LibGuides: Contemporary Art Since 1950: Books & eBooks

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Andy Warhol and the Can That Sold the World In the summer of 1962, Andy Warhol unveiled 32 Soup Cans in his first solo exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles,and sent the art world reeling. The responses ran from incredulity to outrage the poet Taylor Mead described the exhibition as a brilliant slap in the face to America." The exhibition put Warhol on the map,and transformed American culture forever. Almost single-handedly, Warhol collapsed the centuries-old distinction between high" and low" culture, and created a new and radically modern aesthetic. In Andy Warhol and the Can that Sold the World , the dazzlingly versatile critic Gary Indiana tells the story of the genesis and impact of this iconic work of art. With energy, wit, and tremendous perspicacity, Indiana recovers the exhilaration and controversy of the Pop Art Revolution and the brilliant, tormented, and profoundly narcissistic figure at its vanguard.
A Companion to Digital Art Reflecting the dynamic creativity of its subject, this definitive guide spans the evolution, aesthetics, and practice of today's digital art, combining fresh, emerging perspectives with the nuanced insights of leading theorists. Showcases the critical and theoretical approaches in this fast-moving discipline Explores the history and evolution of digital art; its aesthetics and politics; as well as its often turbulent relationships with established institutions Provides a platform for the most influential voices shaping the current discourse surrounding digital art, combining fresh, emerging perspectives with the nuanced insights of leading theorists Tackles digital art's primary practical challenges - how to present, document, and preserve pieces that could be erased forever by rapidly accelerating technological obsolescence Up-to-date, forward-looking, and critically reflective, this authoritative new collection is informed throughout by a deep appreciation of the technical intricacies of digital art
A Companion to Modern Art A Companion to Modern Art presents a series of original essays by international and interdisciplinary authors who offer a comprehensive overview of the origins and evolution of artistic works, movements, approaches, influences, and legacies of Modern Art. Presents a contemporary debate and dialogue rather than a seamless consensus on Modern Art Aims for reader accessibility by highlighting a plurality of approaches and voices in the field Presents Modern Art's foundational philosophic ideas and practices, as well as the complexities of key artists such as Cezanne and Picasso, and those who straddled the modern and contemporary Looks at the historical reception of Modern Art, in addition to the latest insights of art historians, curators, and critics to artists, educators, and more
Jackson Pollock Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) not only put American art on the map with his famous "drip paintings," he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire—the role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollock's hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artist—our American van Gogh. In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollock's itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollock's paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style.
Jasper Johns The book not only displays the artist's tremendous catalogue of artworks but also discusses both his influence within the art of the 1960s and later, and his personal and artistic relationships with other major artists from the period. Offering at once a retrospective of Johns's art and a portrait of the American artistic landscape over the past sixty years, this study allows the reader to experience both the historical and contemporary significance of one of their favorite artists.
Looking and Listening Looking and Listening: Conversations between Modern Art and Music invites the art and music lover to place these two realms of creative endeavor into an open dialog. Although the worlds of music and visual art often seem to take separate paths, they are usually parallel. Conductor and art connoisseur Brenda Leach takes unique pairings of well-known visual art works and musical compositions from the twentieth century to identify the shared sources of inspiration, as well as similarities in theme, style, and technique, to explore the historical and cultural influences on the great artists and composers in the twentieth century. Looking and Listening asks and answers: -What does jazz have in common with paintings by Stuart Davis and Piet Mondrian? -How did Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue affect the work of artist Arthur Dove? -How did painter Georgia O'Keeffe and composer Aaron Copland capture the spirit of a youthful America entering the twentieth century? -What did Kandinsky and Schoenberg share in their artistic visions? Leach takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the lives of these artists, surveying many of the key movements in the twentieth century by comparing representative works from the modern masters of the visual arts and music. Leach's refreshing and innovation approach will interest those passionate about twentieth-century art and music and is ideal for any student or instructor, museum docent, or music programmer seeking to draw the lines of connection between these two art forms.
Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction As public interest in modern art continues to grow, as witnessed by the spectacular success of Tate Modern and the Bilbao Guggenheim, there is a real need for a book that will engage general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining itscontemporary relevance and history. This book achieves all this and focuses on interrogating the idea of 'modern' art by asking such questions as: What has made a work of art qualify as modern (or fail to)? How has this selection been made? What is the relationship between modern and contemporaryart? Is 'postmodernist' art no longer modern, or just no longer modernist - in either case, why, and what does this claim mean, both for art and the idea of 'the modern'?Cottington examines many key aspects of this subject, including the issue of controversy in modern art, from Manet's Dejeuner sur L'Herbe (1863) to Picasso's Les Demoiselles, and Tracey Emin's Bed, (1999); and the role of the dealer from the main Cubist art dealer Kahnweiler to CharlesSaatchi.
Modernism: A Short Introduction This short introduction to Modernism analyses the movement from the perspective of English and American literature. Provides a critical overview of some of the central texts of literary Modernism. Covers both established works and those that have only recently come to critical attention. Includes detailed discussion of major authors, including T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Wallace Stevens and H.D.
Painting Outside the Lines Why have some great modern artists--including Picasso--produced their most important work early in their careers while others--like Cézanne--have done theirs late in life? In a work that brings new insights, and new dimensions, to the history of modern art, David Galenson examines the careers of more than 100 modern painters to disclose a fascinating relationship between age and artistic creativity. Galenson's analysis of the careers of figures such as Monet, Seurat, Matisse, Pollock, and Jasper Johns reveals two very different methods by which artists have made innovations, each associated with a very different pattern of discovery over the life cycle. Experimental innovators, like Cézanne, work by trial and error, and arrive at their most important contributions gradually. In contrast, Picasso and other conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas. Consequently, experimental innovators usually make their discoveries late in their lives, whereas conceptual innovators typically peak at an early age. A novel contribution to the history of modern art, both in method and in substance, Painting outside the Lines offers an enlightening glimpse into the relationship between the working methods and the life cycles of modern artists. The book's explicit use of simple but powerful quantitative techniques allows for systematic generalization about large numbers of artists--and illuminates significant but little understood features of the history of modern art. Pointing to a new and richer understanding of that history, from Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism and beyond, Galenson's work also has broad implications for future attempts to understand the nature of human creativity in general.
Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism examines the critical reception of Pop Art in America during the 1960s. Comparing the ideas of a group of New York-based critics, including Leo Steinberg, Susan Sontag, and Max Kozloff, among others, Sylvia Harrison demonstrates how their ideas - broadly categorized as either sociological or philosophical - bear a striking similarity to the body of thought and opinion which is now associated with deconstructive post-modernism. Perceived through these disciplinary lenses, Pop Art arises as not only a reflection of the dominance of mass communications and capitalist consumerism in post-war American society, but also a subversive commentary on worldviews and the factors necessary for their formation.
Theatricality in Early Modern Art and Architecture Theatricality in Early Modern Art and Architecture offers the first systematic investigation of exchanges between the arts, architecture and the theatre. The authors present many new instances of the interaction between the arts, providing a theoretical and historiographical context for these interactions. Offers the first systematic investigation of exchanges between the arts, architecture and the theatre, not simply the influence of the theatre on the arts, and vice versa Develops a theoretical and methodological model to study such exchanges and interactions Presents many new, hitherto unknown instances of the interaction between the arts, particularly architecture, and the theatre, and provides such interactions with a theoretical and historiographical context Authors have opened up new ways of analyzing theatricality both in the arts, architecture and the theatre
Twentieth-Century American Art Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, and Laurie Anderson are just some of the major American artists of the twentieth century. From the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to the 2000 Whitney Biennial, a rapid succession of art movements and different styles reflected theextreme changes in American culture and society, as well as America's position within the international art world.This exciting new look at twentieth century American art explores the relationships between American art, museums, and audiences in the century that came to be called the 'American century'. Extending beyond New York, it covers the emergence of Feminist art in Los Angeles in the 1970s; the Black artmovement; the expansion of galleries and art schools; and the highly political public controversies surrounding arts funding. All the key movements are fully discussed, including early American Modernism, the New Negro movement, Regionalism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Neo-Expressionism.

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After Modern Art, 1945-2000 the book performs well as a dip-in reference book... yet is also satisfying as a cover-to-cover read.
