Richard Prince
Untitled (portrait)
Inkjet on canvas
2015
(167 × 123.8 cm)
Part of the New Portraits series at the Gagosian gallery, London, 2015
Photo by Rob McKeever
Monographs
A selection of general texts that consider Contemporary Art in a holistic sense. While there may be a discussion of specific artists, media, or time periods, the broader focus is on Contemporary Art as an art historical concept.
Aftershock by Call Number: N6497 .C39 2009ISBN: 9781845115241Publication Date: 2009This provocative book subjects contemporary transgressive art to a rigorous ethical exploration. Accused by the tabloid press of setting out to ""shock"", controversial artworks such as those in the infamous Sensation show--which in 1999 prompted New York Mayor Giuliani's outrage--are vigorously defended by art critics who frequently downplay their disturbing emotional impact. Yet in doing so, Cashell argues, these commentators actually fail to understand the work they defend. Scrutinizing notorious works by Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcus Harvey, Orlan, Tracey Emin and others, Cashell maintains not only that such work produces a visceral, emotional and ""ethical"" response--but that it actively sets out to do so.
Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art by Call Number: N6490 O733 2013ISBN: 9781781680940Publication Date: 2013Contemporary art is the object of inflated and widely divergent claims. But what kind of discourse can open it up effectively to critical analysis? Anywhere or Not at All is a major philosophical intervention in art theory that challenges the terms of established positions through a new approach at once philosophical, historical, social and art-critical. Developing the position that "contemporary art is postconceptual art," the book progresses through a dual series of conceptual constructions and interpretations of particular works to assess the art from a number of perspectives: contemporaneity and its global context; art against aesthetic; the Romantic pre-history of conceptual art; the multiplicity of modernisms; transcategoriality; conceptual abstraction; photographic ontology; digitalization; and the institutional and existential complexities of art-space and art-time. Anywhere or Not at All maps out the conceptual space for an art that is both critical and contemporary in the era of global capitalism.
Art since 1960 by Call Number: N6490 .A71 2002ISBN: 0500203512Publication Date: 2002The underlying themes that run through contemporary art, irrespective of styles and techniques, reveal the complex relationship between art and everyday life worldwide. This revised and expanded edition is brought up to date with discussions on the more comprehensive globalization of art since the mid-1990s, which can be seen in the growth of the exhibition calendar and the number of new contemporary art museums opening around the world.
Contemporary Art by Call Number: N520 .A66 2015ISBN: 9780878468164Publication Date: 2016Contemporary art is a vast and complex field representing artists, ideas, and trends from every imaginable cultural and geographical background. This book introduces the art of our times by taking the reader through a tour of some seventy examples from the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Thematic chapters present artistic categories, concepts, and propositions that have been prevalent since the mid-1950s and offer a path toward understanding the different subjects, forms, styles, purposes, and techniques of contemporary art. Some, such as 'portrait', are long-standing notions in the history of art; others, such as 'site' or 'borrowed', raise provocative questions and may be less immediately obvious. But it is the works of art themselves - brilliantly conceived by some of the most creative minds of our times - that make the case for embracing contemporary media in all its diversity.
Contemporary Art by Call Number: 709.045 S662c and N6490 .S568 2011ISBN: 9780205789719Publication Date: 2011Contemporary Art: World Currents is the first comprehensive worldwide survey of contemporary art from the 1980s to the present day. Author Terry Smith argues that, in recent decades, a global shift from modern to contemporary art has occurred: artists everywhere have embraced the contemporary world's teeming multiplicity, its proliferating differences and its challenging complexities and new technologies. Alongside more than 350 carefully selected color images of key works, Terry Smith offers the first account of these changes, from their historical beginnings to the present day. Exploring key works by both well known and little-known artists, the author shows how contemporary art achieved definitive force in the markets and museums of the major art centres during the 1980s and then became a global phenomenon as artworlds everywhere began to connect more closely: new communicative technologies and expanding social media are now shaping the future of art.
