Art & Architecture
A beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the color blue throughout the ages
Blue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. The ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and barbaric, but most Americans and Europeans now cite it as their favorite color. In this fascinating history, the renowned medievalist Michel Pastoureau traces the changing meanings of blue from its rare appearance in prehistoric art to its international ubiquity today. Any history of color is, above all, a social history. Pastoureau investigates how the ever-changing role of blue in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, heraldry, clothing, paintings, and popular culture. Beginning with the almost total absence of blue from ancient Western art and language, the story moves to medieval Europe. As people began to associate blue with the Virgin Mary, the color became a powerful element in church decoration and symbolism. Blue gained new favor as a royal color in the twelfth century and became a formidable political and military force during the French Revolution. As blue triumphed in the modern era, new shades were created and blue became the color of romance and the blues. Finally, Pastoureau follows blue into contemporary times, when military clothing gave way to the everyday uniform of blue jeans and blue became the universal and unifying color of the Earth as seen from space. Beautifully illustrated, Blue tells the intriguing story of our favorite color and the cultures that have hated it, loved it, and made it essential to some of our greatest works of art.
Although the pictogram-only narrative in Xu Bing's Book from the Ground can be read by anyone, there is much more to the story of Xu Bing's wordless book than can be gleaned from icons alone. This companion volume to Book from the Ground chronicles the entire project, mapping the history of Xu Bing's novel creation from inspiration to exhibition to publication.
In the 1980s, Xu Bing created Book from the Sky. Using garbled and nonsensical faux-Chinese characters, this installation expressed Xu's doubts about written language and provoked questions about the Chinese language. Thirty years later, with Book from the Ground, the artist expresses his hope for a single, universally understood language. Inspired by airport signs that communicate instantaneously through images--directing a temporary community of modern nomads where to eat, shop, sit, and find a bathroom--Xu began to collect images, icons, and logos from which he could construct a story. This book describes Xu's research, showing notebook pages and bulletin boards full of clipped-out images; offers commentary by the artist and discussions of reading, alphabets and languages; documents, with text and photographs, exhibitions and installations connected to the work (including a Book from the Ground pop-up concept store); provides a list of works; describes Xu's "icon lab"; and "translates" Xu's pictographic narrative into English.
--New Scientist "[Rael's] imagination is audacious, and he smartly frames his "grand tour" of the border as a procession of vignettes that shift easily between history, architectural what-ifs and what you might call postcards from the front."-- San Francisco Chronicle "...in raising questions that not many others are asking about the relationship between two countries that share 2,000 miles of border, his book serves an important purpose."--The Daily Beast Borderwall as Architecture is an artistic and intellectual hand grenade of a book, and a timely re-examination of what the physical barrier that divides the United States of America from the United Mexican States is and could be. It is both a protest against the wall and a projection about its future. Through a series of propositions suggesting that the nearly seven hundred miles of wall is an opportunity for economic and social development along the border that encourages its conceptual and physical dismantling, the book takes readers on a journey along a wall that cuts through a "third nation"--the Divided States of America. On the way the transformative effects of the wall on people, animals, and the natural and built landscape are exposed and interrogated through the story of people who, on both sides of the border, transform the wall, challenging its existence in remarkably creative ways. Coupled with these real-life accounts are counterproposals for the wall, created by Rael's studio, that reimagine, hyperbolize, or question the wall and its construction, cost, performance, and meaning. Rael proposes that despite the intended use of the wall, which is to keep people out and away, the wall is instead an attractor, engaging both sides in a common dialogue. Included is a collection of reflections on the wall and its consequences by leading experts Michael Dear, Norma Iglesias-Prieto, Marcello Di Cintio, and Teddy Cruz.
Brion Gysin is a legend. As an artist, author, filmmaker, and the long-term collaborator of William S. Burroughs, Gysin helped to develop the so-called Beat aesthetic from the beginning, influencing one of the most important American art movements of the last century and helping to shape decades of literature and art across the world.
In "Here to Go," Terry Wilson introduces us to this singular talent through Gysin s own words. Best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique and the invention of the Dreamachine, it was to painting and drawing that Gysin devoted his greatest efforts. Gysin was a man of diverse interests and strident opinion; the interviews collected here cover topics as diverse as magick and psychic warfare, and as intermingled as literature and drugs.
With excerpts from Gysin s own written work and a rare extract from Gysin's original screenplay adaptation for Burrough s "Naked Lunch," this is the most complete assembly of Gysin s written work. And, with additional texts by Burroughs himself, this is the best introduction to the life, work, and philosophy of one of the 20th century s most neglected, yet visionary, polymaths."
