, a lyrical combination of classical theory, anecdote, and poetry, Jarman takes the reader through the spectrum, introducing each color as an embodiment of an emotion, evoking memories or dreams. He explains the use of color in Medieval painting through the Renaissance to the modernists and draws on the great color theorists from Pliny to Leonardo. He writes too about the meanings of color in literature, science, philosophy, psychology, religion and alchemy. Read either as a work on color, or a distillation of Jarman's artistic vision, Chroma presents an exciting perspective on the subject.

Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters


David Hockney - 2001
    Hockney’s extensive research led him to conclude that artists such as Caravaggio, Velázquez, da Vinci, and other hyperrealists actually used optics and lenses to create their masterpieces.In this passionate yet pithy book, Hockney takes readers on a journey of discovery as he builds a case that mirrors and lenses were used by the great masters to create their highly detailed and realistic paintings and drawings. Hundreds of the best-known and best-loved paintings are reproduced alongside his straightforward analysis. Hockney also includes his own photographs and drawings to illustrate techniques used to capture such accurate likenesses. Extracts from historical and modern documents and correspondence with experts from around the world further illuminate this thought-provoking book that will forever change how the world looks at art.Secret Knowledge will open your eyes to how we perceive the world and how we choose to represent it.

How to Paint Fast, Loose and Bold: Simple Techniques for Expressive Painting


Patti Mollica - 2018
    In this book, artist and workshop teacher Patti Mollica walks you through surprisingly simple and efficient strategies for achieving that kind of powerful composition, whatever your subject. Complete with timed exercises and start-to-finish painting demonstrations, this book is for any artist who feels overwhelmed by where to start or daunted by the urge to paint everything in sight. Patti Mollica's mindful approach will lead you to better, bolder results, as well as greater confidence and joy in the process. So load your palette with ample paint, grab some fat brushes and get ready to paint fast, paint loose, paint bold. Start with a strong, simple value statement Get expressive with color Be brave with your brushwork 5 technique exercises 5 start-to-finish painting demonstrations Paint fearlessly!

Sophie Calle - True Stories


Sophie Calle - 2004
    Calle's projects have frequently drawn on episodes from her own life, but this book-part visual memoir, part meditation on the resonances of photographs and belongings-is as close as she has come to producing an autobiography, albeit one highly poetical and fragmentary. The first section is composed of various reflections on objects such as a shoe, a postcard, a bathrobe and a bed, or musings on the artist's body, such as "The Love Letter": "For years a love letter languished on my desk. I had never received a love letter, so I paid a public scribe to write one. Eight days later, I received seven beautiful pages of pure poetry penned in ink. It had cost me one hundred francs and the man said: '...as for myself, without moving from my chair I was everywhere with you.'" The second section of the book, "The Husband," is comprised of ten recollections of episodes from Calle's first marriage, by turns funny ("He was an unreliable man. For our first date he showed up one year late."), erotic and sad. A third section gathers various autobiographical tales, and the book closes with three interlinked stories titled "Monique." This new edition includes five new photo-text presentations and is the first English translation.Sophie Calle (born 1953) is a French writer, photographer, installation artist and conceptual artist. Among her many publications are "The Address Book," "Blind," "Take Care of Yourself" and "Double Game."