Art

An autobiography in pictures: photographs taken by Ai Weiwei that capture his emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today.

Ai Weiwei: Beijing Photographs 1993-2003 is an autobiography in pictures. Ai Weiwei is China's most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, he quickly became the art world's most famous missing person. Since then, Ai Weiwei's critiques of China's repressive regime have ranged from playful photographs of his raised middle finger in front of Tiananmen Square to searing memorials to the more than 5,000 schoolchildren who died in shoddy government construction in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Against a backdrop of strict censorship, Ai has become a hero on social media to millions of Chinese citizens.

This book, prohibited from publication in China, offers an intimate look at Ai Weiwei's world in the years after his return from New York and preceding his imprisonment and global superstardom. The photographs capture Ai's emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today. There is no more revealing portrait of Ai Weiwei's life in China than this.

The book contains more than 600 carefully sequenced images culled from an archive of more than 40,000 photographs taken by Ai: a narrative arc carefully shaped by an artist keenly aware of photography's ability to tell stories. It includes a shattering series of photographs taken between 1993 and 1996 devoted to the final illness and death of Ai's father Ai Qing. The book is a sequel to Ai Weiwei: New York 1983-1993, a privately published book that collected photographs taken by Ai during his years on the New York art scene.

The first in-depth study of a monumental wall hanging--rediscovered after many years--by renowned Bauhaus artist Anni Albers.

Albers was influential in elevating textiles from craft to fine art. Her exquisite wall hanging Camino Real--seen in public for the first time since 1989 at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, and the subject of this book--is a superb example of this modern master's work.

In 1967, noted architects Ricardo Legorreta and Luis Barragán commissioned Albers to create a work for the newly built Hotel Camino Real in Mexico City. Completed in 1968, her striking wall hanging Camino Real is heavily influenced by Latin American art and culture. Showcasing Albers's approach to working with textiles as a "many-sided practice," it is accompanied in this book by works Albers made following her move to the United States in 1933, including innovative wall hangings, weavings, and a range of works on paper. Together, these works reflect Albers's brilliant embrace of different materials and techniques and her ability to work at varied scales. The works in this publication offer additional context and motifs, demonstrating the artist's pioneering investment in textiles as an art form and her parallel interest in mass-produced designs.

Published on the occasion of the Anni Albers exhibition presented at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, this catalogue features new scholarship from the show's curator, Brenda Danilowitz, art historian and chief curator of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and T'ai Smith, an expert on Bauhaus craft and weaving.

A FLAME TREE SKETCHBOOK. Beautiful and luxurious, the sketchbooks combine high-quality production with magnificent art. Perfect as a gift, the thick paper stock makes them ideal for sketching and drawing. Features a wide range of well-known and modern artists, with new artworks published throughout the year.

BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED. The highly crafted covers are printed on foil paper, embossed then foil stamped, complemented by the luxury binding and bookmark ribbons. The covers are created by our artists and designers who spend many hours transforming original artwork into gorgeous 3d masterpieces that feel good in the hand, and look wonderful on a desk or table.

THE ARTIST. Born in Kent, Annie Soudain spent her early childhood years in Truro, Cornwall, where her interest in plants and nature began. Now settled by the sea in Sussex, much of her work continues to be inspired by the beautiful landscapes surrounding her. This colourful linoprint was created using the reduction method, which involves progressively cutting, inking up, and printing from the same block. The picturesque scene was taken from the view across the field overlooking Rye Bay in Hastings Country Park.

THE FINAL WORD. As William Morris said,"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world -- for contemporary art -- is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes.

The contemporary art market is an international juggernaut, throwing off multimillion-dollar deals as wealthy buyers move from fair to fair, auction to auction, party to glittering party. But none of it would happen without the dealers-the tastemakers who back emerging artists and steer them to success, often to see them picked off by a rival.

Dealers operate within a private world of handshake agreements, negotiating for the highest commissions. Michael Shnayerson, a longtime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, writes the first ever definitive history of their activities. He has spoken to all of today's so-called mega dealers -- Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner, Arne and Marc Glimcher, and Iwan Wirth -- along with dozens of other dealers -- from Irving Blum to Gavin Brown -- who worked with the greatest artists of their times: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, and more.

This kaleidoscopic history begins in the mid-1940s in genteel poverty with a scattering of galleries in midtown Manhattan, takes us through the ramshackle 1950s studios of Coenties Slip, the hipster locations in SoHo and Chelsea, London's Bond Street, and across the terraces of Art Basel until today. Now, dealers and auctioneers are seeking the first billion-dollar painting. It hasn't happened yet, but they are confident they can push the price there soon.

China is the most rapidly urbanizing nation in the world, with an urban population that may well reach one billion within a generation. Over the past 25 years, surging economic growth has propelled a construction boom unlike anything the world has ever seen, radically transforming both city and countryside in its wake. The speed and scale of China's urban revolution challenges nearly all our expectations about architecture, urbanism and city planning. China's ambition to be a major player on the global stage is written on the skylines of every major city. This is a nation on the rise, and it is building for the record books.
China is now home to some of the world's tallest skyscrapers and biggest shopping malls; the longest bridges and largest airport; the most expansive theme parks and gated communities and even the world's largest skateboard park. And by 2020 China's national network of expressways will exceed in length even the American interstate highway system. China's construction industry, employing a workforce equal to the population of California, has been erecting billions of square feet of housing and office space every year. But such extensive development has also meant demolition on a scale unprecedented in the peacetime history of the world. Nearly all of Beijing's centuries-old cityscape has been bulldozed in recent years, and redevelopment in Shanghai has displaced more families than 30 years of urban renewal in the United States. China's cities are also rapidly sprawling across the landscape, churning precious farmland into a landscape of superblock housing estates and single-family subdivisions laced with highways and big-box malls. In a mere generation, China's cities have undergone a metamorphosis that took 150 years to complete in the United States.
The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World sheds light on this extraordinary chapter in world urban history. The book surveys the driving forces behind the great Chinese building boom, traces the historical precedents and global flows of ideas and information that are fusing to create a bold new Chinese cityscape, and considers the social and environmental impacts of China's urban future. The Concrete Dragon provides a critical overview of contemporary Chinese urbanization in light of both China's past as well as earlier episodes of rapid urban development elsewhere in the world especially that of the United States, a nation that itself once set global records for the speed and scale of its urban ambitions.