Over 180 color photographs from temples, museums, historical sites, and private collections enhance this attractive survey of the Buddhist art of India, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. It presents the life story and teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha, founder of Buddhism, as shown in paintings, sculptures, and other works of art, and explores the major schools of Buddhism--Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen--and the styles and characteristics of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, deities, and other images seen in their art.
Everyone interested in Buddhist art and its enduring significance will find this volume a useful reference for the study and appreciation of the various gestures, poses, and artistic elements seen in Buddhist art through the ages.
- Learn about foundations, post-and-beam wall framing, roof construction and insulation, interior thermal mass walls for improved efficiency, rain-water cisterns, electrical wiring, and photovoltaic systems.
- Learn earth-plastering techniques that create beautiful wall finishes.
- Understand how window placement and other structural elements can help to heat and cool your home and lower your energy bills.
- See how the structure works as a whole and how both energy efficiency and superb aesthetics can come from the same materials.
The forced polarity between form and function in considerations of architecture--opposing art to social interests, ethics to poetic expression--obscures the deep connections between ethical and poetical values in architectural tradition. Architecture has been, and must continue to be, writes Alberto Pérez-Gómez, built upon love. Modernity has rightly rejected past architectural excesses, but, Pérez-Gómez argues, the materialistic and technological alternatives it proposes do not answer satisfactorily the complex desire that defines humanity. True architecture is concerned with far more than fashionable form, affordable homes, and sustainable development; it responds to a desire for an eloquent place to dwell--one that lovingly provides a sense of order resonant with our dreams. In Built upon Love Pérez-Gómez uncovers the relationship between love and architecture in order to find the points of contact between poetics and ethics--between the architect's wish to design a beautiful world and architecture's imperative to provide a better place for society.
Eros, as first imagined by the early lyric poets of classical Greece, is the invisible force at the root of our capacity to create and comprehend the poetic image. Pérez-Gómez examines the nature of architectural form in the light of eros, seduction, and the tradition of the poetic image in Western architecture. He charts the ethical dimension of architecture, tracing the connections between philia--the love of friends that entails mutual responsibility among equals--and architectural program. He explores the position of architecture at the limits of language and discusses the analogical language of philia in modernist architectural theory. Finally, he uncovers connections between ethics and poetics, describing a contemporary practice of architecture under the sign of love, incorporating both eros and philia.
Students will also discover an exciting variety of applications for their new skills, including addressing envelopes, making invitations, creating personalized stationery, and transcribing special texts or poems. Additional helpful features include a section of questions and answers and an appendix covering pens, inks, paper, light boxes, and other useful tools for using the basic Italic hand to create elegant works of calligraphic art.
Discover the healing and relaxing power inherent in calligraphic handwriting and the Medieval art of copying with this beautifully designed activity book that includes interactive sections filled with inspirational words and sentences to carefully mimic, each created by calligraphy master Màlleus.
Navigating a nonstop interconnected digital world leaves most of us frazzled and exhausted. One of the most enjoyable ways of learning to slow down is calligraphy and the art of copying. Many studies show that writing nicely and carefully can be therapeutic like meditation--repeating certain graphic signs and reciting a mantra have a similar effect. In fact, the art of copying is a kind of meditation: it improves concentration, provides a sense of order, and channels impatience and restlessness--helping to alleviate stress and quiet anxiety. The tactile nature of writing--putting fingers to pen to paper--makes our thoughts tangible and concrete. Tapping into our inner nature, writing focuses our attention so we can discover what we want most, organize our thoughts, and work towards making our dreams come true.
Calm Calligraphy is a beautiful spiritual guide and activity book that introduces you to the world of copying. Calligraphy master Màlleus offers a brief philosophical overview and introduction to his art and then provides relaxing words, phrases, and sentences on lined pages to help you unwind as you improve your skill and ultimately master the art of copying. The selections have been carefully created by the author and are inspired by the books collected in Màlleus' acclaimed scriptorium.
For older people, the exercises in Calm Calligraphy offer a way to stretch hand and finger muscles and warm up aching joints, while younger people can learn to create beautiful fine script, once a common practice taught in schools, that is quickly becoming a lost art.
With Calm Calligraphy, you can write away your stress, learn to focus better, and tune in to your inner desires.
Why chance remains a key strategy in artists' investigations into the contemporary world.
The chance situation or random event--whether as a strategy or as a subject of investigation--has been central to many artists' practices across a multiplicity of forms, including expressionism, automatism, the readymade, collage, surrealist and conceptual photography, fluxus event scores, film, audio and video, performance, and participatory artworks. But why--a century after Dada and Surrealism's first systematic enquiries--does chance remain a key strategy in artists' investigations into the contemporary world? The writings in this anthology examine the gap between intention and outcome, showing it to be crucial to the meaning of chance in art. The book provides a new critical context for chance procedures in art since 1900 and aims to answer such questions as why artists deliberately set up such a gap in their practice; what new possibilities this suggests; and why the viewer finds the art so engaging.
