Kasimir Malevich's (1878-1935) sudden and startling realization of a nonrepresentational way of painting, which he called Suprematism, stands as a seminal moment in twentieth-century art. Rainer Crone and David Moos trace the artist's development from his beginnings in the Ukraine to his involvement with Futurist circles in Moscow through to the late 1920s and beyond. They convincingly demonstrate that Malevich's late representational painting, still widely misunderstood, solidifies his extraordinarily inventive stance. Against the historical background of distinctly Russian progressive cultural and scientific movements, the authors define affinities between Malevich's work and other nonpolitical revolutions: relativity and quantum theory in physics; the work of Roman Jakobson and the "Prague School" in linguistics; and the exploration of language in the writings of the poet Velimir Khlebnikov. They situate the artist within the fundamental epistemological shift from nineteenth-century objectivity to an all-pervasive modernist subjectivity, relying upon Malevich's contribution to illustrate the ways cultural production is mediated through various modes of transmission.

Kazimir Malevich: The Climax of Disclosure

Arts & Photography

Moos, David

Crone, Rainer

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

Tony Scherman's Chasing Napolean presents a remarkable tour de force: a cycle of monumentally scaled portraits of Napolean Bonaparte, each of which depicts Napolean at a psychologically charged, life-determining juncture. Confronting the challenge of producing an accurate likeness of an historical figure whose reign preceded the age of photography, Scherman metaphorically chronicles the life of Napolean using only the image of his face. Battlefield genius, despotic emperor, megalomaniac conqueror, derided hero - each of these incarnations of Napolean flickers through Scherman's paintings, invoking the flash of charisma as quickly as this is complicated by dark and conflicting undertones. The book contains three texts: Jacques Henric provides a dynamic account of the cultural and historical importance of Scherman's work and the frame of reference from which it springs. Hans Belting and David Moos discuss the specific project and the execution of the Napolean series, and an interview with Stanford Kwinter and Bruce Mau illuminates the artist's motivation, practice, and concerns.

Tony Scherman: Chasing Napoleon: Forensic P

Belting, Hans

Scherman, Tony

Kwinter, Sanford

Henric, Jacques

Individual Artists

Cameron Hollis

Jonathan Lasker Selective Identity

Jonathan Lasker: Selective Identity : Paintings from the 1990s

Lasker, Jonathan

Auping, Michæl

Birmingham Museum of Art

In the age of mass media, American culture has displayed an unequaled fascination with both celebrities and disasters. Andy Warhol was one of the first artists to investigate these twin obsessions, beginning in the mid-1960s, as he shifted his practice from hand-painting to the mechanical photo silkscreen process. Andy Warhol/Supernova brings together more than 50 examples of the artist's early silkscreen work, juxtaposing his iconic serial images of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley with his evocative and often disturbing appropriations of car crashes, electric chairs, and other "disasters," appropriated from photojournalism and made side by side. The combination provides a glimpse into a prevailing condition of American modernity--this dual fascination with fame and tragedy--that remains a key component of our national identity. Looking back at this body of masterworks, now some 40 years old, it becomes clear that if some things have changed, more have stayed the same.

ANDY WARHOL/SUPERNOVA: Stars, Deaths, and Disasters, 1962-1964 (WALKER ART CENT)

Walker Art Center

Kazimir Malevich's sudden and startling realization of a non--objective way of painting -- he termed it Suprematism -- stands as a seminal moment in the history of 20th-century art. Tracing the artist's development from his early years in the Ukraine and in Moscow, through the 1930s, against the background of the cultural and scientific revolutions of his day, the authors offer new insights into Malevich's creative process and the extraordinary inventiveness of his late work.

Reaktion Books

Featuring a selection of 80 figurative works and landscapes in a wide range of materials and media including pencil, ink, oil stick and charcoal, drawings, prints and paintings, Alex Katz: Seeing, Drawing, Making demonstrates how the artist explores and elaborates the same image through diverse media. The volume reveals how Katz's repetitive method of working results in the distillation of form for which he is famous. Whether portraying a dancer at full stride or a secluded landscape seen at sunset, Katz's iconic stylization is the result of careful preparation, beginning with intuitive sketches, continuing with pencil drawings and large-format charcoal cartoons and concluding with completed canvases. A series of works from the mid-1980s entitled Last Look, after choreographer Paul Taylor's eponymous piece, evidences Katz's nuanced approach to human form and gesture. This volume offers a fascinating glimpse into the hard work that goes into making a Katz painting look effortless.

