The first biography of visionary artist Agnes Martin, one of the most original and influential painters of the postwar periodOver the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin’s austere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, even as she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence in the American Southwest. Martin identified with the Abstract Expressionists but her commitment to linear geometry caused her to be...

"Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" asked the prominent art historian Linda Nochlin in a provocative 1971 essay. Today her insightful critique serves as a benchmark against which the progress of women artists may be measured. In this book, four prominent critics and curators describe the impact of women artists on contemporary art since the advent of the feminist movement.

The authors of After the Revolution return with an incisive study of the work of contemporary women artists.In After the Revolution, the authors concluded that "The battles may not all have been won . . . but barricades are gradually coming down, and work proceeds on all fronts in glorious profusion." Now, with The Reckoning, authors Heartney, Posner, Princenthal, and Scott bring into focus the accomplishments of 24 acclaimed international women artists b...

In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this Very Short Introduction Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying c...

This compelling narrative goes behind the scenes with the world’s most important living artists to humanize and demystify contemporary art.The best-selling author of Seven Days in the Art World now tells the story of the artists themselves—how they move through the world, command credibility, and create iconic works.33 Artists in 3 Acts offers unprecedented access to a dazzling range of artists, from international superstars to unheralded ...

A study of Kusama's era-defining work, a “sublime, miraculous field of phalluses,” against the background of abstraction, eroticism, sexuality, and softness.Almost a half-century after Yayoi Kusama debuted her landmark installation Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli's Field (1965) in New York, the work remains challenging and unclassifiable. Shifting between the Pop-like and the Surreal, the Minimal and the metaphorical, the figurative and the abstract, the psych...

As public interest in modern art continues to grow, as witnessed by the spectacular success of Tate Modern and the Bilbao Guggenheim, there is a real need for a book that will engage general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining its contemporary relevance and history. This book achieves all this and focuses on interrogating the idea of 'modern' art by asking such questions as: What has made a work of art qualify as modern (or f...

The leading lexicon of contemporary art returns in an expanded, full-color third edition.An indispensable guide for art-world neophytes and seasoned professionals alike, the best-selling ArtSpeak returns in a revised and expanded third edition, illustrated in full color. Nearly 150 alphabetical entries—30 of them new to this edition—explain the who, what, where, and when of postwar and contemporary art. These concise mini-essays on the key terms of the art...

Ideas About Art is an intelligent, accessible introductory text for students interested in learning how to think about aesthetics.It uses stories drawn from the experiences of individuals involved in the arts as a means of exposing readers to the philosophies, theories, and arguments that shape and drive visual art.An accessible, story-driven introduction to aesthetic theory and philosophyPrompts readers to develop independent ideas...

Raw Vision presents the art of untaught and unsung artists from around the world who fall into the category of Outsider Art. This includes psychiatric patients and the 'ordinary geniuses' of everyday life. Lavishly illustrated, it presents work by artists from many countries as well as sculpture gardens and buildings made single-handedly.

Contemporary art can be baffling and beautiful, provocative and disturbing. This pioneering book presents a new look at the controversial period between 1945 and 2015, when art and its traditional forms were called into question. It focuses on the relationship between American and European art, and challenges previously held views about the origins of some of the most innovative ideas in art of this time. Major artists such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys...

In his third book, Strauss delves into the mysterious process whereby an idea is born in the mind and materialized through the hand in the expression of an artwork. How exactly does this happen? It's a question so basic, an act so fundamental to art-making, that it has rarely received attention. It makes an ideal topic for Strauss, a writer with an exceptional ability to animate art's philosophical dimensions in a clear, persuasive manner. During this time when craft and the direct manipul...