Christmas Wish List (of Art Books) – part I

I have been browsing Amazon in search of the new art books releases and thought of sharing with you my picks. I started by going to Phaidon and Taschen websites but I wonder if anybody still buys from them when you can get the same products for, some times, half the price.

Let’s start with a basic. Marcel Duchamp is so fundamental for anybody interested  in contemporary art (and for the contemporary art itself) that I can’t stay any longer without a book about his work. The first original installation of Étant Donnés is celebrating 40 years and this book was published to accompany the first major exhibition on the artwork and its studies.

This makes for a romantic gift. Georgia O’Keeffe Abstraction includes unpublished letters between the painter and Alfred Stieglitz whom she married in 1924. Starting with abstraction as early as 1915 she was one of America’s first abstractionists.

 

Still being offered only in pre-order, Anish Kapoor (hardcover) by David Anfam is the most comprehensive monograph on the artist with over 500 photographs and a chronology covering the sculptor’s life in detail. And here a link to Kapoor’s one-work-exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim.

Chiharu Shiota – Flowing Water

Chiharu Shiota, Flowing Water,  2009

Isn’t this a stunning work of art? I find it difficult to get emotion from installations, but Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota got the right mix of brains and heart. It is water falling on the beds and it has the extra effect of ambient sound of cascading water. Browse Shiota’s website for more moments of clever beauty.
Seen on designboom.

Artnet’s Faces & Figures Photographs Sale

Bert Stern – Marilyn Monroe: from The Last Sitting (“I beg of you”)

Artnet will be featuring a special sale of 375 photographs until November 19th. It may be your chance to fetch a Cecil Beaton or a Doisneau for $500. The auction includes portraits of some of the most unforgettable faces of the 20th-21st century by legendary photographers. Bert Stern figures with Marilyn Monroe luminous portraits from the “Last Sitting”.

Yousuf Karsh – Georgia O’Keefe – circa 1956

John Baldessari

Hands and/or Feet (Part One): Snake / Hanging Person, 2009

John Baldessari’s Hands and/or Feet (Part One) series can be seen until November 28th at Marian Goodman Gallery. If Paris is not on your plans for this month, Tate Channel has a great interview with the artist.

Hands and/or Feet (Part One): Piglet / Hands (One Green), 2009

Marc Chagall: Life and Love

After being postponed because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Pera Museum in Istanbul opened this week the exhibition Marc Chagall, Life and Love with 160 works by the Russian master. The show includes a selection of pieces that celebrates his great love for his wife, Bella, his favourite model. The theme is explored in images of the couple in each other’s arms, kissing and floating blissfully on an colourful landscape. Bella wrote two memoir books that are also on display: First Encounter and Burning Lights.

Fred Lebain – Superimposed New York

This is totally my thing! Fred Lebain superimposes large printed photos he took of New York on the exact same spots, creating a tromp l’oeil image that he then re-photographs.
Found on designboom

Raqib Shaw

Today I learned about India-born artist Raqib Shaw from a client. Represented by White Cube and with exhibitions held at the MOMA and Tate, this 35-year-old painter works in very intricate imagery, often with a violent and sexual content. Largely inspired by fifteenth-century artist Hieronymus Bosch, his paintings resemble kimonos, tapestry, Persian miniatures, jewellry. Rich with enamel and gold leaf, his creatures and plants float on a luxurious landscape.

Fire Destroys 90% of Helio Oiticica’s Works

Brazilians are mourning the loss of almost 2,000 works of Helio Oiticica, on a fire last night in Rio de Janeiro. The works were estimated in US$ 200 million.

Born in Rio in 1937, Hélio Oiticica came to be regarded as one of the most revolutionary artists of the country for its innovative and experimental work. Oiticica was a founder in 1959 of the Neoconcreto movement along with names such as Amilcar de Castro, Lygia Clark and Franz Weissmann. His work “Tropicalia” was one of the main inspirations of the Tropicalia movement.

Caetano Veloso, Brazilian singer and composer, wears one of Oitcica’s ‘Parangoles’

Picasso meets the Nazis – a play in Vancouver

Christina Schild as German cultural attaché Miss Fischer

This is a first for The Art Monitor, but A Picasso relates so well to the subjects approached here that made it relevant posting about a play. Set in Paris in 1941, it explores a tug of war between art and bureaucracy that is very ‘now’ for the Vancouver of 2009. American playwright Jeffrey Hatcher brings a 60-year-old Picasso in confrontation with a Nazi functionary to determine which of the three works of art in their possession are true Picassos for an art burning, giving him the right to chose one to be destroyed. A Picasso runs nightly through October 31st at Presentation House, Vancouver. The Province interviewed the main actor, Andrew Wheeler.

Luiz Aquila – Brazilian Colors

A Pintura, o Vermelho e Suas Linhas, 2009,  acrylic on canvas, 100 x 140 cm

Luiz Aquila translates in reds and oranges the warmth of his (and mine) country. At 66 he is more productive than ever and always involved in cultural activities other than his own atelier. Aquila refers to his work as one continuous painting. When seen side by side in a show we can fill in the gaps and get a flow of waves and lines merging together. Always exciting, bold and vibrant his paintings are in some of the main private and corporate collections of Brazil. Valu Oria, in Sao Paulo, will be showing his recent work from tomorrow to November 7th. Full disclosure: Aquila is my cousin, I represented his work for 20 years and he is one of the artists I admire the most.

A Pintura e os Novos Devaneios, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 90 x 180 cm