R. Crumb's obsessions--from sex to the Bible, music, politics, and the vicissitudes and obscenities of daily life--are chronicled in this comprehensive book of work by the illustrious American comic artist.

Instrumental in the formation of the underground comics scene in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s, Crumb has ruptured and expanded the boundaries of the graphic arts, redefining comics and cartoons as countercultural art forms. Presenting a slice of Crumb's unique universe, this book features a wide array of printed matter culled from the artist's five-decade career--tear sheets of drawings and comics taken directly from the publications where the works first appeared, comic book covers, broadsides from the 1960s and 1970s, and tabloids from Haight-Ashbury, Oakland, the Lower East Side, and other counterculture enclaves, as well as exhibition ephemera. Complementing this volume are historical works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that have inspired Crumb and pages from his rarely seen sketchbooks from the 1970s and 1980s that reveal his exemplary skill as a draftsman.

Documenting the critically acclaimed exhibition Drawing for Print: Mind Fucks, Kultur Klashes, Pulp Fiction & Pulp Fact by the Illustrious R. Crumb at David Zwirner, New York, in 2019, curated by Robert Storr, this publication offers an opportunity to immerse oneself in Crumb's singular mind. In the accompanying text, Storr explores the challenging nature of some of Crumb's work and the importance of artists who take on the status quo.

A lovingly curated collection of 365 charming portraits of our favorite four-legged companions, with anecdotes celebrating dogs' endearing and irresistible quirks, based on Sally Muir's popular "Dog a Day" Facebook page.

Sally Muir's debuted her "Dog a Day" project on Facebook in 2013: "My name is Sally Muir and this is a new gallery where I will add a dog drawing/painting every day, adding up to a massive 365-day dogfest." As her Facebook page took off, so did the number of Sally's portraits and her fame.

Drawing on the substantial collection of artwork on her site, A Dog a Day is an irresistible collection of 365 beautiful portraits of dogs of all shapes and sizes, depicted in a range of mediums--from loosely worked sketches, prints, and charcoal drawings to oil paintings and lithographs. The artwork is accompanied by short anecdotes throughout, that reflects on these beloved animals' goofy, loyal, and spunky dispositions.

Charming and whimsical, A Dog a Day is a must for all dog lovers, a loving collection that guarantees a year's worth of tail-wagging sweetness.

An exciting look at the artistic evolution of the iconic style of Doonesbury on the 40th anniversary of its publication.

Best known for his wry and incisive takes on American life and politics, Garry Trudeau is among the world's most widely read cartoonists. Trudeau began shaping Doonesbury as an undergraduate contributor to the Yale Daily News in 1968.Today, the strip is syndicated to a daily readership of nearly 100 million.

Trudeau's work has been anthologized before, but this is the first book to assess the art of the comic strip and the ways that Trudeau's iconic style has evolved over the past four decades. Brian Walker, an expert on the history of comics, sheds light on Trudeau's early influences as well as on his creative process, from research to pencil layouts to finished artwork. In addition to revealing how Doonesbury is crafted each week, the book also examines Trudeau's magazine illustrations, animation drawings, posters, and product designs, as well as rare and previously unpublished works. Walker's historical text is complemented by insightful commentary by Trudeau and his collaborators, Don Carleton, George Corsillo, and David Stanford, making this book appealing not only to Doonesbury's many fans but also to those looking for an approach to the work of a master comic strip artist.

Drag is transformation, communication and, above all, exaggeration, where gender non-conformity is the plat du jour. Drag: The Complete Story observes this increasingly complex world by exploring drag's journey through the twentieth century.

Corralled into thematic chapters, including glamor drag, art drag, butch drag, black drag, historical drag, comedy drag and popstar drag, this book is the first flamboyant and poignant survey of drag culture.

Drag: The Complete Story is not just for fabulous queens and drag enthusiasts, but for anyone interested in gender fluidity and the culture surrounding it.

You come for the glamorous pictures and stay for the sizzling prose. Doonan writes like an angel with a sword: beautifully and provocatively.NY Journal of Books

Barneys' creative ambassador traces drag culture from ancient Egypt through the Renaissance to RuPaul, providing a fabulously comprehensive celebration of the intersection of gender fluidity and fashion. New York Times Book Review

Doonan divides the past and present landscape of drag into nine categories: glamour, art, butch, black, historical, comedy, poster, movie, and radical. Each chapter illustrates how drag queens and kings in those spaces or times periods have helped shape drag in some meaningful way - or, in the case of black drag queens, how they've shaped the LGBTQ community at large in a meaningful way. FastCompany

Whether you're already a massive fan of drag culture, or just interested in learning more about the movement's origins over the centuries - from tabloid scandal in the Victorian era to Emmy-award winning phenomenon in the 21st century - you'll find something to love in Doonan's extensive tome.Bustle

Drag: The Complete Story by Simon Doonan, writer, fashion icon and Creative Ambassador-at-large for Barneys New York, perfectly captures the delightfully drag-filled moment we're currently living in, while offering a glimpse into the long legacy of drag. Over the course of the book, Doonan is able to shine a new light on drag, offering a fresh perspective on an art form that has long gone unrecognized.Newsweek