Our newly combined Design and Art Book List includes a wide range of books being released throughout the month of January. Expect to find books on design, architecture, an art collection, landscape design, artist-run galleries and artists on our list of top picks for this month’s book list. Start off the New Year with some of these new and upcoming art and design book releases.
“Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World”
The Finnish design firm Artek is best known as the producer and distributor of Modernist bentwood furniture designed by Alvar Aalto (1898–1976). However, its mission was more complex and multifaceted, grounded in the notion that art and design could enhance everyday life. “Artek and the Aaltos” showcases more than three hundred objects, including furniture, glassware, lighting, design sketches, drawings, textile swatches, and photographs.
In addition, this book examines the Aaltos’ advocacy for the use of standardized forms and shows how modern designers continue to work with the Artek product line and within the parameters of the company’s mission. This book presents new scholarship, including an inventory of the Artek product line, and a list of public and private commissions. “Artek and the Aaltos” is the first English-language publication on the topic, with chapters authored by leading scholars of design history and architecture.
BASIC FACTS: “Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World” is written by Nina Stritzler-Levine (Editor). Published by Bard Center. Release Date: January 3, 2017. Paperback; 698 pages; $75.00.
“Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965”
This book looks at New York City’s postwar art scene and focuses on the galleries and the artists that helped transform American art. While the achievements of New York City’s most renowned postwar artists―de Kooning, Pollock, Rothko, Franz Kline― have been studied in depth, a large cadre of lesser-known but influential artists came of age between 1952 and 1965. Also understudied are the early, experimental works by well-known figures such as Mark di Suvero, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, and Claes Oldenburg.
Focusing on innovative artist-run galleries in Lower Manhattan from the early 1950’s to the mid-1960s, this book reevaluates the period― uncovering its diversity, creativity, and nuances, and tracing the spaces’ influence during the decades that followed. “Inventing Downtown” explores 14 key spaces in which styles such as Pop, Minimalism, and performance and installation art thrived. Excerpts from 33 interviews with artists, critics, and dealers, conducted by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin, offer personal insight into the era’s creative milieu.
BASIC FACTS: “Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965” is written by Melissa Rachleff (Author), Lynn Gumpert (Introduction), Billy Kluver (Contributor) and Julie Martin (Contributor). Published by Prestel. Release Date: January 10, 2017. Hardcover; 288 pages; $75.00.
“Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning”
Colombian sculptor and installation artist Doris Salcedo (b. 1958) creates works that address political violence and oppression. This book, which focuses on Salcedo’s works from 2001 to the present, examines the development and evolution of her approach. Her sculptures have pushed toward new extremes, incorporating organic materials—rose petals, grass, and soil—in order to blur the line between the permanent and the ephemeral.
This text illuminates the artist’s practice: personal interviews and research joined with acts of making that both challenge limits and set new directions in materiality. Mary Schneider Enriquez argues for viewing Salcedo’s oeuvre not just through a particular theoretical lens, such as violence studies or trauma and memory studies, but for the way the artist engages with and expands the traditions of sculpture as a medium.
BASIC FACTS: “Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning” is written by Mary Schneider Enriques (Author), Doris Salcedo (Contributor) and Narayan Khandekar (Contributor). Published by Harvard Art Museums. Release Date: January 10, 2017. Hardcover; 196 pages; $50.00.
“Landscapes of Modern Architecture: Wright, Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán”
Modern architects are often condemned for a seeming disregard of site considerations such as climate, topography, and existing vegetation. Noted landscape and architectural historian Marc Treib counters this view in a survey of 20th-century buildings and their landscapes. Exploring a range of architectural, philosophical, and theoretical approaches, Treib investigates the site strategies of five prominent modern-period architects: Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969), Richard Neutra (1892–1970), Alvar Aalto (1898–1976), and Luis Barragán (1902–1988).
Fully illustrated with rarely published archival drawings and plans, accompanied by the author’s own photographs, this book presents the spectrum of architectural responses to the constraints of site, climate, client, program, building material, region, and nation. Taken as a group, the work of these five architects sheds important light on the consideration and influence of the site and landscape on the practice of architecture during the 20th century.
BASIC FACTS: “Landscapes of Modern Architecture: Wright, Mies, Neutra, Aalto, Barragán” is written by Marc Treib (Author). Published by Yale University Press. Release Date: January 17, 2017. Hardcover; 272 pages; $65.00.
“Drawing Rooms: Trends in Contemporary Graphic Art”
The medium of drawing has never been so topical. Young artists in particular are once again dedicating themselves exclusively to drawing and consciously setting new accents. “Drawing Rooms” focuses on recent trends in drawing, from small-format pencil studies to diagrams, scores and room installations.
