Read Thread


Book Description

From the 1970s to the present, Chilean artist, poet and filmmaker Cecilia Vicuas (b. 1948) work has used red thread to visually and poetically engage with rituals from Aboriginal Australia, South Africa, Paleolithic Europe and pre-Columbian America. Vicuas performances, site-specific installations, paintings and drawings relate to the symbolic function of textile and language in terms of femininity, maternity and the support and continuation of life. Published on the occasion of Vicuas installation in Athens for dOCUMENTA (14), Read Thread tells the story of the sanguine thread in Vicuas worka kind of weaving-as-writingand conveys the tension of ecological disaster and reparation as well as a bodily sense of the cosmic scale of landscape, history and time. Alongside historical and recent documentation of Vicuas large-scale installations, the softcover publication extensively illustrates her drawings, poetic texts and narratives relating the works to their political and historical context. Essays by dOCUMENTA (14) curator Dieter Roelstraete and art historian Jos de Nordenflycht Concha complete the book.




Transnational Visual Activism for Women’s Reproductive Rights


Book Description

Focusing on art practices that advocate, raise consciousness, and educate about the human right to reproductive health, this book analyses and compares forms of feminist artivism to interrogate bodily rights while closely examining the lived experiences of women and their right of free choice. The transnational framing engages with resurgent imperialist and colonial ambitions across global politics and with the attempts at disrupting these positionings by prioritising feminist care as instrumental for democracy and social justice. Key foci of this book include the ways in which arts activism operates, and its strategies and methods related to, for example, the types of artistic practice employed, approaches to dissemination and reach, and engaging the public. The analysis of these topics interrogates the potential of arts activism to work while other forms of activism may stumble, leading social change in thinking, practice and, finally, legislation. Countries covered include Finland, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, the United States, and Australia. The book will be of interest to students and scholars studying art history, art theory and practice, gender studies, and women’s studies.







The Artist's Reality


Book Description

Mark Rothko’s classic book on artistic practice, ideals, and philosophy, now with an expanded introduction and an afterword by Makoto Fujimura Stored in a New York City warehouse for many years after the artist’s death, this extraordinary manuscript by Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was published to great acclaim in 2004. Probably written in 1940 or 1941, it contains Rothko’s ideas on the modern art world, art history, myth, beauty, the challenges of being an artist in society, the true nature of “American art,” and much more. In his introduction, illustrated with examples of Rothko’s work and pages from the manuscript, the artist’s son, Christopher Rothko, describes the discovery of the manuscript and the fascinating process of its initial publication. This edition includes discussion of Rothko’s “Scribble Book” (1932), his notes on teaching art to children, which has received renewed scholarly attention in recent years and provides clues to the genesis of Rothko’s thinking on pedagogy. In an afterword written for this edition, artist and author Makoto Fujimura reflects on how Rothko’s writings offer a “lifeboat” for “art world refugees” and a model for upholding artistic ideals. He considers the transcendent capacity of Rothko’s paintings to express pure ideas and the significance of the decade-long gap between The Artist’s Reality and Rothko’s mature paintings, during which the horrors of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb were unleashed upon the world.




Performance in Contemporary Art


Book Description

Unpacking the history of performance art and celebrating the work of contemporary practitioners--a must-read for both art lovers and students alike Stunningly beautiful, deeply puzzling, powerfully moving, or intensely unsettling--performance art can evoke a wide variety of responses. In this important survey, Catherine Wood, one of the world's leading curators and writers in this field, provides the broadest and most up-to-date insight into the subject yet published. Wood proposes performance not as a genre separate from object-making but as a medium that has profoundly influenced the shape of contemporary art. From the spectacular forms of intimacy performed by Marina Abramović to the painting processions initiated by Ei Arakawa and the social activism of Tania Bruguera, hugely divergent practices have emerged in the past 30 years that embrace the worlds of sculpture and painting, spectacle, and protest. Shifting the focus from "I" to "We" and then "It," Performance in Contemporary Art is divided into sections that examine the perspective of the individual, the social, and the object. Wood looks at histories of performance through the lens of contemporary practitioners: the Japanese Gutai group in the 1950s, Brazilian neo-concretism in the 1960s, and the feminist performance at Womanhouse in the United States in the 1970s are key examples of historical precedents that have been revisited, reformed, or rejected by contemporary artists in the 21st century.




The Precarious


Book Description

Two works in one. this is an exquisite art book offering the first comprehensive treatment of Vicuna's work in English.




Bruce Nauman


Book Description




Haegue Yang


Book Description

Accompanying our 2020-21 Haegue Yang exhibition at Tate St Ives, this beautiful exhibition book focuses on the context of the Cornish landscape and its ancient archaeological heritage as an important point of departure for Yang. A vital expansion of the ideas that punctuate the Tate St Ives exhibition, the exhibition catalogue brings together installation photography and new texts on the artist. Yang's work combines materials, theories and cultural references to make astute and surprising connections between local contexts and wider geographies and histories. Recurring themes of migration, postcolonial diasporas, political struggle and social mobility underpin Yang's research, culminating in a body of work that is an apposite comment on our own time. Born in South Korea in 1971, Haegue Yang is renowned for creating immersive environments from a diverse range of materials. Yang's sculptures and installations conjure abstract narratives which play with our sensory pre-conceptions of scent, sound, light and tactility. Often using recognisable household objects, her work liberates forms from their functional context and applies new connotations and meanings to them. Interweaving industrially made objects with labour intensive and craft-based processes, Yang articulates her interest in folk and pagan cultures, and their deep connection with seasonal rituals in relation to natural phenomena.




New York New Wave


Book Description

New York is a centre of creative production for an exciting, emerging generation of women artists. Their work investigates themes such as the body as medium and subject matter; the deconstruction of the existing patriarchal order of the art world; the appropriation of earlier art historical references; and the use of so-called abject and everyday materials. New York New Wave investigates the relevance of earlier feminist practice for this 'new' generation, asking: Does gender difference still play a role in today's practice? How can younger women artists embrace a radical political ideology and yet remain market friendly? How far have these artists diverged from the established feminist "tradition"? Artists discussed include: Firelei Baez, EV Day, Ruby LaToya Fraser, Diana Al-Hadid, K8 Hardy, Valerie Hegarty, Cindy Hinant, Dawn Kasper, Anya Kielar, Liz Magic Laser, Narcissister, Alix Pearlstein, Aurel Schmidt, AL Steiner and W.A.G.E.




Anish Kapoor


Book Description

The first major American publication on this important contemporary sculptor.