Building Art : The Life and Work of Frank Gehry From Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic Paul Goldberger: an engaging, nuanced exploration of the life and work of Frank Gehry, undoubtedly the most famous architect of our time. This first full-fledged critical biography presents and evaluates the work of a man who has almost single-handedly transformed contemporary architecture in his innovative use of materials, design, and form, and who is among the very few architects in history to be both respected by critics as a creative, cutting-edge force and embraced by the general public as a popular figure. Building Art shows the full range of Gehry's work, from early houses constructed of plywood and chain-link fencing to lamps made in the shape of fish to the triumphant success of such late projects as the spectacular art museum of glass in Paris. It tells the story behind Gehry's own house, which upset his neighbors and excited the world with its mix of the traditional and the extraordinary, and recounts how Gehry came to design the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, his remarkable structure of swirling titanium that changed a declining city into a destination spot. Building Art also explains Gehry's sixteen-year quest to complete Walt Disney Concert Hall, the beautiful, acoustically brilliant home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Although Gehry's architecture has been written about widely, the story of his life has never been told in full detail. Here we come to know his Jewish immigrant family, his working-class Toronto childhood, his hours spent playing with blocks on his grandmother's kitchen floor, his move to Los Angeles when he was still a teenager, and how he came, unexpectedly, to end up in architecture school. Most important, Building Art presents and evaluates Gehry's lifetime of work in conjunction with his entire life story, including his time in the army and at Harvard, his long relationship with his psychiatrist and the impact it had on his work, and his two marriages and four children. It analyzes his carefully crafted persona, in which a casual, amiable "aw, shucks" surface masks a driving and intense ambition. And it explores his relationship to Los Angeles and how its position as home to outsider artists gave him the freedom in his formative years to make the innovations that characterize his genius. Finally, it discusses his interest in using technology not just to change the way a building looks but to change the way the whole profession of architecture is practiced. At once a sweeping view of a great architect and an intimate look at creative genius, Building Art is in many ways the saga of the architectural milieu of the twenty-first century. But most of all it is the compelling story of the man who first comes to mind when we think of the lasting possibilities of buildings as art. 
De Kooning : An American Master Willem de Kooning is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, a true “painter’s painter” whose protean work continues to inspire many artists. In the thirties and forties, along with Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock, he became a key figure in the revolutionary American movement of abstract expressionism. Of all the painters in that group, he worked the longest and was the most prolific, creating powerful, startling images well into the 1980s. The first major biography of de Kooning captures both the life and work of this complex, romantic figure in American culture. Ten years in the making, and based on previously unseen letters and documents as well as on hundreds of interviews, this is a fresh, richly detailed, and masterful portrait. The young de Kooning overcame an unstable, impoverished, and often violent early family life to enter the Academie in Rotterdam, where he learned both classic art and guild techniques. Arriving in New York as a stowaway from Holland in 1926, he underwent a long struggle to become a painter and an American, developing a passionate friendship with his fellow immigrant Arshile Gorky, who was both a mentor and an inspiration. During the Depression, de Kooning emerged as a central figure in the bohemian world of downtown New York, surviving by doing commercial work and painting murals for the WPA. His first show at the Egan Gallery in 1948 was a revelation. Soon, the critics Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess were championing his work, and de Kooning took his place as the charismatic leader of the New York school—just as American art began to dominate the international scene. Dashingly handsome and treated like a movie star on the streets of downtown New York, de Kooning had a tumultuous marriage to Elaine de Kooning, herself a fascinating character of the period. At the height of his fame, he spent his days painting powerful abstractions and intense, disturbing pictures of the female figure—and his nights living on the edge, drinking, womanizing, and talking at the Cedar bar with such friends as Franz Kline and Frank O’Hara. By the 1960s, exhausted by the feverish art world, he retreated to the Springs on Long Island, where he painted an extraordinary series of lush pastorals. In the 1980s, as he slowly declined into what was almost certainly Alzheimer’s, he created a vast body of haunting and ethereal late work. This is an authoritative and brilliant exploration of the art, life, and world of an American master. From the Hardcover edition.
