Souffles: On Deep Listening and Active Reception
Invoking sound and gesture to weave a tapestry of Marrakech's multicultural traditions and their preservation across generationsPublished with Funda癟瓊o Bienal de S瓊o Paulo. This first in a series of four educational publications released in conjunction with the 36th Bienal de S瓊o Paulo centers on the Invocation held in Marrakech. The contributions examine listening as a practice of coexistence, the precarity of breath and the cultural traditions of Gnawa and Sufi communities. Marrakech is a crossroads of cultures, belief systems and languages, with much of its vast knowledge transmitted through sound and gesture. This first Invocation explores how these sonic traditions are enacted, preserved and passed down. The ancient practices of deep listening--from the performative rituals of Gnawa brotherhood to the oral tradition of Halqa (people's theater) in North African theater forms--serve as the starting point for this edition. The title is borrowed from "Souffles," a poem by Birago Diop, on the potential of listening to a plethora of beings.
Mawali-Taqsim: Improvisation as a Space and Technology of Humanity
Delving into the cultural exchange between West Africa and the Indian Ocean through the music genre taarabPublished with Funda癟瓊o Bienal de S瓊o Paulo. This third volume in a series of four educational publications in conjunction with the 36th Bienal de S瓊o Paulo centers on the Invocation held in Zanzibar in February 2025, focusing on the rich cultural dynamics of taarab. Far beyond a musical rhythm, taarab is understood as a framework of encounters and exchanges shaped by the confluence of influences in Tanzania and the Indian Ocean. This publication examines how these interactions have fostered a vibrant cultural landscape, offering readers insights into the ways artistic practices and historical exchanges intertwine to create a tapestry of shared heritage and creativity. Echoing the complexities of Zanzibar's history--a crossroads of African, Arabic, Asian and European influences--this volume offers the possibility of reflecting on nuances and accents of humanity on an island that is a point of intersection for multiple cultures, philosophies and sciences.
Bigidi M癡 Pa Tonb矇! (Totter But Never Fall)
Linking dance to a life philosophy that embraces impermanence and adaptability as forms of survival and cultural resistancePublished with Funda癟瓊o Bienal de S瓊o Paulo. This second in a series of four educational publications of the 36th Bienal de S瓊o Paulo centers on the Invocation held in Les Abymes, Guadeloupe, exploring the intelligence of bodily movements as they navigate rupture and adaptation to maintain balance amid crises. By reflecting on resilience and the dynamics of movement, this volume aims to deepen understanding of how physicality and adaptability intersect with broader cultural and social challenges. The concept stems from bigidi, a core element of the Guadeloupean dance gwoka, characterized by improvisation and alternating between moments of rupture and continuity in a constant effort to maintain balance. L矇na Blou, a leading authority on this tradition, identifies bigidi and its mode of moving as the essential nature of the Caribbean being, which, in her words, "knows how to stabilize instability and transform disharmony into harmony."
Queer Histories
A chromatic celebration of LGBTQIA+ artists, queer and trans activisms and the "queering" of history, with works by Andrea Geyer, Claude Cahun, F矇lix Gonz獺lez-Torres, Martin Wong, Peter Hujar, Roberto Burle Marx and many moreSince 2016, the Museu de Arte de S瓊o Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) has centered its exhibition program on exploring different histories, with each year featuring a large-scale, international and transhistorical group exhibition, paired with an exquisitely produced catalog. Following the bestselling titles Afro-Atlantic Histories and Indigenous Histories, Queer Histories is the next chapter in this cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary survey series exploring underrepresented or marginalized narratives.Gathering more than 200 artworks from public and private collections in Brazil and abroad, Queer Histories is organized into seven sections: "Love, family and communities," "The sacred and the profane," "Signs and spaces," "Activism and archives," "Survival," "Queer Abstraction" and "Visibility." While many of the artists featured in Queer Histories are working in the wake of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its profound impact on queer and trans communities, the exhibition goes beyond artists who identify as LGBTQIA+, approaching queerness as a lens through which to reinterpret the world, to queer history and to reclaim erased narratives. This compendium is a critical resource for understanding how art and history continue to function as sites of resistance and transformation in LGBTQIA+ lives.Artists include: Andrea Geyer, Andy Warhol, Beverly Buchanan, Catherine Opie, Claude Cahun, David Wojnarowicz, Etel Adnan, F矇lix Gonz獺lez-Torres, Glenn Ligon, Kia LaBeija, Leonilson, Martin Wong, Miguel ?ngel Rojas, Peter Hujar, Roberto Burle Marx, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Salman Toor, Tseng Kwong Chi, Tuesday Smillie, Yuki Kihara, Zanele Muholi.
