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 This season has its share of art-book "greatest hits:" big, gorgeous, expensive tomes on artists who are always on somebody's wish list. But there are plenty of surprises, too - new publishers, exceptional artists and some books that defy convention in all kinds of ways. First, the big guns:
by Pietro C. Marani (Abrams, $85). Written by a co-director of the recent restoration team of Leonardo's "Last Supper," this elegant book is readable and packed with high-quality color reproductions of the master's work. Marani appeals to scholars and general audiences by including X-ray imaging of some works, plus informative essays that help put the accomplishments of the great Renaissance artist in context with his contemporaries. The pictures, of course, are the best.
by Brigitte Leal, Christine Piot and Marie-Laure Bernadac (Abrams, $95). Recently, the brainy columnist Marilyn Vos Savant condescendingly explained away Picasso's oeuvre as just another manifestation of the emperor's new clothes. (How embarrassing for her - the artistic equivalent of believing that the world is flat.) We would definitely recommend this book for Marilyn, and for anyone who wants a refresher course on the amazing versatility and breakneck audacity of the 20th century's most prodigious artist.
by Mary Ann Caws (Bulfinch, $50). As a sidelight to the Ultimate Mr. P., there's an intriguing new book about Picasso's immortalized lover, Dora Maar. This book is a treasure trove of images of the Parisian avant-garde. A surrealist photographer, Maar took some great pictures of Picasso and friends. Picasso's obsession with her is documented through years of his paintings and drawings. (Oddly, Maar stole back her image by making some surprising copies of Picasso's work.) The book sheds light on her mysterious later years, when Maar vanished into religious seclusion. "After Picasso, only God," she reputedly said.
edited by William Arnett and Paul Arnett (Tinwood, $100). A new publishing house devoted to African-American creative expression, Tinwood Books is bringing legitimacy to a genre that's been mined commercially for the past decade or so under the misnomer "outsider art." "Souls Grown Deep" is a 500-plus-page survey of black Southern artists whose vision cuts to the core, with painters Bill Traylor and Mose Tolliver among them. Though William Arnett owns many of the pieces reproduced in the book, his intelligent introductory essay eases any concerns that the book is self-serving. An excellent new resource on American art.
essays by Vicki Goldberg and Nan Richardson (Abrams, $45). On the photography front, this book is the corker for this year. Dahl-Wolfe (1895-1989) was in on the birth of fashion photography and of color processing in the 1930s, and nobody used color better than she did. In 1936, she went to work for Harper's Bazaar, and the way she shot clothes - and women - made people's mouths water. Also included are some of her iconic black-and-white portraits of celebrities like Colette, Noguchi, Orson Welles and Cecil Beaton. Dahl-Wolfe's photographic eye is as good as they come.
by Vivienne Tam (ReganBooks, $50). There's no easy category for designer Tam's book - a red-and-gold plasticine-covered picture book about the strange cultural brew that nourishes her "look." From the crassness of Hong Kong advertising art and pop culture to the high aesthetic of Chinese scholars' rocks and porcelain, Tam takes us on a ricochet tour of her world, which is svelte, strange and sexy. Her apparel designs - referred to in the book as "cultural cross-dressing" - end up inhabiting a place Tam identifies as "the border between bad taste and hip." It looks like the place to be.
an exhibit catalog from the Guggenheim Museum ($65), looks at the career of one of the world's top artistic innovators. Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1932, Paik moved to New York City in 1964 and became one of the prime forces behind a new art of ideas and actions, rather than salable objects. Influenced by radical composer John Cage and German conceptualist Joseph Beuys, Paik has worked in performance, video, installation and all kinds of new media, and - here's a bit of trivia for you - coined the term "electronic superhighway" (no, it wasn't Al Gore) for a paper he wrote in 1976. The book is a fascinating documentary of Paik's always-startling productions.
by Andy Goldsworthy (Abrams, $55). This is the latest book of ephemeral artworks by Scotland-based artist Goldsworthy. He uses earth, twigs, fallen leaves, snow, ice and stones to alter outdoor and occasionally indoor environments into primal arrangements of color and form. He then photographs the scene - locations in this book include Montreal, Nova Scotia, Holland and New Mexico - and writes about the experience of making each piece. Goldsworthy says that the work "defines the passage of my life, marking and accounting for my time. . . ."
by Daniel Ost (Callaway, $95). Belgian floral designer Ost's book is sort of a commercial hybrid of Goldsworthy crossed with the Japanese art of ikebana. Ost designs and builds lavishly beautiful displays that go beyond floral arrangements to become vast and complex installations using flowers and plant materials. He's hired by firms around the world, like Christie's and Sony, to dazzle their high-powered, heavily monied clients. Impress your friends with the creme de la creme of decorative-arts books.
text by Ian A. Baker (Callaway, $125). For sheer size, you can't beat this tome - too big for a coffee table, this is a book you'll have to wrestle with on the floor. It's a folio of contemporary Tibetan thangka paintings by Romio Shrestha, who lives in Nepal. He uses Buddhist iconography along with some contemporary inventions to create mandala compositions that are mind-bogglingly ornate and profusely colored. This type of painting would traditionally have been done communally by monks - not meant to bring glory to an individual artist but to some higher spiritual ideal. The intention of the book is puzzling, but an endorsement by Deepak Chopra may help it appeal to a new breed of well-heeled spiritual pilgrims. |
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