Frank Stella : A Retrospective A comprehensive look at the breadth and depth of the work of one of America's most influential abstract artists This landmark catalogue presents a retrospective study of Frank Stella (b. 1936), one of the most important figures in 20th-century American art. Showcasing works from all of his major series, the book surveys the full sweep of Stella's career, from his artistic beginnings in high school and college to today.   The book's spectacular plate section comprises more than 100 works, including paintings, sculptures, reliefs, and works on paper. Notable inclusions are his seminal Black Paintings, recent high-relief aluminum works, and a selection of drawings, maquettes, and digital renderings--many of which are reproduced here for the first time--that offer fresh insight into Stella's thinking and process. Essays discuss topics such as the artist's early years at Phillips Academy in Andover and Princeton University, and his late-career architectural pieces created with the aid of computer software. An interview with Stella conducted by American painter Laura Owens allows Stella to illuminate his artistic practice in his own words. Additional resources include a chronology with extensive bibliographic and exhibition references. This definitive publication is the most thorough examination to date of Stella's astounding contributions in all media, which cement his role as one of the most important practitioners of modern abstraction. 
Imagining America : Icons of 20th-century American Art How did artists of the twentieth century use their work to respond to their unique personal experiences and moment in history? This provocative question is explored in this engaging new book on American art. By focusing on broad, defining themes, embodied in the work of such pivotal artists as Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, the authors look at how art provided a means for re-imagining America, visualizing what it had become, and where it might go in a century of turbulent change. Richly illustrated with 400 color images, Imagining America is organized around three main themes: nature and the ways diverse artists responded to the transformation of the landscapenbsp; from pastoral to industrial; how artists as different as Thomas Eakins and Jackson Pollock demonstrated the perpetual inclination to reinvent both personal and national identity; and the ways that key artists like Stuart Davis, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat taught us to understand the media and popular culture on a deeper level. The authors also provide a context of social history and parallel developments in American music and film. With an innovative design, a fabulous selection of iconic images, and an engaging juxtaposition of visual themes, Imagining America presents American art and artists in a completely new light.
Johns Focusing on the American, Jasper Johns (b 1930), who is associated with the Abstract Expressionist and Pop movements, this is one of a series of illustrated monographs which offer introductions to modern art and artists. Each book presents a profile of the artist and analysis of his distinctive style.
Roy Lichtenstein Featuring close to 50 full color illustrations, this entry in the Modern Masters series demonstrates how artist Roy Lichtenstein was not only one of the most significant postwar artists, but also a perceptive, ironic commentator on contemporary society. Roy Lichtenstein became famous in the early 1960s for his deadpan recreations of popular imagery, particularly paintings based on war and romance comics. As this book demonstrates, Lichtenstein's interest in quoting subjects form both high and low art has continued throughout his career, producing a fascinating and varied body of work. As Lawrence Alloway's incisive text makes clear, Lichtenstein was not only one of the most significant postwar artists, but also a perceptive, ironic commentator on contemporary society. About Abbeville's Modern Masters series: With informative, enjoyable texts and over 100 illustrations--approximately 48 in full color--this innovative series offers a fresh look at the most creative and influential artists of the postwar era. The authors are highly respected art historians and critics chosen for their ability to think clearly and write well. Each handsomely designed volume presents a thorough survey of the artists life and work, as well as statements by the artist, an illustrated chapter on technique, a chronology, lists of exhibitions and public collections, an annotated bibliography, and an index. Every art lover, from the casual museum goer to the serious student, teacher, critic, or curator, will be eager to collect these Modern Masters. And with such a low price, they can afford to collect them all.
Mark Rothko A critical study of a pioneer of abstract expressionism analyzes his life and the progression of his art and contains reproductions of one hundred ninety-eight oils and watercolors, ninety-six of which are in full color.
Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol is a groundbreaking reassessment of the most influential and controversial American artist of the second half of the 20th century. Writers Tony Scherman and David Dalton disentangle the myths of the great pop artist from the man he truly was, and offer a vivid, entertaining, and provocative look at Warhol's personal and artistic evolution. Drawing on brand new sources--including extensive new interviews and insight from those who knew him best--Pop offers the most dynamic, comprehensive portrait ever written of the man who changed the way we see the world.