Native American and First Nation Figures in Sculpture
The art of public structure is nearly as old as society itself, and its figurative representations (and gaps) represent deep wells of insight into culture. This book examines sculptors both old and new, and how the work of each one has presented Native Americans and First Nations peoples as figurative subjects found throughout the public sculpture of North America over the past 200 years. Offering thorough examination of artworks by 50 different sculptors throughout the United States and Canada, this book profiles how artists have incorporated either traditional native styles and techniques or European artistic styles and training to create these figurative subjects in wood, stone, marble, bronze, and other materials; to what degree (or not) they utilized indigenous models or figures, photographs of individuals, or other primary sources to create their sculptures; how each sculpture relates to its landscape and display location; and, how each sculptor's own life relates to the works they have created for public viewing. Both "historical" statuary and public sculpture that has distinctive artistic representation or styles are examined. Also included are oral history interviews, photographs, and first-hand accounts to help better understand all of these artworks. Each of the sculptors profiled here reflects a mixture of gender, ethnicity, and nationality in their identity and backgrounds, as diverse and varied a group as the subjects of their public sculpture.
Little Beasts
A richly illustrated look at the intersection of art and science in Renaissance Europe Art played a pivotal role in the development of natural history during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. European colonial expansion enabled naturalists to study previously unknown insects, animals, and other beestjes--"little beasts"--from around the globe. Little Beasts explores how artists such as Joris Hoefnagel and Jan van Kessel helped deepen and spread knowledge of these creatures with highly detailed and playful works that inspired generations of printmakers, painters, decorative artists, and naturalists. This appealing book begins by mapping the origins of natural history as a discipline, showing how early illustrated treatises reflected a vibrant exchange between artists and naturalists that contributed to the growth of natural science and sparked public fascination with the animal kingdom. It shares insights into Hoefnagel's engagement with contemporary natural history, as demonstrated in his Four Elements--a four-volume series of some three hundred watercolor miniatures of animals--and examines how intaglio printmaking enabled natural history studies to reach new audiences. The volume concludes with a discussion of Van Kessel's small oil paintings, likely made for discerning collectors of both natural and artistic curiosities. Blending lively and informative essays with beautiful illustrations, Little Beasts traces the connections between artists, naturalists, and collectors in an age of scientific discovery and broadening horizons, inviting readers to look with wonder at nature's variety. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Exhibition ScheduleNational Gallery of Art, Washington, DCMay 18-November 2, 2025
Portraits of Zhong Kui by Timeless Masters
- Includes Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi, Li Keran, Zhang Daqian, a total of 97 ancient and modern masters, across the millennia to create 120 auction-grade high-definition Zhong Kui paintings, - The first "God of all response" Zhong Kui's painting encyclopedia - Each work is attached with a seal, inscription, and a brief introduction to the author - This book also includes the exclusive interpretation of Zhong Kui's paintings by Zhong Kui experts Li Tianxiu and Wang Zhende - Seam-stitched hardcover, interspersed pull-out design to display the whole and part of the painting, so you can appreciate the big picture, and see the details at a glance Zhong Kui - the only "God of all response" in Chinese civilization. He is not a prominent god who is always worshiped, but the legend surrounding him has been passed down to this day. This generous patron saint eventually became a classic symbol of Chinese culture. Ancient and modern paintings of Zhong Kui have no been gathered together in one book. Portraits of Zhong Kui by Timeless Masters includes 120 high-definition Zhong Kui paintings of 97 ancient and modern masters, such as Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi, Li Keran, Zhang Daqian, Fan Zeng, Fu Baoshi, etc. Masters of different eras and different painting styles have distinguished themselves, constantly enriching Zhong Kui's image in the long river of history. Not only the subject matter is numerous, the book also includes a variety of works such as vertical axes, fans, and lenses. In addition to the paintings, more than 80 abstracts and inscriptions from different dynasties included in this book, as important textual supplements, will follow the history of the trace of Zhong Kui.