These new trends in drawing are the focus of the volume “Drawing Rooms.” The exhibition catalogue on the occasion of the reopening of the Hamburger Kunsthalle provides an in-depth overview of over fifty years of drawing. Artists include John Cage, Hanne Darboven, Jim Dine, Rebecca Horn, Sigmar Polke, Arnulf Rainer, James Rosenquist, Dieter Roth, Jorinde Voigt and more.
BASIC FACTS: “Drawing Rooms: Trends in Contemporary Graphic Art” is written by Hubertus Gassner (Editor). Published by Kerber. Release Date: January 24, 2017. Hardcover; 168 pages; $45.00.
“Dancing with Myself: Self-Portrait and Self-Invention Works from the Pinault Collection”
“Dancing with Myself” draws its selection of works from the collection of François Pinault, exploring the major roles that contemporary artists have played as their own protagonists in the art of the last decades. The volume surveys artists who perceive their own bodies and identities as unique and malleable raw material in a way that surpasses the confines of traditional self-portraiture.
Featuring figures of 20th and 21st-Century art such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Bruce Nauman, Alighiero Boetti, Gilbert & George and Maurizio Cattelan, this publication documents a variety of disciplines, exploring the multitude of ways in which artists can feature in—or, indeed, become—the art.
BASIC FACTS: “Dancing with Myself: Self-Portrait and Self-Invention Works from the Pinault Collection” is written by Abigail Solomon-Godeau (Contributor), Sabine Flach (Contributor) and Kito Nedo (Contributor). Published by Steidl/Museum Folkwang, Essen. Release Date: January 24, 2017. Hardcover; 256 pages; $35.00.
“Wall to Wall: Carpets by Artists”
"Wall to Wall: Carpets by Artists" features work from a wide cross-section of contemporary artists and their weaving partners. The carpet will be used as a device to show how artists can integrate deep philosophical and formal resolutions into the very nature of an object and its material. "Wall to Wall" reflects a history of art in which the achievements of significant artists motivate paradigm shifts.
Artists like Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Heimo Zobernig and more will be considered with respect to their abilities to work in a medium that is often at odds with the ethos of movements to which they have been ascribed. The current MOCA Cleveland exhibition holds that this contradiction is the space in which creative revolution happens. Technique and production will also be considered; the interchange between artist, producer, and artisan is of utmost importance. “Wall to Wall” considers the waning of artisanal traditions, presenting the artist's carpet as an example of delegation in a post-Duchampian mode, indexing hand-made approaches for which even the most hardline conceptual artists have a deep and undying respect.
BASIC FACTS: “Wall to Wall: Carpets by Artists” is written by Cornelia Lauf (Editor). Published by Walther König, Köln. Release Date: January 24, 2017. Paperback; 152 pages; $40.00.
“Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses 2016: Bjarke Ingels Group, Kunlé Adeymi, Yona Friedman, Asif Khan, Barkow Leibinger”
The Serpentine Architecture Program expands for 2016, with four Summer Houses joining the Serpentine Pavilion. The Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), is an unzipped wall that is transformed from a straight line to a three-dimensional space, creating a structure that by day houses a café and by night becomes a space for the Serpentine’s Park Nights performance program.
Kunlé Adeyemi’s Summer House is an inverse replica of Queen Caroline’s Temple―a tribute to its robust form, space and material, recomposed into a new sculptural object. Barkow Leibinger was inspired by another, now extinct, 18th-century pavilion designed by William Kent, which rotated and offered 360-degree views of the Park. Yona Friedman’s Summer House takes the form of a modular structure that can be assembled and disassembled. Asif Khan’s design is inspired by the fact that Queen Caroline’s Temple was positioned in a way that would allow it to catch the sunlight from the Serpentine Lake.
BASIC FACTS: “Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses 2016: Bjarke Ingels Group, Kunlé Adeymi, Yona Friedman, Asif Khan, Barkow Leibinger” is written by Julia Peyton-Jones (Editor). Published by Koenig Books. Release Date: January 24, 2017. Paperback; 184 pages; $40.00.
“Rauschenberg: The Complete Posters”
This book collects the complete posters of the famed artist Robert Rauschenberg, in one volume. Poster making was well suited to Rauschenberg’s artistic temperament. The socially conscious artist appreciated the democratic aspects of reaching out to a wide audience and the opportunity to collaborate with printmakers. Rauschenberg’s trademark collage aesthetic, which combines text and imagery, is evident in much of his poster production.
A comprehensive volume of Rauschenberg’s oeuvre, this book includes posters for the artist’s exhibitions; cultural events in the worlds of dance and music; and important political and social causes. Ninety of Rauschenberg’s most important posters are featured in full-page illustrations, while the illustrated catalog contains detailed entries of more than 220 works.
BASIC FACTS: “Rauschenberg: The Complete Posters” is written by Jürgen Döring (Author) and Claus von der Osten (Author). Published by Prestel. Release Date: January 25, 2017. Hardcover; 144 pages; $34.95.
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