Skin & Ink Magazine | April 2013


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Brutal Allure


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The Concrete Body


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Offering an incisive rejoinder to traditional histories of modernism and postmodernism, this original book examines the 1960s performance work of three New York artists who adapted modernist approaches to form for the medium of the human body. Finding parallels between the tactility of a drip of paint and a body’s reflexive movements, Elise Archias argues convincingly that Yvonne Rainer (b. 1934), Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939), and Vito Acconci (b. 1940) forged a dialogue between modernist aesthetics and their own artistic community’s embrace of all things ordinary through work that explored the abstraction born of the body’s materiality. Rainer’s task-like dances, Schneemann’s sensuous appropriations of popular entertainment, and Acconci’s behaviorist-inflected tests highlight the body’s unintended movements as vital reminders of embodied struggle amid the constraining structures in contemporary culture. Archias also draws compelling comparisons between embodiment as performed in the work of these three artists and in the sit-ins and other nonviolent protests of the era.




The Inkblots


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An NPR Best Book of the Year A New York Post Best Book of the Year A Times Thought Book of the Year An Irish Independent Best Book of the Year The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind: a set of ten carefully designed inkblots. For years he had grappled with the theories of Freud and Jung while also absorbing the aesthetic movements of the day, from Futurism to Dadaism. A visual artist himself, Rorschach had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. After Rorschach's early death, his test quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, it was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a clich in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay Z. The test was also given to millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles, and people suffering from mental illness or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today. In this first-ever biography of Rorschach, Damion Searls draws on unpublished letters and diaries and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach's family, friends, and colleagues to tell the unlikely story of the test's creation, its controversial reinvention, and its remarkable endurance--and what it all reveals about the power of perception. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century's most visionary synthesis of art and science.




Dazed and Confused


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Uses ads, cartoons, and newspaper articles from the seventies and profiles of characters from the movie to offer a satiric look at the period.




Black Lives Under Nazism


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In a little-known chapter of World War II, Black people living in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were subjected to ostracization, forced sterilization, and incarceration in internment and concentration camps. In the absence of public commemoration, African diaspora writers and artists have preserved the stories of these forgotten victims of the Third Reich. Their works illuminate the relationship between creative expression and wartime survival and the role of art in the formation of collective memory. This groundbreaking book explores a range of largely overlooked literary and artistic works that challenge the invisibility of Black wartime history. Emphasizing Black agency, Sarah Phillips Casteel examines both testimonial art by victims of the Nazi regime and creative works that imaginatively reconstruct the wartime period. Among these are the internment art of Caribbean painter Josef Nassy, the survivor memoir of Black German journalist Hans J. Massaquoi, the jazz fiction of African American novelist John A. Williams and Black Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, and the photomontages of Scottish Ghanaian visual artist Maud Sulter. Bridging Black and Jewish studies, this book identifies the significance of African diaspora experiences and artistic expression for Holocaust history, memory, and representation.




The Technical Pen


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The Technical Pen features over 300 illustrations, including 34 full-color images in the hardcover edition (paperback edition is in gray scale). Although originally designed for architects and engineers, a technical pen is an ideal tool for fine artists, illustrators, and graphic artists. Whether you want loose gestural sketching or tight, deliberate renderings, a technical pen moves smoothly and easily over the paper's surface. It offers a precise and predictable line quality that can't be matched by any other type of pen. Gary Simmons, renowned teacher of pen-and-ink techniques, covers every aspect of working with the technical pen, beginning with a thorough explanation of its anatomy, operation, and care. He also includes troubleshooting tips as well as advice on choosing appropriate nib widths, inks, and drawing surfaces. Simmons demonstrates how to achieve the wide variety of strokes and stroke patterns that the technical pen makes possible--including continuous parallel lines, crosshatching, stippling, and more--and explores, through copious illustrations, the different effects various techniques have on their own and in combination with other approaches. Simmons shows how to put the pen strokes to work through step-by-step demonstrations that illustrate the ins and outs of expert level image construction, from initial pencil sketch through final inking. He explains the fundamentals of form, tone, texture, and "color" in drawings, and how to make sure that the pen strokes do what you really want them to do. For instance, perhaps you've added a layer of hatched lines over a bird's feathers to create a shadow effect, only to discover that you've obscured their texture, or maybe one area of your drawing has become too dark. Gary Simmons addresses these and other common obstacles of mastering the medium and explains how you can avoid and solve them. Gary Simmons has been working with pen and ink and the technical pen for over forty years. Simmons has conducted pen-and-ink drawing workshops nationally for Koh-I-Noor, and he teaches fine arts at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.