Critical Issues in Caribbean Museums
Critical Issues in Caribbean Museums examines the challenges faced within the field of Caribbean Museology. Museums are sites of heritage management and, within Caribbean contexts, essential spaces for examination of post-colonial relationships to past disenfranchisement.
Mobile Heritage
This book explores how diverse digital technologies have allowed for new types of heritage-related mobilities, and thereby established a novel set of practices, interventions, and politics in heritage collections, archives, exhibitions, entertainment, preservation, management, commerce, education, restitution, activism, and regulation.
Avant-Garde
This stunning exhibition catalog celebrates Max Liebermann, the pioneering figure of German Impressionism, whose own painting and artistic leadership transformed the nation's cultural landscape. As a groundbreaking painter and head of the Berlin Secession, Max Liebermann championed modernism and introduced French Impressionism to the German Empire. His influence reached far beyond Berlin, sparking a diverse movement that flourished in cities such as Dresden, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, and Munich. Focusing on Liebermann's life and legacy, the catalog also examines his achievements as a collector and advocate for the avant-garde. It showcases his celebrated masterpieces alongside works by prominent peers such as Max Slevogt and Lovis Corinth, as well as contributions from more underappreciated figures including Gotthardt Kuehl, Maria Slavona, Lesser Ury, and Fritz von Uhde. With numerous chapter introductions and five longer research essays, the book offers a wide-ranging perspective, including topics such as the artistic exchange between France and Germany; the role of Jewish patrons in fostering Germany's embrace of French art; and the challenges Liebermann faced during the rise of the Nazi regime. Lavishly illustrated and expertly curated, this catalog provides an essential study of Max Liebermann as the central figure of German Impressionism while situating his work within the broader artistic and historical contexts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Unicorn
Take a journey through art history with legend's most popular creature. The unicorn has stimulated the imagination like no other animal. It has been documented in many cultures for centuries. Fascination with it continues to this day. While it might have been appropriated as a cute toy or pop culture icon, the history of the unicorn as a symbol is profound and multi-layered-- in Western and non-European art, in religion and mythology, in literature, natural science, and medicine. Contributions by Adrien Bossard, Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, Barbara Drake Boehm, Séverine Lepape, Michael Philipp, Annabelle Ténèze and Stefan Trinks trace the unicorn back to the ancient world, to medieval manuscripts, altarpieces, sculptures, cabinets of curiosities, and tapestries. Since the nineteenth century, artists such as Arnold Böcklin, René Magritte, and Rebecca Horn have rediscovered the mythical creature for themselves. For the first time, this publication presents a comprehensive summary of the unicorn's artistic journey from the second millennium BCE to the present day, situating it in the context of art and cultural history.
