Basquiat (Hardcover)
by Marc Mayer, Jean Michel Basquiat, Fred Hoffman.
A stunningly designed landmark publication celebrating the astonishing work of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988), whose meteoric and often controversial career lasted for only eight years until his death at the age of twenty-seven. Basquiat features spectacular reproductions of Basquiat’s work, including many rarely exhibited pieces from private collections and offers fresh new perspectives on Basquiat’s achievements, explored in the contexts of the key influences on his work, including Picasso, Matisse and Twombly; the development of hip-hop culture; and the emergence of a multicultural society. Explores many of Basquiat’s individual works in detail, with particular reference to his working methods and techniques and accompanies a major travelling exhibition. This is an indispensable book that will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary art.
About the Author
Marc Mayer, formerly Deputy Director of the Brooklyn Museum, New York, is Director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. He is a noted critic and curator of contemporary art.

Calder : Gravity and Grace (Hardcover)
by Carmen Gimenez 
A beautifully produced monograph on one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century, comprising a critical essay, a superb selection of colour plates, and invaluable documentation of the artist's writings, interviews, bibliography and exhibition history. Trained as an engineer, Alexander Calder made his first sculpture when he was twenty-seven. Moving to Paris in 1926 he began working abstractly in wire, wood and sheet metal, and his first exhibition of mobiles (a term coined for his work by Marcel Duchamp) was held there in 1932. His works are characterized by their dynamism and often combine a huge sense of scale with movement and weightlessness. Calder has become world renowned for his enchanting biomorphic mobiles and often monumental non-moving stabiles. Calder: Gravity and Grace is a retrospective of this major American sculptor, who during his lifetime, perhaps more than any other artist, achieved popular acclaim as well as the art world's respect. The book includes works from his entire career, along with his own writings, interviews with a range of art historians and friends and texts by authors including Jean-Paul Sartre, Fernand Leger, Jacques Prevert and Amedee Ozenfant. Also shown are many documentary photographs of him and his studio by major photographers including Ugo Mulas, Inge Morath and Herbert Matter. A chronology, comprehensive bibliography and full exhibition history complete the book's documentary value.

Andy Warhol: Giant Size (Hardcover)
by Editors of Phaidon Press (Author), Steven Bluttal (Editor), Dave Hickey 
ANDY WARHOL "GIANT" SIZE is a spectacular visual biography of the life and career of Andy Warhol. Weighing in at 15 pounds, this enormous book is packed with 2,000 images and documents, many rare or previously unpublished. Taking its inspiration from Warhol’s over-the-top nature, ANDY WARHOL "GIANT" SIZE depicts the major events, people, works and moments in the artist’s life told in chronological order by subject. As Warhol almost never threw anything away (from restaurant receipts to postcards), the featured material in the book has been painstakingly compiled. As the publisher of The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Phaidon was granted unprecedented access to an array of public and private image and memorabilia archives and collections, including the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh as well as the holdings of many Warhol collaborators, friends, and photographers of the period.

The large-format of ANDY WARHOL "GIANT" SIZE enables the reader to explore in detail hundreds of fascinating photographs, letters, personal correspondence, art works, film stills, tickets, receipts, celebrity head shots, notes, press clippings and ephemera all featured in this one of a kind publication. The book also features illuminating texts by insiders Bruno Bischofberger, Ronnie Cutrone, David Dalton, Kenneth Goldsmith, Ivan Karp and Peggy Phelan.

What is unique about ANDY WARHOL "GIANT" SIZE is that it provides fascinating insight into the public and private life of Warhol and in many cases also reveals the stories behind his art works. The book provides amazing comparisons between his work and his life that have never been demonstrated visually in such a way before. For example, it not only features Warhol’s famous "Mao" series, but also includes ephemera from a 1982 trip to China (his passport, boarding pass, a souvenir from his hotel, etc.) alongside a photo of Warhol standing in front of the Forbidden City in Beijing with an official Mao portrait in the background.