Artists surveyed include Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Francis Alÿs, William Anastasi, John Baldessari, Walead Beshty, Mark Boyle, George Brecht, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Sophie Calle, Tacita Dean, Stan Douglas, Marcel Duchamp, Brian Eno, Fischli & Weiss, Ceal Floyer, Huang Yong Ping, Douglas Huebler, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Jiri Kovanda, Jorge Macchi, Christian Marclay, Cildo Meireles, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Gabriel Orozco, Cornelia Parker, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Daniel Spoerri, Wolfgang Tillmans, Keith Tyson, Jennifer West, Ceryth Wyn Evans, La Monte Young Writers include Paul Auster, Jacquelynn Baas, Georges Bataille, Daniel Birnbaum, Claire Bishop, Guy Brett, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Stanley Cavell, Lynne Cooke, Fei Dawei, Gilles Deleuze, Anna Dezeuze, Russell Ferguson, Branden W. Joseph, Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Lacan, Susan Laxton, Sarat Maharaj, Midori Matsui, John Miller, Alexandra Munroe, Gabriel Pérez Barreiro, Jasia Reichardt, Julia Robinson, Eric L. Santner, Sarah Valdez, Katharina Vossenkuhl
Photographs and text document disappearing cultural landscapes and lifestyles in rural China, capturing poignant scenes far from Beijing or Shanghai.
Just a few kilometers from the glittering skylines of Shanghai and Beijing, we encounter a vast countryside, an often forgotten and seemingly limitless landscape stretching far beyond the outskirts of the cities. Following traces of old trade routes, once-flourishing marketplaces, abandoned country estates, decrepit model villages, and the sites of mystic rituals, the authors of this book spent seven years exploring, photographing, and observing the vast interior of China, where the majority of Chinese people live in ways virtually unchanged for centuries.
China's Vanishing Worlds is an impressive documentation in images and text of modernization's effect on traditional ways of life, and a sympathetic portrait of lives burdened by hardship but blessed by simplicity and tranquility. The scars of China's recent history and the decay of centuries-old traditions are made visible in this volume, but so is the lure and promise of technology and another life for young people. In the next twenty years, an estimated 280 million Chinese villagers will become city dwellers, leaving their ancestral homes in search of urban jobs and opportunities.
In striking and evocative color photographs, we see picturesque villages set against a background of rolling hills, planned centuries ago according to the principles of feng shui; a restaurant with bright pink resin chairs and a wide-screen television; traditional buildings preserved by the accident of poverty and isolation; ramshackle rooms decorated with portraits of Chairman Mao; backpack-wearing children walking to school; festivals with elaborately costumed performers; old men playing cards; buyers and sellers at open-air markets.
China's Vanishing Worlds offers readers a rare opportunity to glimpse China as it once was, and as it will soon no longer be.
Unlike the bestiaries of the late medieval period in Europe, the Guideways was not interpreted allegorically; the strange creatures described in it were regarded as actual entities found throughout the landscape. The work was originally used as a sacred geography, as a guidebook for travelers, and as a book of omens. Today, it is regarded as the richest repository of ancient Chinese mythology and shamanistic wisdom. The Guideways may have been illustrated from the start, but the earliest surviving illustrations are woodblock engravings from a rare 1597 edition. Seventy-six of those plates are reproduced here for the first time, and they provide a fine example of the Chinese engraver's art during the late Ming dynasty.
This beautiful volume, compiled by a well-known specialist in the field, provides a fascinating window on the thoughts and beliefs of an ancient people, and will delight specialists and general readers alike.
Chiang Yee's Chinese Calligraphy: An Introduction to Its Aesthetic and Technique remains the classic introduction to Chinese calligraphy. In eleven richly illustrated chapters, Chiang explores the aesthetics and the technique of this art in which rhythm, line, and structure are perfectly embodied. He measures the slow change from pictograph to stroke to the style and shape of written characters by the great calligraphers.
In addition to aesthetic considerations, the text deals with more practical subjects such as the origin and construction of the Chinese characters, styles, technique, strokes, composition, training, and the relations between calligraphy and other forms of Chinese art. Chinese Calligraphy is a superb appreciation of beauty in the movement of strokes and in the patterns of structure--and an inspiration to amateurs as well as professionals interested in the decorative arts.