Eco-Operations
An edited collection of contributions to conversations about the climate crisis and its role in critical discourse. The climate change crisis has become part of aesthetic discourse and critical research in culture and the arts. Future-oriented, ecologically conceived possibilities for action are being explored by artists, curators, and scholars alike. eco-operations addresses these emerging aesthetic ecologies and new technologies of cooperation that both challenge and shape a sustainable future, foregrounding interruptions, ruptures, disconnections, dissonances, exclusions, and allochronism. Moving beyond the concepts of "flow" and "network" as a single, coherent (ecological or technological) system, eco-operations instead emphasizes the frictions within asynchronously running systems. The infrastructures and formats of artistic production and exhibition play a central role here, as they themselves constitute ecosystems that invite and regulate processes of sharing and exchange. Artists and activists are embedded in these ecosystems, in which they simultaneously intervene when searching for alternative ways of creating collaborative practice. Bringing together scholars, artists, writers, and curators, and working across a range of disciplines, eco-operations explores this field of tension between global and local ecologies and aims to speculate on where dissonances imply both creative potential and political challenges. eco-operations features contributions by Dalida Mar穩a Benfield, Ursula Biemann, Lisa Blackmore, Mateo Chac籀n Pino, Lucrezia Cippitelli, T. J. Demos, Sandra Frimmel, Laura Fl籀rez, Lorena Cely, Alexandra Gelis, Liliana G籀mez, Fabienne Liptay, Uriel Orlow, and Dorota Sajewska.
Rhetorics of Value
In Rhetorics of Value, Corinne A. Kratz explores how exhibition design creates and conveys values that have the potential to touch, educate, and engage visitors. Drawing on case studies from the Victoria and Albert Museum, museums in South Africa and Kenya, a Hawaiian resort hotel, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, among others, Kratz shows how exhibits help shape and narrate cultural categories, values, and histories while provoking questions and evoking memories and experiences. She crosses contexts to consider ethnographic, history, and art exhibits in national and community museums and other display settings. Through these examples, Kratz traces how exhibition designers combine objects, texts, images, lighting, audio, space, and narratives to craft a complex, multilayered communicative form that visitors experience as they move through museums. By investigating the relationship between audience reception and exhibition design strategies, Kratz contends that through design, exhibits can shape the ways we know, the stories we tell, and our contours of meaning and engagement.
Napoleonic Objects and Their Afterlives
Two centuries after Napoleon Bonaparte's death, this edited volume brings together a diverse group of historians, art historians, and museum professionals to critically examine the enduring power of visual and material culture in the making of Napoleonic memory. While most discussions surrounding the legendary figure explore his impact on legislative, political, or military reform, this innovative volume explores the global dimensions of the trade in Napoleonic collectibles, art, and relics over time. Representing new avenues of research and scholarship, Napoleonic Objects and their Afterlives investigates the material objects and cultural forms that Napoleon inspired through a range of themes. These include art collecting, the circulation and display of objects, political and imperial symbolism, and the flexibility and ambiguity of Napoleon's enduring legacy. The essays examine how and why, despite his contentious role in contemporary memory, Napoleon continues to escape much historical and popular censure. They explore the ways people have connected with the idea of him: on stage and screen; in museums and galleries; and most intimately of all, by gathering items said to have belonged to him, right down to his toothbrush and locks of his hair. Napoleonic items can be official or personal, serious or comical, luxury or disposable, yet little work has been done to bring together these diverse cultural histories into conversation with one another. With its broad, multi-disciplinary approach, including perspectives from art history, film studies, cultural history, and museum curation, the book provides a deep critical insight into the cult of personality surrounding Napoleon and its effect on our understanding of celebrity culture today and in the future. Includes an additional foreword by Napoleon's biographer, Ruth Scurr, author of In Gardens and Shadows (2021).
