The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoff


Book Description

Jeffrey Rubinoff is one of the great sculptors in steel of the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1970s and '80s he exhibited widely in the United States and Canada alongside Anthony Caro, Mark di Suvero and George Rickey, among others. However, in the early 1990s Rubinoff withdrew from the art world altogether and concentrated on creating an extraordinary sculpture park on Hornby Island. This book is the first major account of his remarkable career. The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoff considers Rubinoff's life, work and ideas from a variety of perspectives. Barry Phipps describes Rubinoff's working methods; James Purdon examines the meanings that derive from Rubinoff's use of steel; Joan Pachner focuses on the formative influence of the abstract Expressionist sculptor David Smith on his work; Maria Tippett examines Rubinoff through the lens of the broader arts scene in postwar Canada; and Aaron Rosen attempts to understand Rubinoff's values and ambitions in light of his Jewish heritage. Other contributing scholars include Alistair Rider, Mark E. Breeze, Tom Stammers, Alexander Massouras, David Lawless and Peter Clarke. The book's foreword is written by the distinguished Yale historian Jay Winter. Drawing on interviews and correspondence with Rubinoff himself, as well as uncatalogued archives and unpublished documents in the artist's possession, The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoff makes available for the very first time a significant quantity of primary material, both textual and visual, for scholars and students of the future.




Brushes with Faith


Book Description

Contemporary artists are engaging more deeply than ever with religious imagery, themes, practices, and audiences. With a bracing, jargon-free style, Aaron Rosen--a leading scholar, art critic, and curator--takes readers into studios, galleries, and worship spaces as he paints a compelling picture of art and religion today. Focusing on individual artists, from eminent names to emerging stars, Rosen's essays and interviews tackle key questions, from how art might sustain communities to how it might offer new approaches to conflict resolution. Drawing on years spent developing relationships with artists around the globe--from Algeria to India to the United States--Rosen gets artists to talk, often for the first time, about how religion impacts their practice. Whether inspiring or unsettling, these brushes with faith challenge and invigorate the artists in question, and those who ponder the results. Replete with more than seventy color images of works ranging from video art to outdoor installations, this volume is indispensable reading for those looking to see contemporary art in a new light.




Art and knowledge after 1900


Book Description

This ground-breaking new history of modern art explores the relationship between art and knowledge from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Each chapter examines artistic responses to a particular discipline of knowledge, from quantum theory and theosophy to cybernetics and ethnic futurisms. The authors argue that art’s incursion into other intellectual disciplines is a defining characteristic of both modernism and postmodernism. Throughout, the volume poses a series of larger questions: is art a source of knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge? And, ultimately, can it contribute to our understanding of the world in ways that thinkers from other fields should take seriously?




Island Home


Book Description

A collection of humorous essays about Vancouver Island’s unique quirks, from the south end to the north from beloved storyteller, Anny Scoones. Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands have a reputation for their ineffable charisma, laid-back pace, and distinct grooviness. As Anny Scoones travels the length of our beloved Vancouver Island, and visits the little coastal and inland towns and iconic places, she shares her observations, musing on its fascinating and layered history. Whether it’s an account of the chainsaw carving festival in Campbell River, a take on the giant gnome just north of Nanoose Bay, or a description of folks met at the Foggy Mountain Fall Fair in Cumberland, this book takes us to extraordinary locations and introduces us to the people who make this part of the world so compelling. Observe, pause, ponder, and have what Anny likes to call “a little think” on the various characteristics and personalities of these areas. Whether you’re a Lycra-clad cyclist climbing the hills of Mayne Island, a slow food enthusiast besotted with “sexy” apples on Salt Spring Island, or someone dreaming about Vancouver Island as a potential destination, these essays and illustrations will connect you with people and places that seem curiously familiar.




Beyond the Return of Religion: Art and the Postsecular


Book Description

Beyond the Return of Religion: Art and the Postsecular explores the conceptual potential of the postsecular for investigations of (late) modern art and religion. Indicating a public co-existence and merging of religion and the secular, the postsecular is approached as an alternative to the return of religion narrative. Rather than framing artistic concerns with religion as a recurrence after temporary absence, Lieke Wijnia shows how the postsecular allows for seeing the interaction between art and religion as an enduring, albeit transforming relationship of mutual nature. Whereas secularization theories are intrinsically connected to modernity, the postsecular requires a pluralized perspective, covering the processes of secularization, diversification, and spiritualization. The postsecular reinforces the interconnectedness of these processes, which are, in turn, embodied in the concept’s interdisciplinary nature. While this book predominantly focuses on visual art and its institutional context of the museum, the postsecular has interdisciplinary relevance for broader artistic and academic disciplines.




Symposium on Education (JCR Vol. 4 No. 1)


Book Description

By every known academic measurement, government-subsidized, secular, compulsory education is a massive failure and getting worse. Yet the American public continues to believe that government-financed education is moral,useful, and basically a great economic bargain.




Splinters in Your Eye


Book Description

Assessing the legacy of the Frankfurt School in the twenty-first century Although successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding members continues in the 21st century to unsettle conventional wisdom about culture, society and politics. Exploring unexamined episodes in the School's history and reading its work in unexpected ways, these essays provide ample evidence of the abiding relevance of Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Löwenthal, and Kracauer in our troubled times. Without forcing a unified argument, they range over a wide variety of topics, from the uncertain founding of the School to its mixed reception of psychoanalysis, from Benjamin's ruminations on stamp collecting to the ironies in the reception of Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man, from Löwenthal's role in Weimar's Jewish Renaissance to Horkheimer's involvement in the writing of the first history of the Frankfurt School. Of special note are their responses to visual issues such as the emancipation of color in modern art, the Jewish prohibition on images, the relationship between cinema and the public sphere, and the implications of a celebrated Family of Man photographic exhibition. The collection ends with two essays tracing the still metastasizing demonization of the Frankfurt School by the so-called Alt Right as the source of "cultural Marxism" and "political correctness," which has gained alarming international resonance and led to violence by radical right-wing fanatics.




Art in America


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Arts Digest


Book Description




Artists Remake the World


Book Description

An original and provocative exploration of the relationship between contemporary art, politics, and activism Artists Remake the World introduces readers to the political ambitions of contemporary art in the early twenty-first century and puts forward a new, wide-ranging account of art’s political potential. Surveying such innovations as evidence-driven art, socially engaged art, and ecological art, the book explores how artists have attempted to offer bold solutions to the world’s problems. Vid Simoniti offers original perspectives on contemporary art and its capacity as a force for political and social change. At its best, he argues, contemporary art allows us to imagine utopias and presents us with hard truths, which mainstream political discourse cannot yet articulate. Covering subjects such as climate change, social justice, and global inequality, Simoniti introduces the reader to a host of visionary contemporary artists from across the globe, including Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson, Wangechi Mutu, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, and Hito Steyerl. Offering a philosophy of contemporary art as an experimental branch of politics, the book equips the reader with a new critical apparatus for thinking about political art today.