Alex Katz: Seeing, Drawing, Making

Windsor Press

Stolen and appropriated imagery has proved to be the principle means by which artists have challenged the image industry that they must constantly compete with. Drawing on the vast resources of the Rubell family collection, this massive catalogue appraises the landmarks of appropriation art. Among the artists featured are Maurizio Cattelan, Peter Coffin, Aaron Curry, Marcel Duchamp, Elmgreen &amp; Dragset, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Urs Fischer, Robert Gober, David Hammons, Mark Handforth, Rachel Harrison, Jenny Holzer, Jonathan Horowitz, Rashid Johnson, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Mark Leckey, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Robert Longo, Kris Martin, Paul McCarthy, Takashi Murakami, Cady Noland, Richard Prince, Charles Ray, Jason Rhoades, Thomas Ruff, David Salle, Philip Taaffe, Hank Willis Thomas, Piotr Uklanski, Meyer Vaisman, Kelley Walker, Wang Ziwei, Christopher Wool and Zhang Huan.

Beg Borrow and Steal: Rubell Family Collection

Zuckerman Jacobson, Heidi

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Rubell Family Collection

Kasimir Malevich’s (1878–1935) sudden and startling realization of a nonrepresentational way of painting―which he called Suprematism―stands as a transformative moment in twentieth-century art. In this book, Rainer Crone and David Moos trace the artist’s development from his beginnings in Ukraine to his involvement with Futurist circles in Moscow through to the late 1920s and beyond. They convincingly demonstrate that Malevich’s late representational painting, still widely misunderstood, solidifies his extraordinarily inventive stance.             Against the historical background of distinctly Russian progressive cultural and scientific movements, the authors define affinities between Malevich’s work and other nonpolitical revolutions: relativity and quantum theory in physics; the work of Roman Jakobson and the “Prague School” in linguistics; and the exploration of language in the writings of the poet Velimir Khlebnikov. They situate the artist within the fundamental epistemological shift from nineteenth-century objectivity to an all-pervasive modernist subjectivity, relying upon Malevich’s contribution to illustrate the ways cultural production is mediated through various modes of transmission. With over 100 illustrations, this engaging book presents Malevich as a uniquely creative artist, embodying in his work many of the insights and discoveries that define the twentieth century and the condition of modern life.

Color field art covers more acreage than you might expect. In this major reappraisal cataloguing an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the definition is extended to include both contemporaneous works in media other than painting and recent iterations by younger artists. Thus, artists more often deemed Minimalist, such as Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Fred Sandback and Robert Irwin, are seen as responding to ambitions expressed in color field painting, and contemporary works, such as those by Peter Halley and Polly Apfelbaum, resonate from proximity to masterworks from an earlier generation. Apfelbaum's Gun Club from 2002, for example, dances meaningfully with Helen Frankenthaler's Tutti Fruitti, 1966. In addition, you'll see how Morris Louis, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery and Frank Stella can play on the same field with Odili Donald Odita, Christian Eckert and Charles Long with Stereolab. Curator David Moos and other leading scholars in the field, Sarah K. Rich and Robert Hobbs among them, add insightful commentary.

The Shape Of Color: Excursions In Color Field Art, 1950-2005

Rubinstein, Raphaël

Hobbs, Robert

Cheetham, Mark

Rich, Sarah

Eckart, Christian

Art Gallery of Ontario

General Idea was founded in Toronto in 1969 by Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson as a generic identity to free the artists “from the tyranny of individual genius.” Under the leadership of their fictitious muse Miss General Idea, and inspired by William Burroughs' conception of the “image virus,” the collective interrogated media image culture through now legendary projects like File magazine, as well as paintings, installations, sculptures, mail art, photographs, videos, ephemera, TV programs and even a beauty pageant. General Idea came to an end in 1994, when Partz and Zontal died of AIDS. Today General Idea can be seen to anticipate the later art collectives of the 1970s as well as aspects of Relational Aesthetics in the 1990s. This volume presents an overview of the Canadian collective's bold mingling of reality and fiction and their frequently transgressive, parodic incursions upon both art and society. It traces such prevalent themes of their oeuvre as the mystique of the artist and the creative process, glamour as a creative tool, art's relationship to media and mass culture, architecture and archaeology, sexuality and AIDS. Including newly commissioned essays and reprinted texts, this volume is richly illustrated with documents and reproductions of the most significant projects realized by General Idea between 1969 and 1994.

General Idea: A Retrospective 1969-1994

Ammann, Jean-Christophe

Bronson, AA

Lebovici, Élisabeth

Dompierre, Louise

JRP|Ringier

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Books by Moos, David