Books

Whitney — Handbook of the Collection

10 June 2021 in Books Comment

Whitney Museum of American Art
Handbook of the Collection

This easy to carry reference book takes a fresh look at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s collection, highlights the museum’s extraordinary holdings and its fascinating history. Featuring iconic pieces by artists such as Calder, Hopper, Johns, O’Keeffe, and Warhol—as well as numerous works by under-recognized individuals—this is not only a guide to the Whitney’s collection, but also a remarkable primer on modern and contemporary American art.

Beautifully illustrated with abundant new photography, the book pairs scholarly entries on 350 artists with images of some of their most significant works. The museum’s history and the evolution of its collection, including the Whitney’s important distinction as one of the few American museums founded by an artist, and the notion of “American” in relation to the collection, are covered in two short essays. Published to coincide with the Whitney’s highly anticipated move to a new facility in downtown New York in the spring of 2015, this book celebrates the museum’s storied past and vibrant present as it looks ahead to its future. Edited by Dana Miller; With an introduction by Adam D. Weinberg.

More Information
Paperback. 432 pp. 6 1/2 x 9 inches. 440 color ill. Whitney Museum, 2015.

Whitney

Chihuly and Architecture

12 May 2021 in Books Comment

Chihuly and Architecture, 2021
Published by Chihuly Workshop; co-distributed by Abrams

“Whether rippling like sheets of frozen water, enclosing space in a perfect sphere, or reaching out like the fingers of a fantastic sea creature, his luminous sculptures are breathtakingly beautiful. […] By grouping them in gardens, plazas, train stations, canals, and architectural masterpieces, Chihuly has also changed the face of public art.” —Eleanor Heartney

Chihuly Workshop and Abrams Books announce the release of their latest collaboration, Chihuly and Architecture. The large-format publication is available May 18, 2021 online, and at select bookstores, distributors, museum shops, boutiques, and galleries.

Chihuly and Architecture celebrates four decades of Dale Chihuly’s spectacular site–specific glass installations. This publication, which is being released in honor of the artist’s upcoming 80th birthday, examines architectural commissions, temporary art installations, and museum exhibitions. An exploration of entire rooms and galleries, glasshouses and castles, and travels from the canals of Venice to the Citadel in the Old City of Jerusalem, the book provides rare insight into Chihuly’s inspiration and global footprint.

The essayist, Eleanor Heartney, is a New York–based art critic and author of numerous books and articles about contemporary art. Her work has appeared in ARTnews, Art in America, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

About Dale Chihuly:
Dale Chihuly is an American artist noted for revolutionizing the studio glass movement and elevating perceptions of the glass medium. His work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide, and his major exhibitions include Chihuly Over Venice, Venice (1995-96); Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem, Jerusalem (1999); and at the de Young Museum in San Francisco (2008); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2011); Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, (2013); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, (2016); Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (2017); Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands (2018); and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, (2019). Chihuly Garden and Glass, a long-term exhibition located at the Seattle Center, opened in 2012.

Opening May 2021:
Dale Chihuly: Glass in Bloom marks the artist’s first major garden exhibition in Asia. Featuring iconic large-scale installations situated within Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, this exhibition is organized in collaboration with Hustle & Bustle.

For more information visit chihuly.com

A Tale of One City

6 April 2021 in Books Comment

A Tale of One City
Daniel Stier

‘A tale of one city’, its title loosely based on Charles Dickens famous novel, is a twenty-first century picture story of life in big cities, the clashing of opposites, the simultaneity of extreme wealth and poverty, excess and deprivation that characterizes one major city but might just be a tale of them all.

The book portraits the city as an accumulation of capital and goods, a metabolic system of buying and selling, a place of constant construction and destruction. The visual chaos, the urban polarities that we have to navigate on a daily basis, is documented in the classic tradition of the flaneur, the detached observer of the city.

Yet the excessiveness of these seductive, candy-colored images, reveal only one thing: it is our consumption through which we make our lives meaningful. All that colorful, cheap plastic, all the luxurious accessories, seemingly indistinguishable, help us reassert ourselves in a city that only wants our labour value and grants us almost nothing in return.

It is our economy that is pushing the city’s infrastructure, physical and social, to its limit. There is no place where we can put ourselves, as inhabitants or as viewers of these photos, where we don’t have to recognize our own implication, our own complicity.

104 pages with 61 colour plates.
Dimensions: 23cm × 28cm.
With two essays by David Campany and Marvin Heiferman.
Design by Doublestandards.net

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Not My Animal

17 March 2021 in Books Comment

KAWS: What Party Book

25 February 2021 in Books Comment

KAWS: WHAT PARTY (Signed edition)
Essays by Daniel Birnbaum and Eugenie Tsai

A comprehensive monograph on the work of KAWS, one of the most sought-after artists and creative forces of our time

Drawing from Pop art traditions, KAWS’s work straddles the line between fine art and popular culture, crossing the mediums of painting and sculpture, along with fashion, merchandise, vinyl toys, and, most recently, augmented reality. This book, made in close collaboration with the artist, features his most well-known works alongside sketches, preparatory drawings, and never-before-seen images of KAWS at work, revealing the meticulous process behind his iconic artworks. Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, it captures the artist’s unique ability to reshape the ways we think about contemporary art and culture today.

Specifications:

Format: Hardback
Size: 305 x 238 mm (12 x 9 3/8 in)
Pages: 256 pp
Illustrations: 1500 illustrations
ISBN: 9781838662882

Phaidon