Painful Beauty
Winner of the 2024 Charles C. Eldredge Prize by the Smithsonian American Art MuseumShowcases the vibrant practices of Tlingit women's beadworkFor over 150 years, Tlingit women artists have beaded colorful, intricately beautiful designs on moccasins, dolls, octopus bags, tunics, and other garments. Painful Beauty suggests that at a time when Indigenous cultural practices were actively being repressed, beading supported cultural continuity, demonstrating Tlingit women's resilience, strength, and power. Beadwork served many uses, from the ceremonial to the economic, as women created beaded pieces for community use and to sell to tourists. Like other Tlingit art, beadwork reflects rich artistic visions with deep connections to the environment, clan histories, and Tlingit worldviews. Contemporary Tlingit artists Alison Bremner, Chloe French, Shgen Doo Tan George, Lily Hudson Hope, Tanis S'eiltin, and Larry McNeil foreground the significance of historical beading practices in their diverse, boundary-pushing artworks.Working with museum collection materials, photographs, archives, and interviews with artists and elders, Megan Smetzer reframes this often overlooked artform as a site of historical negotiations and contemporary inspirations. She shows how beading gave Tlingit women the freedom to innovate aesthetically, assert their clan crests and identities, support tribal sovereignty, and pass on cultural knowledge. Painful Beauty is the first dedicated study of Tlingit beadwork and contributes to the expanding literature addressing women's artistic expressions on the Northwest Coast.
The Art of Fantasy
The ultimate guide to fantasy character design from renowned illustrator, Meng Zi. This comprehensive manual, packed with breathtaking illustrations, is your key to crafting the most extraordinary beings in the realm of fantasy: it is an essential tool for game and animation designers, hobbyists, art students and teachers alike. Astonishing in detail and staggeringly conceived, Meng Zi's fantasy characters are a masterclass in conceptual design. Whether you're looking for a practical reference or an idea generator, this guide is sure to spark your creativity. Filled with artistic insights and practical exercises, this comprehensive guide will teach you basic anatomical structure, help you to finesse your own design ideas, and then improve your aesthetic prowess through observation and practice.
William Friedkin
Academy Award-winning director William Friedkin, long recognized for his dark, aberrant, visceral films, had a career that spanned more than 60 years, marked by some of the most contentious and compelling successes and failures in American cinema. Among his successes are two very popular and highly regarded films, The French Connection, Oscar winner for best picture, and The Exorcist, both considered classics of their respective genres.Friedkin, who worked his way up in a Chicago television station from mailroom employee to director of local live broadcasts while still in his teens, was determined to make films. This updated, expanded, and final study of Friedkin's work (he died on August 7, 2023) examines his films, from his 1962 documentary, The People Versus Paul Crump, which saved a man from the electric chair, to feature films including The Night They Raided Minsky's, screen adaptations of Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party and the off-Broadway play The Boys in the Band, Sorcerer, The Brink's Job, Cruising, Deal of the Century, To Live and Die in L.A., The Guardian, Rampage, Blue Chips, Jade, Rules of Engagement, and the much-publicized The Exorcist The Version You've Never Seen. New to this third edition are chapters covering The Hunted, screen versions of Tracy Letts's black comedy plays Bug and Killer Joe, the documentary The Devil and Father Amorth, and Friedkin's last film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.This insightful and engaging study of Friedkin's films, which is based on nearly 100 interviews with the director and his colleagues, pays particular attention to the evolution of his cinematic style, his choice of subject material, and his unique vison-fatalistic, violent, realistic-as well as examining each film aesthetically, dramatically, and thematically.
