Kubin's eerie, unsettling illustrations reveal his preoccupation with the world's evils
For Austrian artist Alfred Kubin (1877-1959), evil was intrinsic to his life and work. After a traumatic childhood growing up in Zell am See and subsequent mental crises, he began his artistic training in Munich in 1898. He processed his nightmares and obsessions in a large number of fantastical drawings. His subjects, perpetually pessimistic, remain relevant a century later: war, famine, pestilence, death and every horror in between. Kubin had a pronounced fear of the feminine, sexuality, night time and of being at the mercy of fate, all of which visited him in uncanny dreams. For Kubin, the aesthetic of evil proved to be the antithesis of the idyll: the deliberate suppression of a hideous reality.
Drawn from the Albertina Museum's collection of over 1,800 drawings by the artist, The Aesthetic of Evil displays Kubin's grotesque vision as well as his superb draftsmanship. Amid the violent, haunting atmosphere of his graphic works it is easy to see how Kubin became trapped in his dark visions, to the point where the inexhaustible, intangible specter of evil consumed his life. Essays by Elisabeth Dutz, Natalie Lettner and Brigitte Holzinger explore Kubin's cosmos of the sinister: his personal iconography of evil fueled by his nightmares and obsessions.
Celebrating the awe and wonder of the Arctic Circle region through visual art from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Vast, impenetrable coniferous forests, "white" summer nights, the perpetual darkness of snowy winters and the famous aurora borealis-the Arctic Circle is a fascinating, if unforgiving, region. The Fondation Beyeler and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum present an exhibition dedicated to this phenomenon with a stunning selection of 19th- and 20th-century paintings by artists from Scandinavia, Finland
The city Fred Herzog documented over more than half a century has vanished-an early kind of urban flaneur, Herzog wandered the streets of Vancouver, creating an archive that encapsulates the essence of a bygone era. Considered today as one of the most important street photographers of the 20th century, he changed the international conversation about early color photography. However, it was only in the late 1950s that he decided to primarily shoot with Kodachrome color slides. Fred Herzog: Black and White is the first acknowledgement of a lesser-known facet of the photographers' work. Complementing the seminal Modern Color, it encompasses almost graphical urban scenes of shadow and light, alongside travel photographs and depictions of rural life. Evoking notions of melancholy, this book reveals that Herzog's appeal lies in his ability to seize a condensation of a psychological state.
"I don't understand how you can walk past a tree without being happy," says Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his novel The Idiot. Perhaps this thought may explain the motif of women in trees, which was popular between the 1920s and 1950s but has not yet been addressed in any book. The enthusiastic collector of anonymous photography Jochen Raiß (1969-2022) discovered these motifs on flea markets. From boxes containing numerous snapshots of other people's lives, wildly jumbled together, he pulled out black-and-white photographs of women gazing into the camera's eye from dizzying heights and in surprising poses.
This new edition of the two previous titles brings together gorgeous photos that Jochen Raiß collected over twenty-five years.
En première mondiale, la Fondation Beyeler présente pour la première fois des chefs-d'oeuvre surréalistes de la collection Hersaint. L'exposition comprend environ 50 oeuvres clés d'artistes tels que Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Dorothea Tanning et bien d'autres. Les images reprennent des thèmes centraux du surréalisme, tels que le rêve, l'inconscient, la métamorphose ou la forêt comme lieu de l'énigme. La collection a été fondée par le banquier Claude Hersaint, qui a acheté son premier tableau de Max Ernst à l'âge de 17 ans. Une passion pour l'art s'est développée tout au long de sa vie, pour aboutir à l'une des plus importantes collections de peinture surréaliste. Les tableaux de la collection Hersaint sont présentés en dialogue avec des oeuvres de la Fondation Beyeler. L'exposition qui se déroule du 16 février au 4 mai 2025 est réalisée grâce au soutien de la fille de Claude Hersaint, Evangéline Hersaint, et de son épouse Laetitia Hersaint-Lair.
