Confessions of a Curator


Book Description

In this witty and compelling defence of the art field itself, Joan Murray, one of the country's most outspoken art historians, discusses the great figures of Canadian art and the rise of our national are in institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario.




Sacred and Stolen


Book Description

Sacred and Stolen is the memoir of an art museum director with the courage to reveal what goes on behind the scenes. Gary Vikan lays bare the messy underbelly of museum life: looted antiquities, crooked dealers, deluded collectors, duplicitous public officials, fakes, inside thefts, bribery, and failed exhibitions. These backstories, at once shocking and comical, reveal a man with a taste for adventure, an eagerness to fan the flames of excitement, and comfort with the chaos that often ensued. A Minnesota kid who started out as a printer’s devil in his father’s small-town newspaper, Vikan ended up as the director of The Walters Art Museum, a gem of a museum in Baltimore. Sacred and Stolen reveals his quest to bring the “holy” into the museum experience as he struggles to reconcile his passion for acquiring sacred works of art with his suspicion that they were stolen. The cast of characters in his many adventures include the elegant French oil heiress, Dominique de Menil, the notorious Turkish smuggler, Aydin Dikmen, his slippery Dutch dealer, Michel van Rijn, the inscrutable and implacable Patriarchs of Ethiopia and Georgia, and the charismatic President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze—along with a mysterious thief of a gorgeous Renoir painting missing from a museum for over sixty years. When the painting suddenly shows up, it’s Vikan who tracks down the culprit. In his afterword Vikan explains his coming to grips with the realities of art dealing in our present dangerous world that includes the fanatical iconoclasm of the Islamic State. We know of the violent destruction and looting of precious treasures of antiquity and unscrupulous black market art dealers who take advantage of international conflicts to possess them. Sacred and Stolen is a truly eye-opening account of art dealing in the modern world.




Confessions of a Curator


Book Description

In this witty and compelling defence of the art field itself, Joan Murray, one of the country’s most outspoken art historians, discusses the great figures of Canadian art and the rise of our national are in institutions such as the Art Gallery of Ontario.




Couture Confessions ebook


Book Description

Late legendary couturiers of modern fashion speaking eloquently about life, design, and inspiration. Vionnet, Chanel, Dior, Saint Laurent, McQueen—these names define haute couture, and long after the designers have passed away, their influence on fashion continues to be profound. In an exceptional compilation of the original words of these couturiers, Couture Confessions provides a unique and in-depth look at the lives and work of these fashion icons. In this engaging, beautifully designed book, Pamela Golbin, acclaimed chief curator of twentieth-century fashion and textiles at Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, has ingeniously constructed conversations in the designers’ own words that highlight their compelling personal stories as well as essential fashion "moments"—from designers Paul Poiret, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Madame Grès, Alexander McQueen, Madeleine Vionnet, and Gabrielle Chanel to Elsa Schiaparelli, Yves Saint Laurent, Jeanne Lanvin, Pierre Balmain, and Christian Dior.Featuring striking illustrations by internationally recognized illustrator Yann Legendre, each "interview" asks the questions every fashion lover has always wanted to ask, making these legends approachable, human, and ever more inspiring.




Newspaper Confessions


Book Description

"Newspaper Confessions chronicles the history of the newspaper advice column, a genre that has shaped Americans' relationships with media, their experiences with popular therapy, and their virtual interactions across generations. Emerging in the 1890s, advice columns became unprecedented virtual forums where readers could debate the most resonant cultural crises of the day with strangers in an anonymous yet public forum. The columns are important - and overlooked - precursors to today's digital culture: forums, social media groups, chat rooms, and other online communities that define how present-day American communicate with each other. This book charts the rise of the advice column and its impact on the newspaper industry. It analyzes the advice given by a diverse sample of columns across several decades, emphasizing the ways that advice columnists framed their counsel as modern, yet upheld the racial and gendered status quo of the day. It shows how advice columnists were forerunners to the modern celebrity journalist, while also serving as educators to audience of millions. This book includes in-depth case studies of specific columns, demonstrating how these forums transformed into active and participatory virtual communities of confession, advice, debate, and empathy"--




Confessions of a Forty-Something


Book Description

Now a major TV series. Read the hilarious rom-com that inspired the hit sitcom Not Dead Yet starring Gina Rogriguez. As recommended on Davina McCall's Making the Cut podcast, and perfect for fans of Dolly Alderton, Ruth Jones and Marian Keyes. 'The new Bridget Jones' – Celia Walden, Telegraph 'Funny but layered . . . this is a perfect and inspiring new year read' – Red A novel for any woman who wonders how the hell she got here, and why life isn't quite how she imagined it was going to be. And who is desperately trying to figure it all out when everyone around them is making gluten-free brownies. Meet Nell. Her life is a mess. In a world of perfect Instagram lives, she feels like a disaster. But when she starts a secret podcast and forms an unlikely friendship with Cricket, an eighty-something widow, things begin to change. Because Nell is determined. This time next year things will be very different. But first, she has a confession . . . Confessions of a Forty-Something by Alexandra Potter will make you laugh, and it might even make you cry. Above all, it will remind you that you're not on your own – we're all in this together. 'Brilliant! Laughing out loud' – Emma Gannon, podcaster (Ctrl Alt Delete) and author of Olive 'Say hello to a book that will have you laughing with every page, whether you're 20, 40 or 80' – Heat




Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser


Book Description

There's an enormous subculture of men who trade tips, tricks, and tactics for seducing women. Within the last half-decade or so, these underground "pickup artists" have burst into the popular consciousness, aided by Neil Strauss's bestselling book The Game and VH1's hit reality show The Pick-Up Artist. Some men in the seduction community are sleazy misogynists who want nothing more than power and control. Some are shy wallflowers who don't know how to say hi to a girl. The one thing they all have in common is a driving need to attract women. Clarisse Thorn, a feminist S&M writer and activist, spent years researching these guys. She observed their discussions, watched them in action, and learned their strategies. By the end of it all, she'd given a lecture at a seduction convention and decided against becoming the next great dating coach. In Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser, Clarisse tells the story of her time among these Casanovas, as well as her own unorthodox experiences with sex and relationships. She examines the conflicts and harmonies of feminism, pickup artistry, and the S&M community. Most of all, she deconstructs and reconstructs our views on sex, love, and ethics - and develops her own grand theory of the game. Find Clarisse's blog at clarissethorn.com, or follow her on Twitter @ClarisseThorn.




Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer


Book Description

Prologue -- La Veinte: a Santa Monica barrio -- Rubén Ladrón de Guevara Sr., 1914-2006 -- 1742 22nd Street, Barrio La Veinte, Santa Monica -- Palm Springs / Cathedral City / Las Vegas -- Binnie -- La Gatita -- Las Vegas : breakup of the family -- Sue Dean -- Beverly -- Shindig! with Tina Turner and Bo Diddley, 1965 -- The Sunset Strip riots -- The southern belle -- LACC / The New Revelations Gospel Choir -- Miss Santa Barbara -- Frank Zappa / Ruben And The Jets / Rock 'n' Roll Angels / 1972-1974 -- Miss Pamela & the G.T.O.'s (Girls Together Outrageously) -- Miss Claremont -- Miss Chino -- The mutiny -- The movie star and Miss Blue Eyes -- We open for Zappa at Winterland, San Francisco, April, 1973 -- Con Safos the album -- Mexico / Hollywood / The Whisky / Eastside Revue / Zyanya Records -- La gypsy -- The Star Spangled Banner / America the Beautiful -- The Whisky / Con Safos the band, 1980 -- Miss Aztlán -- Gotcha -- Zyanya Records -- Cristina / Día de Los Muertos / Chicano Heaven -- Born in East L.A.--the movie -- HBO/Cinemax special -- Performance art : Mexico and France -- La quemada -- La rebel -- Jammin' with Johnny -- Arts 4 City Youth -- UCLA -- Journey to New Aztlán -- Miss San Francisco : the enchantress -- Miss Mongolia -- Metropolitan State Hospital -- Trinity Elementary School -- Teaching at UCLA -- Miss Tokyo -- Mexamérica the CD -- The Eastside Revue : a musical homage to Boyle Heights, 1922-2002 -- Boyle Heights, LA Times -- Collaborations with Josh Kun -- The Iraq war -- Collaborations with Nobuko Miyamoto / Great Leap / NCRR / MPAC -- Manzanar pilgrimage -- Yellow Pearl remix -- Minutemen protest in Baldwin Park -- Rock 'n' rights : rockin' for the mentally disabled -- Resistance & respect : Los Angeles muralism & graff art -- Miss Bogotá -- Word up! a performance and theater summit at the Ford, 2006 -- Meeting my Okanagan brothers from Westbank First Nation, B.C. Canada -- Epiphany at Joshua Tree -- Miss Altar in the sky -- Rubén Guevara & the Eastside Luvers -- The Tao of Funkahuatl -- The Tao of Funkahuatl the CD -- Mex/LA -- Opening for Los Lobos at the House of Dues -- Fifty years in show biz / The Madeleine Brand Show, NPR, 2011 -- Miss Beijing -- Miss Monterey Park -- End of ten year sex drought -- My 70th birthday party -- Platonic homegirls -- Joseph Trotter -- A Boyle Heights cultural treasure -- The new face of Boyle Heights -- ¡Angelin@s presente! -- Sara Guevara -- Confessions of a radical Chicano Doo Wop singer : the solo, multi-media theater piece -- The fall -- Reflections on L.A




Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls


Book Description

Since 1985, a group of anonymous women wearing gorilla masks and brandishing glue brushes have taken zap actions at the art world's "stale, male, Yale" establishment. Their wonderfully smart-ass posters (example: "Advantages of being a woman artist: Working without the pressure of success, knowing your career might pick up after you're eighty..".) have bedecked city walls, converted elitist curators, become collector's items, and even found their way into museum collections. Their work - and this book - offers proof that humor is a great, blunt-edged weapon against evil. The Guerrilla Girls are a collective of female artists and art-world professionals. Their largest contingent is in New York, but they have also been sighted all over the United States, across Europe, and wherever truth, justice, and the American way of discrimination still prevail.




Confessions for a Son


Book Description

In 2010, photographer McNair Evans returned to his childhood home in Laurinburg, North Carolina to retrace his father's life and legacy after his death nine years earlier. His father's passing had exposed the looming insolvency of their family businesses, ending five generations of family and financial stability. The economic impact on the family was immediate but the emotional impact lingered with Evans.Seeking to comprehend how the man he admired could have hidden the impending disaster from those he loved, McNair Evans delved into his family origins and his father's history to create a multi-layered photographic narrative about love and loss. The artist's poignant and lyrical photographs are presented in his first monograph, Confessions for a Son (Owl & Tiger Books, October 15, 2014). The book's themes are universal--the complex relationship between fathers and sons, the strength of family bonds and the disappearance of an American agrarian way of life.Visiting the farms where he and his father hunted, his father's college dorm rooms, and his oldest friends, Evans photographed family members and businesses while researching his father's character and actions. Through this personal and photographic journey Evans moved from anger to empathy, and grew to love his father again. Evans' photographs are documentary and ethnographic, using light and evocative symbolism to convey the metaphorical in the abandoned businesses, totemic objects, and portraits of family and friends.