Totalitarian Art in the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and the People's Republic of China


Book Description

In this study of the art of Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the author describes the way the avant-garde and modernistic movements of the early 20th century, which sought to create new artistic forms of mass appeal, were quickly expropriated by dictatorial regimes.




The Golden Maple Tree


Book Description

At the end of a boring summer in her un-magical hometown, Holly O'Flanigan is eager to return to the parallel world of Magora. Holly's nosy neighbor, Ms. Hubbleworth, has been missing for a year, and Holly and her friends, Brian, Rufus, and Amanda, know where she is. A year ago, they left the real world together and entered Magora via a painting Holly's late grandfather created. When Holly and her friends head back to Magora to enroll for their second year at Cliffony Academy of the Arts, Holly finds out that her friend Ileana is severely ill. She suffers from a disease that dissolves her blood and turns her back into what she was before-a so-called Unfinished, an incomplete, painted creature that drains the blood of others to become whole. Holly tries to find a cure, but in vain-Ileana's illness is progressing. While Holly continues to donate blood to keep Ileana stable and the new school year starts, she meets Ms. Hubbleworth again. Surprisingly, her nosy neighbor has no knowledge of her old life back in the real world and seems fully immersed in her position as a teacher at the art academy. When Holly learns that the leaves of a mysterious Golden Maple Tree could cure Ileana's illness, she begins her search for the tree and discovers an ancient monastery where the dangerous blood-sucking Unfinished live. But Holly's best friend Rufus is kidnapped and taken to the monastery. With her other friends in tow, Holly enters into a fierce battle against the Unfinished to free Rufus and collect the leaves of the Golden Maple Tree to cure Ileana. In the process, Holly learns the truth behind Ms. Hubbleworth's memory loss-changing everything Holly thought she knew about Magora.




Eroticism and Art


Book Description

Art? Erotica? Or Pornography? Discussions of what actually constitutes erotic art are incredibly complex and usually highly controversial. The naked body in art has been with us since the earliest examples of Greek art and sculpture. The creation and display of such works of art has always inflamed opinion and today, even withour supposed relaxation of the codes of behaviour surrounding nudity, such images are considered provocative, dangerous, and are often unwelcome in the public sphere.Now - focusing on the last 150 years of western art, these debates are finally explored in an imaginative and engaging way using the latest research and analysis into this and related subject areas - by a woman.




999 Tadpoles


Book Description

Never underestimate the quick wits of 999 young frogs! “We’ll have to move,” says Mother, after realizing the pond is too small. But moving a family of 999 young frogs is fraught with danger! Hungry snakes are crawling through the grass. Hungry hawks are flying through the sky. A young frog makes a mighty tasty morsel.




The Dragon and the Dazzle


Book Description

"In the worldwide circulation of the products of cultural industries, an important role is played by Japanese popular culture in European contexts. Marco Pellitteri shows that the contact between Japanese pop culture and European youth publics occurred during two phases. By use of metaphor, the author calls them the Dragon and the Dazzle. The first took place between 1975 and 1995, the second from 1996 to today. They can be distinguished by the modalities of circulation and consumption/re-elaboration of Japanese themes and products in the most receptive countries: Italy, France, Spain, Germany and, across the ocean, the United States. During these two phases, several themes have been perceived, in Europe, as rising from Japan's social and mediatic systems. Among them, this book examines the most apparent from a European point of view: the author names them machine, infant, and mutation, visible mostly through manga, anime, videogames, and toys. Together with France, Italy is the European country that in this respect has had the most central role. There, Japanese imagination has been acknowledged not only by young people, but also by politicians, television programmers, the general public, educators, comics and cartoons authors. The growing influence of Japanese pop culture, connected to the appreciation of its manga, anime, toys, and videogames, also urges political and mediologic questions linked to the identity/ies of Japan as they are understood--wrongly or rightly--in Europe and the West, and to the increasingly important role of Japan in international relations."--Back cover




The Global Rules of Art


Book Description

A trailblazing look at the historical emergence of a global field in contemporary art and the diverse ways artists become valued worldwide Prior to the 1980s, the postwar canon of “international” contemporary art was made up almost exclusively of artists from North America and Western Europe, while cultural agents from other parts of the world often found themselves on the margins. The Global Rules of Art examines how this discriminatory situation has changed in recent decades. Drawing from abundant sources—including objective indicators from more than one hundred countries, multiple institutional histories and discourses, extensive fieldwork, and interviews with artists, critics, curators, gallerists, and auction house agents—Larissa Buchholz examines the emergence of a world-spanning art field whose logics have increasingly become defined in global terms. Deftly blending comprehensive historical analyses with illuminating case studies, The Global Rules of Art breaks new ground in its exploration of valuation and how cultural hierarchies take shape in a global context. The book’s innovative global field approach will appeal to scholars in the sociology of art, cultural and economic sociology, interdisciplinary global studies, and anyone interested in the dynamics of global art and culture.




Easternsports


Book Description

Longtime friends and first-time collaborators Alex Da Corte (born 1980) and Jayson Musson (born 1977) created a major new commission for ICA Philadelphia in 2014. Nearly two and a half hours in length, this in-the-round video installation was scripted by Jayson Musson, directed by Alex Da Corte, and scored by composer Devonté Hynes. Easternsports is an amorality tale for the digital age. Both deadly serious and heartbreakingly flippant, it embraces Gap commercials and grand jury rulings, middle-class aspirations and global imperialism. And it transforms a decade-long conversation between Musson and Da Corte into a work awash in the neon glow of their American milieu.




Youth Movements, Trauma and Alternative Space in Contemporary Japan


Book Description

In Youth Movements, Trauma and Alternative Space in Contemporary Japan, the author provides a detailed study and assessment of social movements among Japanese freeters, from the pioneering groups in the late 1980s to the open protests witnessed today.




Dark Matter


Book Description

Art is big business, with some artists able to command huge sums of money for their works, while the vast majority are ignored or dismissed by critics. This book shows that these marginalized artists, the "dark matter" of the art world, are essential to the survival of the mainstream and that they frequently organize in opposition to it. Gregory Sholette, a politically engaged artist, argues that imagination and creativity in the art world originate thrive in the non-commercial sector shut off from prestigious galleries and champagne receptions. This broader creative culture feeds the mainstream with new forms and styles that can be commodified and used to sustain the few artists admitted into the elite. This dependency, and the advent of inexpensive communication, audio and video technology, has allowed this "dark matter" of the alternative art world to increasingly subvert the mainstream and intervene politically as both new and old forms of non-capitalist, public art. This book is essential for anyone interested in interventionist art, collectivism, and the political economy of the art world.




International Pop


Book Description

"Published on the occasion of the exhibition International Pop, organized by Darsie Alexander with Bartholomew Ryan for the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis."




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