A photo of a secret CIA prison. A map designed to help visitors reach Malibu’s notoriously inaccessible public beaches. Guidebooks to factories, prisons, and power plants in upstate New York. An artificial reef fabricated from 500 tons of industrial waste. These are some of the more than one hundred projects represented in Experimental Geography, a groundbreaking collection of visual research and mapmaking from the past ten years. Experimental Geography explores the distinctions between geographical study and artistic experience of the earth, as well as the juncture where the two realms collide (and possibly make a new field altogether). This lavishly illustrated book features more than a dozen maps; artwork by Francis Alÿs, Alex Villar, and Yin Xiuzhen; and recent projects by The Center for Land Use Interpretation, the Raqs Media Collective, and the Center for Urban Pedagogy. The collection is framed by essays by bestselling author Trevor Paglen, Jeffrey Kastner, and editor Nato Thompson.

Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism

Arts & Photography

Thompson, Nato

Independent Curators International

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Melville House

When their cruel master Marty McGuinn heads off to the Muddy Carnival, two peculiar nocturnal children, Fennel and Isabella, seize the opportunity to explore the city of Barrenwood. Horse drawn carriages, neon lights, the forces of gentrification, and the industrial revolution provide the outside-of-time backdrop as Isabella searches for like minded supernatural creatures and her malicious brother crafts the ultimate disaster.

Marshsong (Marshsong Series)

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Nato Thompson

The first major and in-depth retrospective monograph on JR, the enigmatic and anonymous Parisian photographer/street artist/activist behind some of the world's most provocative large-scale public photography projects.
Created in close collaboration with JR, this book includes all bodies of his work, his collaborations with other artists and institutions such as the New York Ballet and previously unpublished behind-the-scenes documentation of his studios in Paris and New York, where he and his creative collaborators live and work.
Introducing JR 's story is a specially commissioned graphic novel by comic artist Joseph Remnant, which charts his rise from graffiti roots and his decision to become a full-time artist.
Features a survey essay by Nato Thompson, Chief Curator of Creative Time, New York.

JR: Can Art Change the World?

Remnant, Joseph

History & Criticism

Phaidon Press

In our chaotic world of co-opted imagery, does art still have power? A fog of images andinformation permeates the world nowadays: from advertising, television, radio, and film to the glut produced by the new economy and the rise of social media . . . where even our friends suddenly seem to be selling us the ultimate product: themselves. Here, Nato Thompson—one of the country’s most celebrated young curators and critics—investigates what this deluge means for those dedicated to socially engaged art and activism. How can anyone find a voice and make change in a world flooded with such pseudo-art? How are we supposed to discern what’s true in the product emanating from the ceaseless machine of consumer capitalism, a machine that appropriates from art history, and now from the methods of grassroots political organizing and even social networking? Thompson’s invigorating answers to those questions highlights the work of some of the most innovative and interesting artists and activists working today, as well as institutions that empower their communities to see power and reimagine it. From cooperative housing to anarchist infoshops to alternative art venues, Seeing Power reveals ways that art today can and does inspire innovation and dramatic transformation . . . perhaps as never before.

Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century

One of the country's leading activist curators explores how corporations and governments have used art and culture to mystify and manipulate us. The production of culture was once the domain of artists, but beginning in the early 1900s, the emerging fields of public relations, advertising and marketing transformed the way the powerful communicate with the rest of us. A century later, the tools are more sophisticated than ever, the onslaught more relentless. In Culture as Weapon, acclaimed curator and critic Nato Thompson reveals how institutions use art and culture to ensure profits and constrain dissent--and shows us that there are alternatives. An eye-opening account of the way advertising, media, and politics work today, Culture as Weapon offers a radically new way of looking at our world.

Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life

In 2007, artist Mike Nelson transformed the disused interior of the Essex Street Market on New York's Lower East Side, taking audiences on a journey through his installation “A Psychic Vacuum,” a series of reconstructed rooms and passageways filled with enigmatic props, clues and assemblies. Over the next two years, the artist meticulously recreated that journey in this superbly designed and fully illustrated artist's book.

Mike Nelson: A Psychic Vacuum

Eleey, Peter

Individual Artists

Creative Time Books

As electrifying and colorful as the “Soundsuits” it features, this survey of the renowned artist Nick Cave also features his latest performance work, public installations, and sculptural assemblages. Anyone who’s ever encountered one of Nick Cave’s Soundsuits―whether in a gallery or on the street―can’t help but be fascinated with these brightly hued, provocative constructions that function as both costume and sculpture. The most comprehensive survey of the artist’s work to date, this large-format volume compiles the fantastic Soundsuits, for which the artist is best known, together with his other sculptural work and related projects in video and live performance. The book chronicles the artist’s ingenious use of materials, which began with a Soundsuit constructed entirely from twigs and has since ranged from secondhand rugs and other thrift-store finds to feathers, buttons, beading, and rainbow-dyed synthetic hair. Dazzling images of Cave’s Soundsuits are presented alongside video stills and performance views that capture the current of joyful energy that runs throughout the work. Essays by Elvira Dyangani Ose and Nato Thompson provide an illuminating critical context for the artist’s practice, and an interview by Andrew Bolton explores the artist’s working process and inspirations. Beautiful, insightful, and exciting, this volume will be a must-have for Cave’s ever-growing audience.

Nick Cave: Epitome

BOLTON, Andrew

Dyangani Ose, Elvira

Prestel USA

In November 2006, the artist Paul Chan visited New Orleans, in particular those parts of the city devastated by Katrina. "Friends said the city now looks like the backdrop for a bleak science-fiction movie. (...) I realized it didn't look like a movie set, but the stage for a play I have seen many times." That play was Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a play that has often been successfully staged in politically charged circumstances, such as a prison (San Quentin), and during a war (the Siege of Sarajevo, directed by Susan Sontag). In 2007, Chan staged four free outdoor performances of Godot in two New Orleans neighborhoods. This volume records Chan's project in essays and photographs, elucidating the terrible symmetry between Godot and post-Katrina New Orleans, and, as Chan writes, "the cruel and funny things people do while they wait: for help, for food, for hope."

Paul Chan: Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide

Pasternak, Anne

Ya Salaam, Kalamu

McElroen, Christopher

Performing Arts

The Port Huron Project is a series of reenactments of Vietnam-era protest speeches staged between 2006 and 2008 by artist Mark Tribe. The original speeches were given by Angela Davis in Oakland, Cesar Chavez in Los Angeles, Stokely Carmichael in New York, Paul Potter in Washington, D.C., Howard Zinn in Boston and Coretta Scott King in New York. Each event took place at the site of the original speech, and was delivered by an actor or performance artist to an audience of invited guests and passersby. Videos of these performances have been shown at museums, galleries, universities and even on a giant video screen in Times Square. This book features transcripts of the original speeches, photographs of the reenactments, archival photographs of the original speakers, critical essays by Nato Thompson (a curator at Creative Time) and Rebecca Schneider (Chair of the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Brown University) and a statement by the artist.

Mark Tribe: The Port Huron Project: Reenactments Of New Left Protest Speeches

Schneider, Rebecca

Charta

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thompson, Nato. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Thompson, Nato

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thompson, Nato. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism

Marshsong (Marshsong Series)

JR: Can Art Change the World?

Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-first Century

Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life

Culture as Weapon: The Art of Influence in Everyday Life

Mike Nelson: A Psychic Vacuum

Nick Cave: Epitome

Paul Chan: Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: A Field Guide

Mark Tribe: The Port Huron Project: Reenactments Of New Left Protest Speeches