What if it was the child who decided to be born? Here, from the belly of his mother, now round like an island, the child looks out at the world. Despite all of the trouble and heartache, he decides to be born, strong in his belief that he can help make the world a better place. Stunningly illustrated by Olivier Tallec, with strong colors and sketchy lines, WHAT IF... is a book that gives us a sense of purpose in being born, reminding us that our task is caring for the world and for each other.

What If...

Children's Books

Lenain,Thierry

Arts, Music & Photography

Enchanted Lion

Towards the end of the 1950s biologists, investigating the question of how art originated, came up with the idea of getting monkeys to paint pictures. Drawing on a large body of historical and scientific evidence, this fascinating book sets out a new interpretation of quasi-artistic behavior in monkeys, showing that there may be a fine line between it and 'true' art. "[Lenain] cannot help let slip an infectious fascination with our primate cousins ... [he] succeeds in making his book unputdownable"—The London Magazine

Monkey Painting

Arts & Photography

Reaktion Books

With the recent advent of technologies that make detecting art forgeries easier, the art world has become increasingly obsessed with verifying and ensuring artistic authenticity. In this unique history, Thierry Lenain examines the genealogy of faking and interrogates the anxious, often neurotic, reactions triggered in the modern art world by these clever frauds. Lenain begins his history in the Middle Ages, when the issue of false relics and miracles often arose. But during this time, if a relic gave rise to a cult, it would be considered as genuine even if it obviously had been forged. In the Renaissance, forgery was initially hailed as a true artistic feat. Even Michelangelo, the most revered artist of the time, copied drawings by other masters, many of which were lent to him by unsuspecting collectors. Michelangelo would keep the originals himself and return the copies in their place. As Lenain shows, authenticity, as we think of it, is a purely modern concept. And the recent innovations in scientific attribution, archaeology, graphology, medical science, and criminology have all contributed to making forgery more detectable—and thus more compelling and essential to detect. He also analyzes the work of master forgers like Eric Hebborn, Thomas Keating, and Han van Meegeren in order to describe how pieces baffled the art world. Ultimately, Lenain argues that the science of accurately deciphering an individual artist’s unique characteristics has reached a level of forensic sophistication matched only by the forger’s skill and the art world’s paranoia.

Art Forgery: The History of a Modern Obsession

History & Criticism

Bernar Venet (b. 1941, France) is a master of contemporary conceptual art who has worked in all media, from painting and sculpture to film, music and ballet. In his early work, Venet sought to distill art, to strip it of aesthetic or expressive content, and to reestablish it as purely “conceptual.” He withdrew from the art world in 1971, fulfilling a promise he had made four years prior to stop producing new work once he perceived that his term was up. After a six-year hiatus, the artist reemerged, and over the next thirty years produced a vast body of work in diverse media. This monograph, complete with over 300 illustrations, addresses the struggle of aesthetic and intellectual forces at play in contemporary art through the work of one of its foremost practitioners.Today, Venet’s sculptures–massive iron structures in three categories: lines and angles, arcs, and “indeterminate” lines–are exhibited in museums and public spaces across the world. These forms, whether striking out independently into the air, leaning against a château, curving upward from the earth, or twisting arbitrarily around themselves or each other, stand at the threshold between the physical and the abstract, between the material and the purely geometric–testing the liminal spaces between art, world, and mind.

Bernar Venet

MCEVILLEY, Thomas

Venet, Bernar

Flammarion

Loin des yeux, près du coeur

Literature & Fiction

NATHAN

Mademoiselle Zazie a trop d'amoureux

Menu fille ou menu garçon ?

Dyscool - Mademoiselle Zazie a-t-elle un zizi ?

Mademoiselle Zazie a-t-elle un zizi ?

Durand, Delphine

Nathan Jeunesse

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Books by Lenain,Thierry