Dead History, Live Art?: Spectacle. Subjectivity and subversion in Visual Culture since the 1960s by Call Number: N6490 .D3735 2007ISBN: 9780853231899Publication Date: 2008-02-15While scholars and critics generally agree that the 1960s signaled the end of high modernism, what is less clear is how to characterize contemporary art since the 1960s. Acclaimed art scholar Jonathan Harris here tackles this question by assembling a rich body of essays, along with an extended interview with renowned feminist art scholar Amelia Jones, that tracks the movements in and issues central to contemporary art practice since this pivotal decade. The contributors to Dead History, Live Art? argue that visual art since the 1960s can no longer claim a separate and exalted status; rather, it should be interpreted as an integral part of a larger culture of display, consumption, and power that continues to evolve within a global capitalist system.
Defining Contemporary Art by Call Number: N6490 .D358 2011ISBN: 9780714862095Publication Date: 2011In the mid-1980s the sprouting of new movements that had driven modern art since the nineteenth century finally went dormant, sputtering out with a few last half-hearted labels ('pattern painting', 'neo-geo', 'commodity art'). But this was not the end of art history - far from it. In the years since, art's creative development has remained more vibrant than ever, resulting in a diversity of new forms that is truly staggering. Defining Contemporary Art responds to this unique landscape with an innovative approach to art history. Selected by the eight most prominent curators working today, all of whom have both witnessed and shaped this period, Defining Contemporary Art today tells the story of the 200 pivotal artworks of the past 25 years. With insightful texts and generous illustrations, it offers the most complete, accurate and easy-to-use guide to the history of contemporary art.
Hold It Against Me by Call Number: NX650.E46 D698 2013ISBN: 9780822353027Publication Date: 2013In Hold It Against Me, Jennifer Doyle explores the relationship between difficulty and emotion in contemporary art, treating emotion as an artist's medium. She encourages readers to examine the ways in which works of art challenge how we experience not only the artist's feelings, but our own. Discussing performance art, painting, and photography, Doyle provides new perspectives on artists including Ron Athey, Aliza Shvarts, Thomas Eakins, James Luna, Carrie Mae Weems, and David Wojnarowicz. Confronting the challenge of writing about difficult works of art, she shows how these artists work with feelings as a means to question our assumptions about identity, intimacy, and expression. They deploy the complexity of emotion to measure the weight of history, and to deepen our sense of where and how politics happens in contemporary art. Doyle explores ideologies of emotion and how emotion circulates in and around art. Throughout, she gives readers welcoming points of entry into artworks that they may at first find off-putting or confrontational. Doyle offers new insight into how the discourse of controversy serves to shut down discussion about this side of contemporary art practice, and counters with a critical language that allows the reader to accept emotional intensity in order to learn from it.
New Art in the '60s and '70s by Call Number: 709.04075 R787nISBN: 0500237824Publication Date: 2001By the end of the 1960s a revolution had taken place in the perception and practice of art in Europe and North America. The cultural, social, and political context of this change reflected the desire for social transformation expressed in clashes with authority, such as the protests against the Vietnam War, that signaled a counterculture's defiance of established values. This book, the first detailed account of developments centered around the conceptual art movement, highlights the main issues underlying visually disparate works dating from the second half of the 1960s through the end of the 1970s. These works questioned the accepted categories of painting and sculpture by embracing a wealth of alternative media and procedures. Traditional two-and three-dimensional representations were supplanted by a variety of linguistic and photographic means, including installations that brought into play the importance of presentation and site. Through close examination of individual works and artists, Anne Rorimer demonstrates the pervading desire to redefine the characteristics of what was once accepted as truly visual in order to dispel earlier assumptions and offer other criteria for seeing.
Philosophy and Conceptual Art by Call Number: BH39 .P474 2007ISBN: 0199285551Publication Date: 2007The fourteen prominent analytic philosophers writing here engage with the cluster of philosophical questions raised by conceptual art. They address four broad questions: What kind of art is conceptual art? What follows from the fact that conceptual art does not aim to have aesthetic value?What knowledge or understanding can we gain from conceptual art? How ought we to appreciate conceptual art? Conceptual art, broadly understood by the contributors as beginning with Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades and as continuing beyond the 1970s to include some of today's contemporary art, is grounded in the notion that the artist's 'idea' is central to art, and, contrary to tradition, that the materialwork is by no means essential to the art as such. To use the words of the conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, 'In conceptual art the idea of the concept is the most important aspect of the work . . . and the execution is a perfunctory affair'. Given this so-called 'dematerialization' of the art object,the emphasis on cognitive value, and the frequent appeal to philosophy by many conceptual artists, there are many questions that are raised by conceptual art that should be of interest to analytic philosophers.
