The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography 1960-1982
by Giovanni Anselmo
from Walker Art Center
"Photography has become an increasingly pervasive medium of choice in contemporary art practice and is even employed at times by artists who do not necessarily consider themselves to be photographers. How did this come to be? The Last Picture Show will address the emergence of this phenomenon of artists using photography by tracing the development of conceptual trends in postwar photographic practice from its first glimmerings in the 60s in the work of artists such as Bernd & Hilla Becher, Ed Ruscha and Bruce Nauman, to its rise to art-world prominence in the work of the artists of the late 70s and early 80s including Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman. Intended as a major genealogy of the rise of a still-powerful and evolving photographic practice by artists, the checklist will include a wide array of works examining a range of issues: performativity and photographic practice; portraiture and cultural identity; the formal and social architectonics of the built environment; societal and individual interventions in the landscape; photography's relationship to sculpture and painting; the visual mediation of meaning in popular culture; and the poetic and conceptual investigation of visual non-sequiturs, disjunctions and humorous absurdities. Bringing together a newly commissioned body of scholarship with reprints of important historical texts, The Last Picture Show seeks to define the legacy that has produced a rich body of photographic practice in the art world today."
Christian Boltanski (Contemporary Artists)
by Christian Boltanski
from Phaidon Press
Christian Boltanski, born in Paris in 1944 and one of France's best-known artists of the postwar generation, has developed a highly personal and often disconcerting uvre that challenges basic assumptions of what constitutes an artwork. Using media as diverse as newspaper clippings, used clothes, amateur snapshots, and flickering shadows, Boltanski forges an original universe in which he is frequently the central protagonist.One of Boltanski's favorite themes is his own life story, both actual and reinvented, which he evokes through startling collections of photographs and objects. In other pieces, he assembles seemingly mundane elements to address some of the most fundamental and disturbing contradictions of twentieth-century life.In a beautifully written and erudite essay, art historian Lynn Gumpert analyzes and provides a context for these haunting works that have the unsettling ability to be merry and morbid at the same time. With over 150 black-and-white and 50 color illustrations that span the entire range of Boltanski's production, materials, and influences, this insightful monograph--the first to be published in English--is essential reading for collectors, art historians, students, and anyone interested in contemporary art.
Site Specific Projects: The Espai Poblenou Foundation
by John Cage
from Poligrafa
From October 1989 until September 1995, fourteen site specific projects found their home in the city of Barcelona. Created by Christian Boltanski, John Cage, Jan Dribbets, Rodney Graham, Rebecca Horn, Jannis Kounellis, Richard Long, Mario Merz, Bruce Newman, Sigmar Poke, Aureli Ruiz & Josa Maldonado, Ulrich Ruckriem, and Lawrence Weiner, the works provided a significant overview of important installation work of the second half of the 20th century. This book documents the intense experience of the project, which was organized by the Espai Poblenou Foundation.
Christian Boltanski: Advent and Other Times
by Gloria Moure
from Rizzoli International Publications
Gloria Moure, current director of the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea in Santiago de Compostela, presents us here with the results of Boltanski's first retrospective in Spain, Advento, held in the highly unusual setting of the Church of San Domingos de Bonaval, for which the artist produced a "work of works" containing both well-known pieces and others created specifically for the space. This book, besides taking us on a visual itinerary through the world created by Boltanski in Santiago, also offers other projects conducted by the artist and features essays by Jean Clair, José Jiménez and Gloria Moure herself, including an interview with Christian Boltanski. All this will undoubtedly contribute to bringing us closer to an artist whose oeuvre constitutes one of the most interesting of recent decades.
50 Years Of Documenta 1955-2005
by Eija-Liisa Ahtila
from Steidl/Documenta
In 1955, the first Documenta was held in the provincial town of Kassel, Germany, alongside the National Garden Festival. No one imagined back then that the exhibition, held every five years, would develop into the world's most important forum for contemporary art. Although the name Documenta stands for an all-encompassing vision, each of the 11 exhibitions to date has been unique, with its own aims and atmosphere. The history of Documenta reflects the past half century's diverse artistic and curatorial approaches, philosophies, and forms of presentation, as well as a broad array of political and social currents. This two-volume publication looks into that history and the phenomenon of Documenta in several ways. Volume 1 contains a richly illustrated review of 50 years of art in Kassel and the artworks that made history. Volume 2 is devoted more specifically to well-known and less well-known works from 50 years of the Documenta fair. The book contains about 200 works by 75 artists, including Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Robert Capa, Stan Douglas, Walker Evans, Fischli & Weiss, Leon Golub, Ulrike Grossarth, Richard Hamilton, Eva Hesse, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Gerhard Richter, Paul Thek, Andy Warhol, and Wols.
Do It
by Harold Garfinkel
from e-flux/Revolver
The Do It book contains artworks by more than 100 international artists in the form of do-it-yourself text instructions to be completed by the reader. Based on the traveling exhibition and e-flux online project curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the book also includes a selection of essays and interviews, and offers comprehensive material on the groundbreaking show. Do It began in 1993 with a discussion among friends Christian Boltanski, Bertrand Lavier, and Hans Ulrich Obrist. All three had been interested in various forms of instructional procedures since the early 1970s, and that evening they spoke of the instructions contained within their own work. From this discussion arose the idea of an exhibition of do-it-yourself descriptions and procedural instructions. Since 1993, the exhibition has taken place in venues in more than 40 cities worldwide, including Palo Alto, Pittsburg, Calgary, Atlanta, Toronto, Andover, Glasgow, Reykjavik, Helsinki, Bangkok, Copenhagen, Edmonton, Paris, Mexico City, and Costa Rica. Meaning has been multiplied as various interpretations of the text accumulated while the exhibition traveled from venue to venue. The online component, which invites participants to upload images of the results of their chosen project, is less concerned with copies, images, or reproductions of artworks than with human interpretation.
Kaddish
by Christian Boltanski
from Kehayoff Verlag
Christian Boltanski: Lessons of Darkness
Perspectives@25
by Paola Morsiani
from Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
"Encapsulating 143 exhibitions with illustrations of work by 77 of the over 800 artists who participated, Perspectives@25: A Quarter Century of New Art in Houston celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's Perspectives series (one of the first in the U.S. to focus on contemporary art developments). In this beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated book, art lovers learn about an important aspect of the history of the Houston contemporary art scene, while scholars gain insight into the history of the contemporary exhibition through a series of texts: essays, facts, reminiscences, and anecdotes. Also included is a complete list of all artists who have exhibited their work at Perspectives, and an illustrated chronology documenting the series and its exhibitions."
Modellbilder: Das Gluck, die Schonheit und die Traume : Christian Boltanski, Annette Messager [Ausstellung, Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, 25.6. bis 1.8. ... des DAAD (Kunst und Altertum am Rhein)
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