This important new publication includes a staggering quantity and array of colorful material including: Warhol’s birth certificate, citing Andrew ‘Warhola’ was born on 8/6/28 in Pittsburgh; childhood photographs of his family; the magazine tear sheet showing the first article he illustrated for Glamour when he arrived in New York in 1949; numerous photos of Warhol with his mother; artworks for gold shoes he created in the 1950s; a letter from the MOMA dated 1959 in which the Director of the Museum’s Collections rejects a work of art Warhol offered them as a gift; photographs of Warhol posing with Edie Sedgwick in a New York fashion shoot; personal letters from Mick Jagger and Liz Taylor; pictures of Warhol in the office working on Interview; pictures of Warhol private views; a series of shots of Warhol in drag; the program from his Memorial Mass on 4/1/87 and his gravestone.

ANDY WARHOL "GIANT" SIZE is the only publication available that features Warhol’s entire life, work and words in one book. The visual biography offers a behind-the-scenes look at the New York art scene of the 1950s to the 1980s, and provides a new perspective on an artist who continues to be endlessly fascinating to those inside and outside of the art world.

Cobra: The Last Avant-Garde Movement of the Twentieth Century (Paperback)
by Willemijn Stokvis 
The radical post-war Cobra group of artists and poets (1948-51) took their name from the three cities where the main participants lived: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. The group included some of the most important European artists of the second half of the twentieth century - Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Constant, Asger Jorn and Carl-Henning Pedersen - who collaborated in a search for a universal artistic language. Inspired by the creative impulse which they found in the art of so-called primitives, of children and of the insane, the group made idealistic, Marxist-inspired plans for a future in which a new folk art would be created. Cobra is the first detailed survey of the movement in English and provides a fascinating picture of this vibrant group of artists. Willemijn Stokvis reveals the different impact which Cobra had in Belgium, Denmark and Holland, and places the movement within the wider context of twentieth-century art, showing how it emerged from Surrealism and Expressionism and found a continuation in the politically engaged artistic movements of the 1950s and 1960s. The book reproduces an impressive selection of art work by Cobra artists in colour alongside black-and-white photographs of key archival material, and provides an essential introduction to this accessible and popular art.

Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City (Paperback)
by Ivor Miller
With its now-familiar presence in art galleries, advertising and pop culture around the world, it can be hard to remember that graffiti was once outlaw art. Art critic Ivor Miller takes us back to the New York City of the 1970s and '80s, where "writers," as graffiti artists called themselves, used the subways as canvases and mayors spent millions of dollars trying to erase their work. Based on interviews with the most prolific and talented aerosol artists of the era, the scholarly Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City looks at the evolution of graffiti art, its role in hip-hop culture and the various social forces that led to its creation from white flight to the mass marketing of spray paint.

Candice Breitz :Castello Di Rivoli Museo D'Arte Contemporanea (Paperback)
by Marcella Beccaria
Breitz employs a variety of darkly humorous and often disturbing tactics to strike out at stereotypes and visual conventions in the media and in popular culture. Breitz appropriates photographs and other visual fragments and recontextualizes them in bold, sometimes seemingly tasteless images. Conceived specifically for Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Mother + Father questions the canon of beliefs about parents that television and movies have trained the public to accept on a screen—deeply personal aspects of our lives that must be seen against a ground of real life. This is contemporary art hard at work to redress the seeming innocent distortion of popular culture.
About the Author
Candice Breitz has participated in numerous exhibitions including "Remix: Contemporary Art and Pop" at the Tate Liverpool and will participate in this year's Venice Biennale. Marcella Beccaria is curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Castello di Rivoli. Her books include Vanessa Beecroft Performances 1993-2003 (Skira, 2003) and Thomas Demand (Skira, 2003).