The exhibition Maison Sonia. Sonia Delaunay and the Atelier Simultane is dedicated to the applied work of Russian-French artist Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), with a focus on her textile design work. The accompanying catalogue includes the first scholarly essays on Sonia Delaunay's collaborations with silk industrialist Robert Perrier and couturier Jacques Heim, who were among her most important collaborators and previously unexplored. In addition, the publication provides the first overview of the role of Sonia Delaunay's simultaneous fabrics in the design of modern living and media spaces.
Sheila Hicks has made wool, linen, and silk her central media, pushing the boundaries of traditional textile art. Her works combine color, form, and material in novel ways and explore architectural dimensions. As a pioneer of textile conceptual art, Hicks has developed a distinctive visual language over six decades, from finely woven miniatures to monumental installations that open up new perspectives on the possibilities of art. This book contains views of Sheila Hicks's exhibition a little bit of a lot of things at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen as well as a conversation with the curator Rob Storr and an essay by Gianni Jetzer. It also documents a master class held by the artist in St. Gallen and contains previously unpublished images.
Wayne Thiebaud's famous, literally candy-colored still lifes of pies, cakes, gumball machines, and lipsticks reflect the promise and abundance of the American way of life - a society of plenty, where supply exceeds demand.
The tactile impression created by his pasty layers of paint brings the objects to life and creates an atmosphere in which irony and melancholy are carefully balanced. Testing the possibilities of painterly expression, Thiebaud's brilliant painting technique explores the boundaries of the real and imagined world.
This catalog presents all aspects of the legendary American artist's oeuvre, including still lifes and portraits, as well as his deserted, multi-perspective cityscapes and river landscapes, in luminous pastels that exude a peculiar summertime sadness.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the fabric works from the last two decades in the career of legendary artist Louise Bourgeois. "I've always had a fascination with the needle," she said, "the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It's a claim to forgiveness." This body of work began when the artist started incorporating clothes from all stages of her life into her art, and later expanded to include a range of other textiles such as bedlinen, handkerchiefs, tapestry, and needlepoint. The fabric works mine the themes of identity and sexuality, trauma and memory, guilt and reparation, and serve as metaphors for emotional and psychological states. The catalog - which accompanies the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London and the Gropius Bau, Berlin - features works from numerous series, including the monumental Cell installations, figurative sculptures, and abstract drawings.
Her sensual Nanas-buxom, colorful female figures laid the foundation for her international success beyond the art world: Niki de Saint Phalle. But the self-taught artist's creative spectrum is much broader, and her unconventional oeuvre, ranging from painting and drawing to assemblages, performances, theatre, film, and architecture, is more subversive and critical of society than is widely assumed. Based on her efforts to process her own feelings, she addressed social and political issues, critically questioning institutions and role models in ways that are as relevant today as they have ever been. The exhibition and the publication shed new light on the artist's exceptional personality and uncover the wide-ranging oeuvre of the popular outsider-that is always surprising and eccentric, emotional, dark and brutal, humorous and cheerful.
The Swiss artist MIRIAM CAHN (*1949, Basel) deals with political and social themes in oil paintings; charcoal, chalk, and colored and lead pencil drawings; and in photographs, films, and installations. Strong color is characteristic of her work, forming a stark contrast to the recurring motifs of violence, tenderness, war, destruction, and physical infirmity. Her habit of commenting upon her work in writing is a golden thread running throughout Cahn's career. She illuminates her own art, commenting in the process on art and world events, and she sets up the texts opposite her artworks in exhibitions and publications.
Fred Herzog est aujourd'hui considéré comme un pionnier de la couleur, un confrère canadien de Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt ou Saul Leiter dans les années 50 et 60. Dans les rues de Vancouver, il a travaillé exclusivement au Kodachrome pendant plus de 50 ans. Ce matériel a commencé à être scanné et archivé il y a seulement 10 ans. Cette monographie, réalisée avec la collaboration du photographe et accompagnée d'un texte de David Campany, rassemble 230 images en couleur mais aussi en noir et blanc, dont beaucoup étaient restées inédites. Elle constitue une référence unique sur son travail.