Themes in Contemporary Art by Call Number: N6494.P66 T48 2004ISBN: 0300101430Publication Date: 2004This work discusses the art of the final third of the twentieth century. In seven related chapters, it looks at different aspects of the postmodernism that has dominated art since the 1960s.
Themes of Contemporary Art by Call Number: N6490 .R5487 2005ISBN: 0195162153Publication Date: 2005Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 is a unique introduction to several important themes that have recurred in art over the past few decades. Examining visual art from 1980 to the present, it takes an intriguing and accessible approach that motivates students and other readers to think actively about and discuss contemporary art--what it means and how it means what it does. The opening chapter provides a concise overview of the period, analyzing how four key changes (the rise of new media, a growing awareness of diversity, the influence of theory, and interactions with everyday visual culture) have resulted in an art world with dramatically expanded boundaries. Reflecting the paradigm shift from a formalist way of teaching studio art to more varied and open-ended concepts, the remaining six chapters each deal with a key theme--time, place, the body, language,identity, and spirituality. Each chapter features an introduction to the thematic topic; a brief look at historical precedents and influences; a detailed analysis of how contemporary artists have responded to and embodied aspects of the theme in specific works; and an in-depth and fascinating profile of an artist who has extensively explored aspects of the theme in his or her work.
What Is Contemporary Art? by Call Number: 709.05 S662wISBN: 9780226764306Publication Date: 2009Who gets to say what counts as contemporary art? Artists, critics, curators, gallerists, auctioneers, collectors, or the public? Revealing how all of these groups have shaped today's multifaceted definition, Terry Smith brilliantly shows that an historical approach offers the best answer to the question: What is Contemporary Art? Smith argues that the most recognizable kind is characterized by a return to mainstream modernism in the work of such artists as Richard Serra and Gerhard Richter, as well as the retro-sensationalism of figures like Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. At the same time, Smith reveals, postcolonial artists are engaged in a different kind of practice: one that builds on local concerns and tackles questions of identity, history, and globalization. A younger generation embodies yet a third approach to contemporaneity by investigating time, place, mediation, and ethics through small-scale, closely connective art making. Inviting readers into these diverse yet overlapping art worlds, Smith offers a behind-the-scenes introduction to the institutions, the personalities, the biennials, and of course the works that together are defining the contemporary. The resulting map of where art is now illuminates not only where it has been but also where it is going.
Who's Afraid of Contemporary Art? by Call Number: N6497 .A55 2017ISBN: 9780500292747Publication Date: 2017What is contemporary art? What makes it contemporary? What is it for? And why is it so expensive? From museums and the art market to biennales and the next big thing, Who's Afraid of Contemporary Art? offers concise and pointed insights into today's art scene, decoding "Artspeak," explaining what curators do, demystifying conceptual art, exploring emerging art markets, and more. In this easy-to-navigate A to Z guide, the authors' playful explanations draw on key artworks, artists, and events from around the globe, including how the lights going on and off won the Turner Prize, what makes the likes of Marina Abramovic and Ai Weiwei such great artists, and why Kanye West would trade his Grammys to be one. Packed with behind-the-scenes information and completely free of jargon, Who's Afraid of Contemporary Art? is the perfect gallery companion and the go to guide for when the next big thing leaves you stumped.
A selection of texts containing primary source material, largely interviews and writings of contemporary artists.