One of the first Western studies to systematically cover the more than two thousand years of Chinese art, this book by a modern expert considers a wide range of topics, including the relationship between religion and art and the different aesthetic philosophies prevalent in different periods. The book covers art works from the Han (third century B.C.) to the T'ang dynasties; the Sung period; aspects of Ch'an Buddhism and its relation to painting; the Yüan period; historical theories, methods of study, and aesthetic principles of the Ming dynasty; and individual departures and reassertion of traditional principles during the Ch'ing period.
Readable and intriguing, this volume is a valuable reference for art lovers and historians.
Did you know that the Egyptians created the first synthetic color and used it to create the famous blue crown of Queen Nefertiti? Or that the noblest purple comes from a predatory sea snail? The royal color, used in the Roman Empire, resulted in hundreds of thousands of snails being sacrificed to produce a single ounce of dye. Throughout history, pigments have been made from deadly metals, poisonous minerals, urine, cow dung, and even crushed insects. From grinding down beetles and burning animal bones to alchemy and pure luck, Chromatopia reveals the origin stories behind over fifty of history's most vivid color pigments.
Featuring informative and detailed color histories, a section on working with monochromatic color, and "recipes" for paint-making, Chromatopia provides color enthusiasts with an eclectic story of how synthetic colors came to be.
Spanning from the ancient world to modern leaps in technology, and vibrantly illustrated throughout, this book will add a little chroma to anyone's understanding of the history of colors.
Paul Thomas Anderson's evolution from a brash, self-anointed "Indiewood" auteur to one of his generation's most distinctive voices has been one of the most remarkable career trajectories in recent film history. From early efforts to emulate his cinematic heroes to his increasingly singular late films, Anderson has created a body of work that balances the familiar and the strange, history and myth: viewers feel perpetually off balance, unsure of whether to expect a pitch-black joke or a moment of piercing emotional resonance.
This book provides the most complete account of Anderson's career to date, encompassing his varied side projects and unproduced material; his personal and professional relationships with directors such as Jonathan Demme, Robert Altman, and Robert Downey Sr.; and his work as a director of music videos for Fiona Apple, Joanna Newsom, and Haim. Ethan Warren explores Anderson's recurring thematic preoccupations-the fraught dynamics of gender and religious faith, biological and found families, and his native San Fernando Valley-as well as his screenwriting methods and his relationship to his influences. Warren argues that Anderson's films conjure up an alternate American history that exaggerates and elides verifiable facts in search of a heightened truth marked by a deeper level of emotional hyperrealism. This book is at once an unconventional primer on Anderson's films and a provocative reframing of what makes his work so essential.
Essays and quotations by:
Ale One, All Jive 161, Blade, Cay 161, Checker 170, Clyde, Death, FDT 56, Flint 707, Iz The Wiz, Jester 1, Joe 182, Lava, LSD OM, Mico, Pnut 2, Roger 1, Ski 168, Snake 1, Taki 183, Vamm
Photos by:
Alan Fleisher, Robert Browning, Bill Ray, Jack Stewart
The past two decades have seen revolutionary shifts in our ability to navigate, inhabit, and define the spatial realm. The data flows that condition much of our lives now regularly include Global Positioning System (GPS) readings and satellite images of a quality once reserved for a few militaries and intelligence agencies, and powerful geographic information system (GIS) software is now commonplace. These new technologies have raised fundamental questions about the intersection between physical space and its representation, virtual space and its realization.
In Close Up at a Distance, Laura Kurgan offers a theoretical account of these new digital technologies of location and a series of practical experiments in making maps and images with spatial data. Neither simply useful tools nor objects of wonder or anxiety, the technologies of GPS, GIS, and satellite imagery become, in this book, the subject and the medium of a critical exploration. Close Up at a Distance records situations of intense conflict and struggle, on the one hand, and fundamental transformations in our ways of seeing and of experiencing space, on the other. Kurgan maps and theorizes mass graves, incarceration patterns, disappearing forests, and currency flows in a series of cases that range from Kuwait (1991) to Kosovo (1999), New York (2001) to Indonesia (2010). Using digital spatial hardware and software designed for military and governmental use in reconnaissance, secrecy, monitoring, ballistics, the census, and national security, Kurgan engages and confronts the politics and complexities of these technologies and their uses. At the intersection of art, architecture, activism, and geography, she uncovers, in her essays and projects, the opacities inherent in the recording of information and data and reimagines the spaces they have opened up.
For example: Cleopatra used saffron--a source of the color yellow--for seduction. Extracted from an Afghan mine, the blue "ultramarine" paint used by Michelangelo was so expensive he couldn't afford to buy it himself. Since ancient times, carmine red--still found in lipsticks and Cherry Coke today--has come from the blood of insects.
