Art In Book Form

With the rise of the e-book, new conversations have arisen about what role the physical book has in modern society. Rather than making an argument for or against e-books, Art in Book Form is itself an impassioned argument for the power that well made physical books continue to represent. Beginning with a detailed history of written media, from five-thousand-year-old clay tablets up to twenty-first century printing techniques, Art in Book Form showcases bookbinding and design at its most beautiful and innovative. Photography, concept sketches, and exploded view diagrams of contemporary book designs offer a view into every aspect of a books engineering, and convey the surprising variety of methods available for the seemingly simple task of compiling pages. Bibliophiles of all stripes will cherish this thorough exploration of the past, present, and future of books.

"The text is at once a meditation on theories of form and an essay on the painter Gerhard Richter as a philosophical pragmatist. Richter serves as the inspiration for a broader argument about the nature of "art" itself and for what Klinger professes to be a fresh approach to contemporary art more generally. He (1) addresses the widely conceded exhaustion of the modernist-postmodernist paradigm that has been used to negotiate the "essence of art" for decades and (2) offers what he says is a solution to the resulting gap that leaves us unclear on how to make art and talk about it. He draws on Kuhn's definition that a paradigm consists of the pre-theoretical framework of any practice: While rules and principles, where they exist, grow out of the paradigm, the paradigm can guarantee the functioning of a practice in the absence of rules. He sees Richter as relevant because the painter has never accepted the modern, neo-avant-garde, or postmodern movements as paradigms for his production. Klinger maintains that the goal of Richter's artistic program is "to replace traditional essentialist models of artistic form by a pragmatic model" of respecting the properties of actual physical substances at hand, such as paint, and making art in terms of process rather than with a prescribed end. This way, the modernist-postmodernist paradigm is neither affirmed nor perpetuated in the mode of its reversal, critique or deconstruction, but replaced by something else that forms an effective reaction to the situation without directly deriving from it"--

How do artists in Toronto visualise their sense of place? Are there particular made-in-Toronto ways of thinking about the city?0Bringing together work selected by internationally renowned Toronto-based artist Luis Jacob, Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto concentrates on a period of more than fifty years to consider the ways in which artists visualise Toronto. Presenting a thematic clustering of works by 86 artists, the book is premised on the tendency of artists in the city to favour performative and allegorical procedures to articulate their sense of place. The book looks at a period of more than 50 years of artists who have visualised Toronto, and includes work by 86 artists, including Suzy Lake, Kent Monkman, Ed Pien, Roula Partheniou and Michael Snow, all of whom have previously published with Black Dog Publishing.

This important new study reevaluates British art writing and the rise of formalism in the visual arts from 1900 to 1939. Taking Roger Fry as his starting point, Sam Rose rethinks how ideas about form influenced modernist culture and the movement’s significance to art history today. In the context of modernism, formalist critics are often thought to be interested in art rather than life, a stance exemplified in their support for abstract works that exclude the world outside. But through careful attention to early twentieth-century connoisseurship, aesthetics, art education, design, and art in colonial Nigeria and India, Rose builds an expanded account of form based on its engagement with the social world. Art and Form thus opens discussions on a range of urgent topics in art writing, from its history and the constructions of high and low culture to the idea of global modernism. Rose demonstrates the true breadth of formalism and shows how it lends a new richness to thought about art and visual culture in the early to mid-twentieth century. Accessibly written and analytically sophisticated, Art and Form opens exciting new paths of inquiry into the meaning and lasting importance of formalism and its ties to modernism. It will be invaluable for scholars and enthusiasts of art history and visual culture.

Artists around the world have lately been turning to their bookshelves for more than just a good read, opting to cut, paint, carve, stitch or otherwise transform the printed page into whole new beautiful, thought-provoking works of art. Art Made from Books is the definitive guide to this compelling art form, showcasing groundbreaking work by today's most showstopping practitioners. From Su Blackwell's whimsical pop-up landscapes to the stacked-book sculptures of Kylie Stillman, each portfolio celebrates the incredible creative diversity of the medium. A preface by pioneering artist Brian Dettmer and an introduction by design critic Alyson Kuhn round out the collection.

Art and the Form of Life takes a classic theme—philosophy as the art of living—and gives it a contemporary twist. The book examines a series of watershed moments in artistic practice alongside philosophers’ most enduring questions about the way we live. Coupling Tino Sehgal with Wittgenstein, cave art with Foucault, Stanley Kubrick with Nietzsche, and the Bauhaus with Walter Benjamin, the book animates the idea that life is literally ours to make. It reflects on universal themes that connect the long histories of art and philosophy, and it does so using a contemporary approach. Drawing on great philosophical works, it argues that life practiced as an art form affords an experience of meaning, in the sense that it is engaging, creative, and participatory. It thus effects a fundamental renewal of experience.

'Living as Form' grew out of a major exhibition at Creative Time in New York City. Like the exhibition, the book is a landmark survey of more than 100 projects selected by a 30-person curatorial advisory team; each project is documented by a selection of colour images.

This most up-to-date and fully illustrated guide presents a single, all-inclusive reference to the human form. Includes numerous cross sections made with reference to CT scans, magnetic resonance imaging, and cut cadavers showing the forms of all body regions and individual muscles. A useful tool for physical and dance therapists, trainers, and bodybuilders as well. Over 400 illustrations.