A characteristic of 20th- and 21st-century artistic production is that casual acquaintances and close intimates, friends, lovers, or sometimes even rivals come together to work collaboratively on the realization of a single work of art. Amitie et creativites collectives is focused on the genesis of these works and explores the conditions that contributed to the concentration and liberation of these creative energies. Beginning with the groundbreaking socio-cultural upheaval of the 19th century, the publication examines for the first time a variety of works of diverse genres and techniques from different time periods. Featuring works by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, Francis Picabia and Rene Clair, Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein, William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, Jenny Holzer and Lady Pink; and many more, this publication. brings together more than one hundred works.
A sumptuous introduction to the innovative fabrics of a long-overlooked Bauhaus textile artist
A radical pioneer of Bauhaus textile design, Otti Berger created fabrics that fundamentally changed the understanding of what textiles could be and do. A core member of the textile faculty at the Bauhaus alongside Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl, Berger also was an entrepreneur in the frenzied culture of early 1930s Berlin. Working closely with architects of the New Objectivity movement such as Lilly Reich, Ludwig Hilberseimer and Hans Scharoun, she designed upholstery, wall fabrics, curtains and floor coverings that explored novel production methods, and thereby redefined the relationship between aesthetics and function.
This book is the first comprehensive study of Berger's textile work. It makes available for the first time her previously unpublished treatise on fabrics and examines her methodologies of textile production. By arranging her fabrics according to their application, author Judith Raum's research offers an entirely new perspective on Berger's oeuvre, emphasizing its craftsmanship and the entrepreneurial side of her work.
Otti Berger (1898-1944) was one of the most important textile designers of the 20th century. Born in Zmajevac in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Croatia), she studied in Zagreb and then taught at the Bauhaus in Dessau. She set up her own business in Berlin to design fabrics for modern interiors throughout Europe. In 1936, she was banned from working due to her Jewish heritage. She was later deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered in 1944.
Some 40 carefully chosen juxtapositions of masterpieces by both artists trace a dialogue that ranks among the most fascinating in art history. This publication brings Pablo Picasso's (1881-1973) encounter with the Cretan-born old master Domenikos Theotokopoulos, better known as El Greco (1541-1614), vividly to life.
El Greco's unmistakable painting style won him considerable fame in his day. Soon after his death, however, his work was largely forgotten. It was only around 1900 that an El Greco revival was launched, with Picasso serving on the front lines. His engagement with the Greek-Spanish master not only went far deeper than has previously been assumed but also lasted much longer. From his first encounter with El Greco's works shortly before 1900 until the end of his life, Picasso not only referenced but engaged in a fascinating artistic dialogue with the old master.
A detailed and intellectually invigorating collection that places Surrealism in the thick of the battle for political emancipation.
The Surrealist movement famously initiated a revolution in visual and written art, but its political engagement is sometimes overlooked. With more than 600 illustrations and contributions from some of the greatest thinkers of the last 100 years, Surrealism and Anti-fascism provides a panoramic view of Surrealism's opposition to fascism.
Ce catalogue accompagne la première rétrospective de grande ampleur consacrée à l'artiste française, qui se tiendra en Australie puis en Allemagne. Il revient sur l'ensemble de sa carrière, avec des installations, des images de sa carte blanche au Palais de Tokyo en 2017, Grosse Fatigue, sa vidéo présentée à la biennale deVenise en 2013 ou ses portraits en ikebana.
An alternative history of "environments": how women artists from Lygia Clark to Judy Chicago redefined installation, featuring reconstructions of destroyed works.
"Environments" was a term coined by Lucio Fontana in 1949 to describe installations at the intersection of art and architecture that emphasized audience participation. To date, art history has tended to focus on the works of male artists mostly from the US and Europe. Inside Other Spaces offers a different narrative, highlighting the contributions of women artists to the field. It features 14 pioneering women artists from three generations, spanning Asia, Europe and the Americas, including Judy Chicago, Lygia Clark, Laura Grisi, Aleksandra Kašuba, Lea Lublin, Marta Minujín, Tania Mouraud, Maria Nordman, Nanda Vigo, Faith Wilding and Tsuruko Yamazaki. Given the experimental nature of these works, many of them were deconstructed or destroyed immediately after being exhibited. This is the first project to reconstruct them with the help of conservators using archival material and heterogeneous sources such as photographs, architectural plans and lists of materials.