Art in Theory, 1900-1990 by Call Number: N6490 .A7167 1992ISBN: 0631165746Publication Date: 1993"The aim of this substantial anthology is to equip the student, teacher and interested general reader with the materials for an up-to-date understanding of twentieth-century art." "Beside the writings of the century's major artists, Art in Theory includes relevant texts by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures. It is organized into eight sections, from the legacy of Symbolism at the turn of the century to contemporary debates about the Postmodern. Each section is prefaced by a brief essay. There are introductions for all of the 300-plus texts, so that theories and critical approaches are placed in context. The volume also includes an extensive bibliography. The result is both a comprehensive collection of documents on twentieth-century art and an encyclopaedic history of relevant theory."Artwords by
Call Number: N6490 .S496 1985ISBN: 0835716260Publication Date: 1988Some late thoughts of Marcel Duchamp -- Ad Reinhardt : art as art -- Adolph Gottlieb : two views -- Shifting concepts : pictographs, imaginary landscapes, bursts -- Gottlieb at seventy -- Around Barnett Newman -- Interviews with Dan Christensen, Lawrence Poons, Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Philip Wofford, Robert Murray, Saul Steinberg, Alexander Liberman, Clement Meadmore, Dan Flavin, and Tony Smith -- Nevelson's walls -- Romare Bearden : the unknown American negro artists -- How effective is social protest art? (civil rights) Al Hollingsworth, Romare Bearden, William Majors -- How effective is social protest art? (Vietnam) Leon Golub, Ad Reinhardt, Allan D'Arcangelo, Marc Morrel -- The artists' protest against the Museum of Modern Art -- Carl Andre : artworker -- Kinetic sculpture : George Rickey -- Multi-media : painting, sculpture, sound : Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Sven Lukin, Dr. Irma Jaffe -- Environments and happenings : George Segal and Allan Kaprow -- Claes Oldenburg : how to keep sculpture alive in and out of a museum -- Roy Lichtenstein : thoughts on the "modern" period -- An interview with James Rosenquist -- Hans Haacke : systems aesthetics -- Joseph Kosuth : art as idea as idea.
Interviews with Artists, 1966-2012 by Call Number: 709.22 P424iISBN: 9780300176629Publication Date: 2012A renowned curator and respected insider of the international art scene since the mid-1960s, Michael Peppiatt has spent his professional life with many of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His close friendships and frequent studio visits with Dubuffet, Sonia Delaunay, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Balthus, Oldenburg, Brassa#65533;, and Cartier-Bresson, among many others, have produced an incredible archive of interviews, from formal question-and-answer sessions to off-the-cuff conversations. These interviews combine to give a unique perspective on art from World War II to the present day. Peppiatt has selected forty-five of the most noteworthy and fascinating of his conversations with artists, from the world-famous to the under-recognized. The author approaches his subjects with a characteristic mix of passion, insight, and humor in a book that is consistently entertaining and informative, as the artists open up in unexpected ways about their work and their lives.
Artists Talk by Call Number: 709.04 A7917ISBN: 0919616402Publication Date: 2005An essay by Peggy Gale introduces this transcription of historic talks by internationally known artists, recorded some 30 years ago at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Included are talks by Vito Acconci (1977), Carl Andre (1969), Joseph Beuys (1976), Daniel Buren (1973), James Lee Byars (1970), Paterson Ewen (1976), Robert Filliou (1973), Dan Graham (1973 and 1977), Douglas Huebler (1973), Joseph Kosuth (1969), Sol LeWitt (1970), Mel Ramsden for Art & Language (1972), Alan Sondheim (1973) and Lawrence Weiner (1972). These transcriptions are all collected for the first time in this volume. An important resource for contemporary art and its attendant issues, Artists Talk: 1969-1977 reveals artists' concerns during a period bracketed by Conceptual art and an international restructuring of power and influence in the art world.
Ai Weiwei's Blog by Call Number: 951.06 A288Z also available onlineISBN: 9780262015219Publication Date: 2011-03-18Manifestos and immodest proposals from China's most famous artist and activist, culled from his popular blog, shut down by Chinese authorities in 2009. In 2006, even though he could barely type, China's most famous artist started blogging. For more than three years, Ai Weiwei turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary, criticism of government policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and autobiographical writings. He wrote about the Sichuan earthquake (and posted a list of the schoolchildren who died because of the government's "tofu-dregs engineering"), reminisced about Andy Warhol and the East Village art scene, described the irony of being investigated for "fraud" by the Ministry of Public Security, made a modest proposal for tax collection. Then, on June 1, 2009, Chinese authorities shut down the blog. This book offers a collection of Ai's notorious online writings translated into English -- the most complete, public documentation of the original Chinese blog available in any language. The New York Times called Ai "a figure of Warholian celebrity." He is a leading figure on the international art scene, a regular in museums and biennials, but in China he is a manifold and controversial presence: artist, architect, curator, social critic, justice-seeker. He was a consultant on the design of the famous "Bird's Nest" stadium but called for an Olympic boycott; he received a Chinese Contemporary Art "lifetime achievement award" in 2008 but was beaten by the police in connection with his "citizen investigation" of earthquake casualties in 2009. Ai Weiwei's Blog documents Ai's passion, his genius, his hubris, his righteous anger, and his vision for China.