Gehry Draws (Hardcover)
by Mark Rappolt 
The shapes—of the Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, of the unbuilt New York Times headquarters, of Los Angeles's Walt Disney Concert Hall—are by now familiar, if no less wonderful and estranging. This terrific book can hardly be called a set of sketches. It brings together drawings architect Gehry has done for 29 recent projects; to look at them in series is to watch a genius think out loud, so close does the link between thought and line seem here (before the projects have been computer simulated, modeled and hyped to death). Text-wise, signs are sometimes taken as wonders, with Gehry's most banal pronouncements given the status of pull-quotes ("We work with clients a lot. I listen to the client a lot. I spend more time with clients than most people would guess"), but the drawings themselves (950!) are arresting, and they lose none of their impact when put on the page. This terrific book can hardly be called a set of sketches. It brings together drawings architect Gehry has done for 29 recent projects; to look at them in series is to watch a genius think out loud, so close does the link between thought and line seem here" -- Publishers Weekly
"This massive book is clearly a must for every serious student of architecture." -- The Globe and Mail
"In an era when computers have a big impact on the design of buildings, it is refreshing to see how important old-fashioned pen-on-paper drawings have been to the creative process of Gehry, one of the most important contemporary architects of our time." -- Library Journal
"A superbly designed volume" -- John Wilson, Christianity Today

Andy Warhol: Red Books [BOX SET] (Paperback)
by Andy Warhol 
The Polaroid camera combined two of Andy Warhol’s obsessions--the disposable nature of modern consumerism and the photograph as ready-made. An inveterate and relentless user of Polaroid cameras, he made tens of thousands of instant photographs during the 1970s. Many of these were made over a short time span and focused on one individual or subject, sometimes a formal sitting for a portrait, an informal event with friends, or a party at The Factory. Between 1970 and 1976, Warhol established a rigorous system of cataloguing. He would take home the Polaroids, edit and sequence them, and then enter them in individual red Holson Polaroid albums. These albums, with Warhol’s original sequence and themes, have remained intact.
Red Books is a red wooden box containing 11 of Warhol's Holson Polaroid albums. Each book contains a facsimile reproduction of Warhol’s sequence. The themes include a study of Paloma Picasso, a day trip to Montauk, Mick Jagger, the "Asshole" painting, and John and Yoko. In addition to the 11 red books, a black book is included which contains a text by François-Marie Banier explaining the significance of these albums within Warhol’s oeuvre and how they act as a visual diary of his work, offering unrivaled insight into his creative process. Essay by François Marie Banier. Other, 5.5 x 3.5 in. / 300 pgs / 220 color.

Roy Lichtenstein Prints 1956-97: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer And Family Foundation (Hardcover)
by Roy Lichtenstein, Chris Bruce, Dave Hickey, Elizabeth A. Brown
Think "Roy Lichtenstein" and you probably conjure up comic strip-based paintings and the colorful dots that comprise them. Lichtenstein intended his now iconic depictions of characters in tense, dramatic situations as commentaries on modern man's plight, in which the media--magazines, television, and advertisements--shapes everything, including our emotions. Many of the same concepts behind the artist's paintings apply to the significant number of prints he produced in the latter part of this life. Focused on works created from the mid-50s until his death in 1997, this exhibition catalogue gives a full overview of Lichtenstein's printmaking accomplishments. Accompanying reproductions of the artist's works are essays by two outstanding scholars: Dave Hickey, a MacArthur Award-winning writer on art and culture; and Elizabeth Brown, who wrote her thesis on Lichtenstein at Columbia University, under the tutelage of the late Kirk Varnedoe. Approximately 40 prints are illustrated in this elegant, intimately-scaled book, which highlights a specific body of work from one of the most innovative forces in post-World War II art. Essays by Dave Hickey and Elizabeth Brown. Introduction by Chris Bruce. Hardcover, 8 x 10 in./80 pgs / 50 color and 3 b&w.

Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism (Hardcover)
by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin Buchloh
Here's an exceptional rarity: a large, sweeping art history text book so well-done it almost makes the reader wish she or he were back in school. It's rather amazing that it took so long for a book like Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, and Postmodernism to exist: a balanced, seven hundred page historical tome written with multiple perspectives in mind. As any undergrad knows, H.W. Janson's ubiquitous History of Art was written as if art history were some sort of race to colonize ideas and imagery; you'll likely not miss Janson's fetish for pointing out who did what first. Penned by a nimble crew who all teach at Ivy League universities, Art Since 1900, which mirrors the development of psychoanalysis and the creation of a huge international art scene, is on a smaller scale a history of contemporary theory and the art world almost as much as it is the art itself. Attention is paid throughout to important exhibits and texts, pointing out the rippling effect throughout the art community of these mirrors and portals. The book is arranged so that there are one or two essays per year. In such a novel format, often undervalued movements are given as much respect as Cubism and Minimalism. There are entire chapters here on Fluxus, feminist art, the Assemblage movement, Lettrism, the Independent Group, Gutai, Kineticism, the Harlem Renaissance, Aktionism, earthworks, video art, and the aesthetics of ACT UP. As with any history, there are personalities whose works are emphasized over that of others; the scant attention given to Jean-Michel Basquiat, for instance, is a rather large question mark. Quibbles aside, it's a very important, and nearly immaculate, work. --Mike McGonigal

Yves Klein (Hardcover)
by Olivier Berggrue                         Yves Klein was regarded as a visionary even by his contemporaries. An enfant terrible and outstanding judo enthusiast whose spectacular performances attracted considerable attention in the art world, Klein created a following that only intensified in the wake of his premature death. Having anticipated numerous movements such as Happenings, Performance, Land and Body Art, and Conceptual Art, Klein's manifold oeuvre, realized within a period of only eight years, continues to exercise a decisive influence to this day. This comprehensive retrospective, presented by the Schirn Kunsthalle gallery in Frankfurt, includes over 100 works representing Klein's entire career from his first monochromes in orange, yellow, green, pink, black, and white, to his famous Klein blue monochromes, his sponge relief sculptures, his much-discussed Anthropometries, for which he used female models as live brushes, his monogold paintings, and his last experiments with fire and elements of nature. Essays by Paolo Bianchi, Olivier Berggruen, Nuit Banai, Frédéric Migayrou, Ingrid Pfeiffer, Jean-Michel Ribettes and Nicole Root. Hardcover, 9.5 x 11 in./240 pgs / 174 color and 157 b&w.

Egon Schiele: Erotic Sketches / Erotische Skizzen (Hardcover)
by Egon Schiele (Illustrator) 
An intimate look at the erotic studies and paintings of a controversial artist whose works continues to provoke even today. Schiele’s fiercely drawn lines and confrontational compositions command our attention. His erotic art, most of all, evokes feelings of discomfort, titillation, curiosity, and even repulsion, and yet bears testimony to his talent and passion. This beautifully crafted collection of erotic masterpieces showcases the themes Schiele wove into all of his work: a fascination with the human psyche and sexuality, a desire to destroy the conservative facade of moral righteousness and expose the inner truth. Designed to resemble an artist’s sketchbook, this book offers viewers a chance to gain ;better understanding of the technique and vision of this revolutionary painter.

Gustav Klimt: Erotic Sketches / Erotische Skizzen (Hardcover)
This unique and intimate treasure of a book captures the sensual pleasure of an artist’s sketchbook as well as the genius behind Klimt’s vision of women. Throughout his career, Gustav Klimt completed hundreds of paintings and drawings of delicate beauty, many of them featuring the female form. Designed to imitate an artist’s sketchbook, this exquisite volume culls the artist’s most beautiful erotic sketches and watercolors. The experience of viewing it awakens the senses, while affording the reader the guilty pleasure of leafing through an artist’s most private visions. The stunning color reproductions, embossed cover and calf binding make this a perfect gift for lovers of art and for lovers everywhere.