Le catalogue raisonné en six volumes des peintures et sculptures de Gerard Richter présente de nombreuses reproductions en couleur en pleine page des oeuvres ainsi que des informations techniques complètes sur les travaux et les notes manuscrites de l'artiste, sur les expositions et sur la littérature de référence. Des commentaires, des citations et des images comparatives complètent l'ouvrage. Ce cinquième volume présente la production de Gerard Richter du milieu des années 1990 jusqu'au début des années 2000.
Ce catalogue accompagne l'exposition Close-Up présentée à la fondation Beyeler de septembre 2021 à janvier 2022. Celle-ci étudie des oeuvres de femmes artistes dont l'oeuvre occupe une position éminente dans l'histoire de l'art moderne depuis 1870 jusqu'à aujourd'hui. C'est l'époque où, pour la première fois, il devint possible à des femmes en Europe et en Amérique de développer une activité artistique professionnelle sur une large base. Au centre de l'exposition figurent Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Lotte Laserstein, Frida Kahlo, Alice Neel, Marlene Dumas, Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Peyton, neuf artistes qui ont en commun leur intérêt pour la représentation d'êtres humains, le portrait dans ses différentes déclinaisons et l'autoportrait.
Une étude sans précédent de la célèbre visite de Warburg en 1895 aux peuples Pueblo, compilant ses photographies, dessins, écrits et documents d'archives. Lorsque le grand théoricien et historien de l'art allemand Aby Warburg (1866-1929) partit pour les États-Unis en septembre 1895, peu de gens anticipaient que sa recherche des strates symboliques de l'art se révélerait si fondamentale dans le discours de l'histoire de l'art occidental. Le voyage de Warburg en Amérique du Nord n'a duré que quelques mois et son séjour dans les régions de Pueblo seulement quelques semaines, mais en 1923, il a présenté ses découvertes lors de la conférence révolutionnaire sur le "Rituel du Serpent" Hopi. À l'aide de photographies sélectionnées, de dessins ethnographiques et de divers documents d'archives, The Snake and the Lightning compile des recherches, montrant les divers interlocuteurs de Warburg au cours de ce voyage - des chefs aux missionnaires - et se concentrant particulièrement sur sa documentation des danses, des objets rituels et des oeuvres d'art. Ces documents témoignent d'un changement émergent dans la pensée scientifique de Warburg qui conduirait finalement à la méthodologie comparative culturelle pour laquelle il est maintenant tenu en estime dans le monde entier.
Josef Albers' groundbreaking series Homage to the Square comprises roughly two thousand oil paintings. His continuous reflections and refinements for more than 25 years inspired numerous young minimal and conceptual artists in their search for a reduced formal language. This outstanding catalogue explores the secret of Albers' subtle aesthetic and unearths its preconditions: What is the significance of the square? How does his impression of color and its use as a material change during this period?
Featuring studies on paper, archival materials, as well as essays by internationally leading Albers experts, Margit Rowell and Donal Judd, this richly illustrated publication sheds light on the various inspirations that influenced Albers early on in Europe and later in America, and illustrates the lasting impact of his art and thinking.
Using her own body as raw material for her artistic practice, French artist ORLAN deconstructs the traditional iconography of the feminine. In the 1990s, ORLAN caused a sensation with surgical operations performed on her body, but it was as early as 1964, at the age of 17, that she gave birth to her artistic self. Since then, she has continuously recreated herself and keenly explored the concept of identity. In her "carnal art," the body becomes both subject and object. This publication traverses the six decades of ORLAN's oeuvre, revisiting her early performances in particular. One of her most recent creations is the ORLANOIDE robot, and thanks to an augmented reality app, ORLAN avatars come to life and emerge from this richly illustrated volume.
The political status of the body is made evident through all of her works: in 1989 she transformed Gustave Courbet's famous painting L'origine du monde into L'origine de la guerre by replacing the vulva with the phallus. The statement has not lost any of its topicality.
