Known for her lush surfaces, vivid color, and energetic brushwork, Cecily Brown inhabits her torrid, atmospheric paintings with life forms that swim amongst swells of color and gesture. Often cast in sensual situations, her figures advance and recede into painterly abstraction. With her various references to art history-- from the seventeenth-century French Classicism of Nicolas Poussin to the Baroque flamboyance of Peter Paul Rubens and the living gestures of Willem de Kooning, among other Abstract Expressionists--Brown reinvigorates twenty-first-century painting. Working alongside the traditions of the medium, and borrowing freely from them, Brown absorbs formerly male-dominated approaches to painting, unapologetically infusing a feminine viewpoint. This publication, which accompanies the first one-person museum survey of Brown's work in the United States, features three major new essays by Jeff Fleming, Linda Norden and Linda Nochlin, as well as a series of key color reproductions.

Why do some artists use elephant dung, eggshells and crushed cars to make their art? Who created sculptures from fluorescent lightbulbs? Are two giant hamburgers better than one? Does Rachel Whiteread's bed look comfortable to you? And why is there a suit hanging on the wall of an art gallery? What is Contemporary Art? reveals all this and more. The perfect introduction to the world of contemporary art, it celebrates the work of around 70 artists from across the globe. Exploring subjects such as outer space, unusual materials and bizarre beasts, the book is packed with special features inkling pull-out information and ideas boxes, quotations by the artists and 'How Did They Do It?' prompts. Short biographies include fascinating facts on each of the artists, a glossary explains key art terms and a list of useful websites and art museums where to go next. A beguiling book for children and parents, as well as the perfect support for school topic work on art history themes, What is Contemporary Art? invites young readers to understand, enjoy and question some of the most dynamic and exciting art of our times.

Does modern art, as the art of the past always did, "express the times, " or is it a series of willful aberrations? Do we have any way of judging its success or failure? Bypassing art criticism and art theory, Britain's foremost social historian approaches the question from an entirely new angle. Professor Hobsbawm's thesis is that, unlike writers and composers, who have to come to terms with mass production and the technology of infinite repetition, painters still cling to the unique art-object, the product of the artist's own hands. The result has been a succession of increasingly desperate "avant-gardes, " attempts to find relevance and meaning that -- irrespective of the individual artist's talent -- are doomed to failure. Eric Hobsbawm is Emeritus Professor of Economics and Social History at the University of London. An unrepentant Marxist, he has succeeded in uniting original scholarship with popular appeal, and his most recent book, The Age of Extremes, is influential in shaping the way the century is seen by both professional historians and the wider educated public.

An Incisive Account of the Bizarre, Often Bewildering Art World of Today Arthur Danto's new collection finds him, and the art world, at a point when the art world has become pluralistic, even chaotic-with one medium as good as the next-when the moment for "next things" has passed. Since 1984, when Danto-already an eminent philosopher--became "The Nation's" art critic, he has been one of the foremost theorists of contemporary art's history and evolution, and at the same time the most incisive and illuminating critic of new work. In his view, the historical development of art reached a kind of zenith in the pop period, most famously with Warhol's Brillo Boxes. Danto's five volumes of review essays (all published by FSG) form a kind of chronicle of the art world since the Brillo moment, and a running appraisal of the great variety of significant work made since then. In this new book, he shows how work that bridges the gap between art and life is now the definitive work of our time: Damien Hirst's arrays of skeletons and anatomical models, Barbara Kruger's tchotchke-ready slogans, Renee Cox's nude portrait of herself at the Last Supper. To the obvious question--is this stuff really art?--Danto replies with an enthusiastic yes, explaining, with a philosopher's clarity and an art lover's sense of delight, how these "unnatural wonders" show us who we are.

This collection contains Donald Kuspit's writing at its illuminating best as it reveals the psychological and spiritual motivation that conceivably compelled the artists represented to create some of their most interesting work. His subjects range from the artist's relentless manoeuvring for status to the calculated use of perversion and empowering sexuality to engage the art-going public. His criticism is occasionally devastating but always eloquently convincing. Donald Kuspit's opinions will be disconcerting for many who accept what is considered by art journalists and curators to be significant and worthy of the public's attention. He also examines the art market and its compromising effect upon our system of cultural values. The book is appropriately illustrated with paintings by Marcus Reichert, whose own work adheres to a radical ethos. With essays on: Karel Appel, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Motherwell, August Sander, Lucian Freud, Lucas Samaras, Robert Graham, George Segal, Helmut Newton, Rebecca Horn, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter, Dieter Roth, Anne-Louis Girodet, Nicholas Poussin, Jasper Johns, Neo Rauch, Sean Scully, Stephen Newton, and many other subjects ranging from sensationalism in art to the spiritual in art. Donald Kuspit is one of America's most esteemed art critics. He is Distinguished Professor of Art History and Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Winner of the prestigious Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism (1983), given by the College Art Association, Professor Kuspit is a Contributing Editor at Artforum, Sculpture, and Tema Celeste magazines, and the editor of Art Criticism. He has also curated many exhibitions.

Collects essays, interviews, and talks by the longtime curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who established a reputation as Pop Art's earliest champion

"Telling Histories presents recent installations by two artists--Ellen Rothenberg and Carrie Mae Weems--whose work examines the nature of memory and history. Their art constructs new critical narratives that reclaim 'woman' and her story. Each installation evokes the female body as interrogator of and accomplice to history."

Psychoanalysis and the Image brings together an influential team of international scholars who demonstrate innovative ways to apply psychoanalytical resources in the study of international modern art and visual representation. Examines psychoanalytic concepts, values, debates and controversies that have been hallmarks of visual representation in the modern and contemporary periods Covers topics including melancholia, sex, and pathology to the body, and parent-child relations Advances theoretical debates in art history while offering substantive analyses of significant bodies of twentieth century art Edited by internationally renowned art historian Griselda Pollock.