Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (Whitney Museum of American Art)

Arts & Photography

Rothkopf, Scott

History & Criticism

Whitney Museum of American Art

An unprecedented examination of the history of American modern art through the work of its most influential forerunner Many American artists throughout the 20th century designated Pablo Picasso as the central figure of the modern movement and defined their own artistic achievements through their absorption, critique, or rejection of his example. Picasso and American Art is a groundbreaking publication juxtaposing works by Picasso with the paintings, sculptures, and drawings created in response by an extremely diverse group of his contemporaries and successors, including Max Weber, Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns. Based on extensive research, Michael FitzGerald’s text provides valuable new information on the fundamental role that Picasso played in the development of modern American art--both through his friendships with individual artists and through the dissemination of his evolving work. This book also documents, for the first time, the accessibility of Picasso’s work in the United States between 1911 and 1957 in exhibitions, collections, and publications through a comprehensive chronology. This unique book is essential for anyone interested in either Picasso or American art of the 20th century.

Picasso and American Art

FitzGerald, Michael

History

A comprehensive look at the remarkable 40-year career of a defining figure associated with conceptual art Lawrence Weiner (b. 1942) is one of the primary figures associated with the emergence of conceptual art in the 1960s. For over four decades, Weiner has defined art as a representation of relationships in the physical world—“the relationship of human beings to objects and objects to objects in relation to human beings.” This highly anticipated publication represents the full range of Weiner’s practice, from the early 1960s to the present, from his early paintings to his work in language, including works on paper, films, videos, books, and public commissions. Weiner adopted language as his primary material in 1968. According to his landmark STATEMENT OF INTENT, an oft-quoted declaration first published in 1969, each work can be constructed by the artist, fabricated by someone else, or need not be built at all and simply presented in language. Weiner’s work is often manifested outside the gallery context—through postcards, billboards, lectures, or even on a series of cast-iron manhole covers for the city of New York.This substantial publication, produced in conjunction with the artist’s first major retrospective in the United States and in close collaboration with the artist, constitutes Weiner’s largest monograph to date and brings together five esteemed scholars along with Turner Prize finalist Liam Gillick to examine the artist’s impact on the art world today.

Lawrence Weiner: AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE 1960-2007 (Whitney Museum of American Art)

Individual Artists

For twenty-five years the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria has occupied an entirely unique niche within the New York art world. Operating under the aegis of the Whitney Museum of American Art and funded by Altria Group, Inc., Whitney at Altria has enjoyed great programmatic freedom and presented exciting new work, always free to the public. Its commissioned exhibitions, annual performance series (dance, theater, and music), and innovative public programming have supported cutting-edge projects by numerous contemporary artists and performers, no small number of whom have gone on to become major art world figures.
This anthology celebrates the fascinating history of the Whitney at Altria and for the first time plumbs the archives―photographs of exhibitions and performances and museum brochures published for each event―to provide a record of this incomparable museum and its contributions to contemporary art.

Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria: 25 Years

This is the first publication to explore the role of mirrors, spinning, and “neurotic” architecture––a feeling of psychological breakdown––in the work of one of America’s most important contemporary artists, Paul McCarthy (b. 1945). The book is published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Whitney, for which McCarthy is creating two new installations to appear alongside his Bang Bang Room (1992) and two recently rediscovered film loops (1966, 1971). 
Each work involves a room structure that the viewer can step into and experience―often becoming disoriented as either the floor or entire structure spins, or as walls fold inward and outward. By comparing McCarthy’s use of rotational movement and visual effects to that of other artists of the 1960s and 1970s, the author seeks a new understanding of this bold innovator. An interview with McCarthy himself offers an unprecedented discussion of the influences on his art―including experimental filmmakers Stan Brakhage, Stan Vanderbeek, and Bruce Conner. The book not only raises new points but also recovers information and images from films once lost.

Paul McCarthy: Central Symmetrical Rotation Movement: Three Installations, Two Films

Iles, Chrissie

For Reasons of State examines how our ability to function as a democracy is compromised by governmental secrecy. Looking at contemporary art, the book explores notions of institutional concealment through the work of such artists as the Bureau of Inverse Technology, Jenny Holzer, Lin + Lam, Mark Lombardi, Trevor Paglen, and Susan Schluppi―all of whom provide the public with a new way of looking at information that is otherwise censored or misrepresented due to government or corporate influence.