Ukiyo-e (Hardcover)
by Gian Carlo Calza
The art of ukiyo-e (the floating world) originated in the city of Edo (1603–1867, now Tokyo), when the political and military power of Japan was in the hands of the shoguns. Comprising six essays, six plate sections and over 600 illustrations this beautiful book provides a perfect introduction to the art of this period. The paintings, scrolls and prints reproduced here demonstrate not only the new urban pleasures of the theatre, restaurants, teahouses and geisha, but also Japan’s love of nature and tradition. Professor Calza’s accessible style provides a fascinating yet scholarly study of such masters as Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro.

Louise Bourgeois (Paperback)
by Paulo Herkenhoff, Robert Storr 
French-born Bourgeois emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, yet the nearly 60 years of adventurous work in sculpture, drawing, engraving and installation reproduced here reflects an admitted attempt to repair the childhood she escaped. In 150 illustrations (50 in color), we find a haunting, enigmatic exploration of sexuality and the home: ladders that lead only to the ceiling; a giant steel spider whose egg sac is a jar of blue fluid; arrays of abstract white marble forms that simultaneously suggest male and female genitalia, often placed in enclosed, almost soothing, roomlike settings. Bernadac, curator of graphic arts at the Paris Musee National d'art Moderne, treats Bourgeois's uncanny mix of domestic comforts and erotic terrors as pointing to the ultimate imbrication of our desires into the structures we create, formal or familial. Her interpretations, while sometimes didactic and often overshadowed by the artist's own commentary, provide a welcome chronological overview of this remarkable and still evolving career.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting, Architecture (Hardcover)
Michelangelo Buonarroti achieved such renown in his lifetime that he was widely known and celebrated as Il Divino, or the Divine One. In 500 years, his fame has scarcely diminished. Michelangelo is generally recognized as one of the greatest artists of all time, a universal genius in all fields of visual creativity-sculpture, painting, and architecture-as well as a widely admired poet. In one concise volume, Wallace (art history, Washington Univ.) presents an accurately rendered life in intelligent, accessible prose. Though not footnoted, it consists of an overview with chronology of Michelangelo's life, followed by three extensive chapters on his major creations?sculpture, painting, and architecture?each illustrated with stunning photographs and post-restoration reproductions. There are several fold-out sections, including a full-color Sistine ceiling and a complete diagram of all its segments. The commentary accompanying each work is engaging, and the layout is thoughtful and well planned, corresponding to the text. While there is a plethora of worthwhile books on Michelangelo, including those that focus in depth on a particular aspect (see Pierluigi De Vecchi and Gianluigi Colalucci's Michelangelo: The Vatican Frescoes; The Complete Works Restored, LJ 3/15/97), these sumptuous reproductions are some of the best on the market. They succeed in conveying Michelangelo's grandeur and magnificence gracefully and factually and, if budgetary conditions allow, should serve as a first-choice introduction to students and interested lay readers.?Ellen Bates, New York

Willem De Kooning : Reflections in the Studio [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)
by Edvard Lieber 
In the 1980s, composer and pianist Edvard Lieber became the friend and confidant of Willem and Elaine de Kooning. Now, drawing on the stories they shared with him, Lieber has created an intimate anecdotal portrait of Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) over the decades. From the rise of Action Painting in New York City to raucous parties in East Hampton, Long Island, this lively chronicle is packed with telling details that shed new light on Abstract Expressionism-and debunk many de Kooning myths. We get a fresh look at Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, and other celebrated de Kooning friends. And we get a firsthand portrait of Willem near the end of his life-and see a still vital artist working with undiminished power.
Illustrated throughout with Lieber's candid photographs, this book offers a unique look at an enigmatic artist.
98 illustrations, 71 in full color, 9 x 9"
EDVARD LIEBER, a composer, concert pianist, painter, and filmmaker, teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He was Willem de Kooning's secretary and curator from 1987 to 1989, and the co-executor of Elaine de Kooning's estate.