Sumi-E
The pinnacle of Japanese sumi-e painting, from great masters such as Sesshū and Tohaku to fantastical painters such as Shoūhaku and Jakuchū. Sumi-e ink painting is a uniquely Eastern form of painting that originated and developed in China in the 9th century. This book introduces the history of sumi-e painting over a period of approximately 500 years, beginning with the Kamakura and Namboku-cho periods when the form was first being adopted in Japan, and then the Muromachi period when Sesshū and Shūbun were active, and finally the Momoyama and Edo periods when Japanese influences led to the creation of unique works. This book introduces five centuries of ink wash painting through these works, exploring the distinctive qualities of Japanese ink wash painting and considering the role it has played in the history of art in Japan and its significance in the history of Japanese culture.―From the Introduction【Featured Sumi-e Artist/Keyword List】Sesshū Tōyō / Sesson Shūkei / Hasegawa Tōhaku / Kaihō Yūshō / Kanō Motonobu / Kanō Eitoku / Unkoku Tōgan / Hon'ami Kōetsu / Miyamoto Musashi / Kanō Sansetsu / Kanō Tanʼyū / Kusumi Morikage / Tawaraya Sōtatsu / Ogata Kōrin / Hakuin Ekaku / Sengai Gibon / Fūgai Ekun / Ōtsu-e / Soga Shōhaku / Itō Jakuchū / Maruyama Ōkyo / Ike no Taiga / Yosa Buson / Katsu Jagyoku / Gessen / Uragami Gyokudō / Mori Sosen / Mori Tetsuzan / Goshun (Matsumura Gekkei) / Nagasawa Rosetsu / Sakai Hōitsu / Tani Bunchō / Tanomura Chikuden / Yamoto Baiitsu / Sugai Baikan / Watanabe Kazan / Kawanabe Kyōsai / Tomioka Tessai / Yokoyama TaikanColumsWater and Ink: Infinite GradationsThe Zen Kōan and the World of Zen PaintingInk Wash Paintings by a WarriorInk Wash Paintings by Zen PriestsSoga Shōhaku's Ink Wash PaintingsInk Wash Painting Techniques
A Second Wind, Reimagined
A Second Wind is a retrospective arrangement of beautiful new photographs of Jerry Wennstrom's artwork, by Seattle architectural photographer, Andrew van Leeuwen, and earlier pictures spanning a period of over 50 years. The book's 260 pages include rescued images of his destroyed paintings; (in 1979) a creative act of liberation and the turning point of Wennstrom's life where he gave himself to becoming and living the creation by giving away his possession, abandoning the life of a studio painter, and living a monk-like life for over a decade. Representing Wennstrom's "Second Wind" of art, the book also features colorful full-page spreads of the exotic, archetypal carved figures that came later. Wennstrom speaks to the new level of creative freedom by saying in the book; Art abandoned for the meaningful allurement of a higher calling ... and the return to art without compulsion, for no reason at all. Included in the book are many stories -- both art-related and transformational -- written by the author along with "creative responses" by over 50 notables who have been impressed with Wennstrom's works over the decades. Those responses include stories and creative expressions by and of cultural anthropologists Margaret Mead and Jean Houston; Jungian analysts and scholars Marion Woodman, Claire Dunne, and Corwin Fergus; psychologists/drug researchers Ralph Metzner and Christopher Bache; cosmologist Brian Swimme, storytellers Laura Simms and Vi Hilbert; poet David Whyte, artist Deborah Koff-Chapin and visionary financiers Charlie Hess and Vici Robin; the Dalai Lama's Gyuto monks, and even legendary chanteuse Lotte Lenya (of The Threepenny Opera and From Russia With Love fame).
The Mirror’s Heartbeat
What if the key to saving the one you love meant shattering your reality forever?Liora's life changes the moment she discovers the Mirror of Reflections-a portal to a parallel universe where reality twists, and shadows whisper secrets no heart is ready to hear. Drawn into a realm of haunting beauty and chilling truths, she meets Kael, a man whose every heartbeat seems to echo in her chest.But in this mirrored world, nothing is as it seems. As love blossoms between Liora and Kael, she learns that his heart may not be entirely his own-and her reflection in the mirror harbors a dark agenda. Each step into the shadowed universe unravels a devastating truth: every choice she makes shifts the fragile balance between their worlds.When alternate realities begin to collapse, Liora must confront a choice that will redefine love, sacrifice, and destiny. Can she save Kael and her own world, or will her reflection claim everything she holds dear?Suspense-filled and heartbreakingly beautiful, The Mirror's Heartbeat weaves an unforgettable tale of love, betrayal, and the fragile threads that bind two souls across realities. This is more than a story-it's a journey into the depths of the human heart where the lines between reflection and reality blur, and every decision changes everything.Can Liora make the ultimate sacrifice, or will love shatter like broken glass?Dive into The Mirror's Heartbeat now-where every turn of the page is a pulse-pounding step closer to the truth. Buy this book today and experience the heartbeat that will keep you breathless.
