Joseph McDonnell started out as a figurative sculptor studying under renowned Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, but his major works vary from stark geometric forms to others more loosely connected. They range in size from small to monumental and include mobiles, wall reliefs, and, more recently, an exquisite series McDonnell calls "Ice Cubes." He has a flawless sense of mass and speace that produces an inner logic in the forms he creates. His work in bronze and granite contains overtones of ancient civilizations and their symbolism deals with the primordial objects of life: the sun,...
Joseph McDonnell started out as a figurative sculptor studying under renowned Yugoslav sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, but his major works vary fro...
These essays on abstract painting by eleven of its most incisive critics trace the development of such critical issues as hard-edge painting, deductive and serial structure, monochrome abstraction, the psychological analogy, regionalism, and the "death of painting" in Postmodernism. The introduction and commentary by Frances Colpitt situates the essays historically and examines their philosophical sources and influences, from formalism and phenomenology to structuralism and poststructuralism. What emerges is a coherent and optimistic picture of abstract painting--the definitive contribution...
These essays on abstract painting by eleven of its most incisive critics trace the development of such critical issues as hard-edge painting, deductiv...
This selection of essays by a prominent art historian, critic and curator of modern art examines the art and artists of the twentieth century who have operated outside the established art world. In a lucid and accessible style, Peter Selz explores modern art as it is reflected, and has had an impact on, the tremendous transformations of politics and culture, both in the United States and in Europe. An authoritative overview of a neglected phenomenon, his essays explore the complex relationship between art at the periphery and art at the putative center, and how marginal art has affected that...
This selection of essays by a prominent art historian, critic and curator of modern art examines the art and artists of the twentieth century who have...
Signifying Art: Essays on Art after 1960 considers the work of a generation of "respondants" to the New York School, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly, who reintroduced pictorialism and verbal content in their paintings and assemblages. Their work, Marjorie Welish argues, often alludes to the history of art and culture. Also examined are the works of Minimal and Conceptual artists, particularly Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt, who sought to make objective and theoretical artifacts in response to the subjectivity that Abstract Expressionism had promoted. By interpreting the...
Signifying Art: Essays on Art after 1960 considers the work of a generation of "respondants" to the New York School, including Robert Rauschenberg, Ja...
Surrealist Art and Writing, 1919-1939 offers a fresh analysis of Surrealism--of the artists Dali, Ernst, Masson and Tanguy and the writing of Surrealism's leaders--Andre Breton, Aragon and Eluard. Spector uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine how the ideas and images of this avant-garde movement grew up in anipathy to middle class values. He situates the concrete products of Surrealist art and writing in their historical context without losing sight of larger theoretical and ideological issues involving psychoanalysis, Marxism and philosophy.
Surrealist Art and Writing, 1919-1939 offers a fresh analysis of Surrealism--of the artists Dali, Ernst, Masson and Tanguy and the writing of Surreali...
Matthew Baigell examines the work of Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn, Frank Stella, and other artists, relating their art works to the social contexts in which they were created. Identifying important and recurring themes in this body of art, such as the persistence of Emersonian values, the search for national and regional identity, and aspects of alienation, he also explores the personal and religious identities of artists as revealed in their works. Collectively, Baigell's work demonstrates the importance of America as the defining element in American art.
Matthew Baigell examines the work of Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn, Frank Stella, and other artists, relating their art works to the social contexts in whi...
Tsion Avital poses the question: "Is modern art--art at all?" He argues that the nonrepresentational art produced in the twentieth century was not actually art, but rather the debris of the visual tradition it replaced. Modern art has thrived on the state of total confusion existing between art and pseudo-art and the inability of many to distinguish between them. As Avital demonstrates, modern art has served as a critical intermediate stage between art of the past and the future.
Tsion Avital poses the question: "Is modern art--art at all?" He argues that the nonrepresentational art produced in the twentieth century was not act...
Ruth Weisberg Unfurled presents three decades of painting and printmaking by celebrated Los Angeles artist Ruth Weisberg. It features the complete ninety-four-foot long mixed-media drawing The Scroll, in addition to more than thirty works from throughout Weisberg's career. Together the works highlight the artist's extraordinary depictions of her life story and its convergence with art history and Jewish memory. They also illuminate the parallels Weisberg draws between the contemporary and biblical worlds, her desire to memorialize those who perished during the Holocaust, and her...
Ruth Weisberg Unfurled presents three decades of painting and printmaking by celebrated Los Angeles artist Ruth Weisberg. It features the co...
In this collection of critical essays the well-known critic Barry Schwabsky reexamines the art produced since the 1960s, demonstrating how the achievements of "high modernism" remain consequential to it, through tensions among representation, abstraction, and pictorial language. With the core of the book focused on Michelangelo Pistoletto and Mel Bochner, Schwabsky also studies the work of emerging artists who also continue to examine modernism's legacies.
In this collection of critical essays the well-known critic Barry Schwabsky reexamines the art produced since the 1960s, demonstrating how the achieve...