For Reasons of State (Independent Study Program)

Cooke, Erica

Campens, Angelique

Lam, Steven

This book celebrates the achievements of Alice Guy Blaché (1873–1968), the first woman motion picture director and producer. From 1896 to 1907, she created films for Gaumont in Paris. In 1907, she moved to the United States and established her own film company, Solax. From 1914 to 1920, Guy Blaché was an independent director for a number of film companies. Despite her immensely productive and creative career, Guy Blaché’s indispensable contribution to film history has been overlooked. She entered the world of filmmaking at its nascent stage, when films were seen primarily as a medium in the service of science or as an adjunct to selling cameras. Working with Gaumont cameramen and cameras and the new technical advances for the projection of film, she became one of the film pioneers ushering in the new era of motion pictures as a narrative form. Written by cinema history experts and curators, this handsome volume brings to light a critical new mass of Guy Blaché’s film oeuvre in an effort to restore her to her rightful place in film history.

Alice Guy Blaché: Cinema Pioneer

Working in the tradition of trompe l'oeil, Steve Wolfe (b. 1955) creates careful replicas of classic books, worn album covers, and vinyl records, crafted from modeling paste, screenprints, drawings, and many other media. Wolfe’s reproductions embrace the tattered jackets, aged paper, and worn corners that come with the consumption of the culture within. These marks become records of time and memory representing the intersection of abstract thought and physical substance. With painstakingly composed illusion, these objects fall within the tradition of trompe l'oeil and blur the line between everyday object and art.
This book focuses on Wolfe’s works on paper, including drawings and pieces that combine drawing with painting, collage, and printmaking. Although his work is included in numerous museum collections and has appeared in several group shows, this is the first major publication on this important emerging artist.

Steve Wolfe on Paper

Sirmans, Franklin

Foster, Carter E.

This engaging publication explores the artistic practices that employ evocation—the calling forth of past emotions, desires, frustrations, and memories into the present—as a mode of connecting past and present. Featuring the work of emerging artists working in a variety of media, including Ronnie Bass, Kajsa Dahlberg, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Fikret Atay, Katerina Seda, Maryam Jafri, and Johanna Billing, as well as films by Keren Cytter, Kevin Willmott, and Jennifer Phang, the book challenges the conventional approach to history whereby the past is kept at a distance as historical fact. Ranging from playful to haunting, the artworks presented here rupture conventional notions of time to alter the dynamic of the present moment and enhance the possibilities for radical change on both a personal and sociopolitical scale.

Time Out of Joint: Recall and Evocation in Recent Art

Jakob Schillinger

Since its inauguration in 1932, the Whitney Biennial has showcased contemporary artistic innovation, becoming a highly anticipated event in the art world. The 2010 Biennial is curated by Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari and features works by approximately 55 artists working in a variety of media and practices. 
Uniquely, this catalogue serves as both a handsome accompaniment to the 2010 exhibition and an insightful exploration of the significance of this acclaimed and often controversial event throughout its history. In addition to presenting full-color reproductions of the selected artists’ recent work, the curators have prepared a joint essay on the 2010 exhibition, and a group of writers contributed brief entries on the represented artists’ techniques, influences, and recent work. A detailed appendix features a short text on the significance of the museum’s annual and biennial exhibitions in the context of the museum’s history and broader collection, as well as photographs of previous installations, facsimiles of historical reviews, and a chronological list of artists included in past annuals and biennials. Thumbnails of all previous catalogue covers are also included, positioning each Biennial as a snapshot of artistic practice at a particular moment. 
Participating artists: David Adamo Richard Aldrich Michael Asher Tauba Auerbach Nina Berman Huma Bhabha Josh Brand The Bruce High Quality Foundation James Casebere Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher Dawn Clements George Condo Sarah Crowner Verne Dawson Julia Fish Roland Flexner Suzan Frecon Maureen Gallace Theaster Gates Kate Gilmore Hannah Greely Jesse Aron Green Robert Grosvenor Sharon Hayes Thomas Houseago Alex Hubbard Jessica Jackson Hutchins Jeffrey Inaba Martin Kersels Jim Lutes Babette Mangolte Curtis Mann Ari Marcopoulos Daniel McDonald Josephine Meckseper Rashaad Newsome Kelly Nipper Lorraine O’Grady R.H. Quaytman Charles Ray Emily Roysdon Aki Sasamoto Aurel Schmidt Scott Short Stephanie Sinclair Ania Soliman Storm Tharp Tam Tran Kerry Tribe Piotr Uklanski Lesley Vance Marianne Vitale Erika Vogt Pae White Robert Williams

2010: Whitney Biennial

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Books by Whitney Museum of American Art