New @ Haas Art Library, Blinky Palermo: Abstraction of an Era

Yale University Press

Via Yale University Press:

Twenty-one-year-old Peter Heisterkamp began signing his colorful and playful abstract artworks Palermo in 1964, when peers noted his resemblance to the American gangster Frank “Blinky” Palermo. This handsome book—a historical and critical study of Palermo’s painting from the time he entered Joseph Beuys’s now famous class at the Düsseldorf academy in 1964 to his death in 1977—explores his significance for postwar and abstract art.

Call Number: ART N6888.P235 M44X 2008 (LC)

-Chris

New @ Haas Arts Library, Philip Johnson: The Constancy of Change

Via Yale University Press:

Witty, wealthy, and well connected, the architect Philip Johnson was for years the most powerful figure in the cultural politics of his profession.

Owing perhaps to the control he exerted over critiques of his work, few scholarly treatments of Johnson exist. This “unauthorized” account, the first in-depth study to follow his death, constitutes a milestone in the analysis of one of America’s most renowned architects.

Call Number: ART NA737.J6 P57X 2009 (LC)

-Chris

New @ Haas Arts Library, Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea

Via Yale University Press:

Once a strategic trading post that channeled the flow of riches and ideas among countries situated along the South China Sea and places as far away as India and Rome, Viet Nam has a fascinating history and an artistic heritage to match it. This lavishly produced catalogue will help introduce English-speaking audiences to Viet Nam’s amazing body of artwork, ranging from the first millennium B.C. to the 18th century.

Call Number: ART REF N7314 .T46X 2009 (LC) Oversize

-Chris

New @ Arts Library, Lichtenstein: Girls

With their golden tresses and enormous eyes, the women who appear in Roy Lichtenstein’s canvases are unmistakable. Following an exhibition of his famous “Girl” paintings at New York’s Gagosian Gallery earlier this year, Yale University Press has published a lavish homage to the great Pop artist’s anonymous women, featuring 22 colour plates, as well as exceptional documentary photographs and pencil sketches.

Less celebrated, but also appearing in the book, is Lichtenstein’s distinctive series of ceramic heads. He began experimenting with sculpture around 1964, demonstrating a knack for the form that was at odds with the insistent flatness of his paintings. It was an unsurprising move for someone who venerated Picasso, an artist who famously worked in ceramics, producing wittily decorated plates, pitchers, and masks.

Roy Lichtenstein: a new dimension in art Telegraph 11/17/08

Call Number: Folio NJ18 L632 A12 2008 (LC)

Read about a recent series of panel discussions on the Yale University Press here.

New @ Arts Library Special Collections, Scrapbooks: An American History

For at least 100 years, Americans have glued, taped, pasted and sewn many of those clues into scrapbooks. What they reveal — and conceal — about their owners is a story Falls Village designer Jessica Helfand tells in ” Scrapbooks: An American History” (Yale University Press, $45).

“Throughout this book, it’s people grabbing what is there on their kitchen table and making sense of it,” Helfand, who is a partner at Winterhouse design firm, and a senior critic at Yale University School of Art. “They grabbed gum wrappers and wrote about what was going on in their lives.”

The Great American ScrapbookTracy O’Shaughnessy Republican-American 11/9/08

Read another review from the Boston Globe here.

Call Number: TR465 H445 2008 (LC) Oversize

New @ Haas Arts Library, Deborah Berke by Tracy Meyers

Featuring 21 projects that span her more than 25 years as an architect, the newly released Deborah Berke provides provocative insight into how one of the world’s true modern architects conceives of and approaches her work—both the projects that have made her famous and many that the public has never seen before.

“We have always pursued ideas done simply and beautifully,” says Berke. “This, of course, feels appropriate given today’s economic situation.” This way of thinking, how Berke seeks to balance visibility with subtlety, permeates all of the firm’s work.

Yale University Press Publishes its First-ever Monograph on a Living American Architect ArtDaily.org 11/3/08

Call Number: NJ18 B4419 M94 2008 (LC) Oversize

More here

-Chris

New @ the A&A, Josep Lluís Sert: the Architect of Urban Design, 1953-1969

The career of Spanish-born architect Josep Lluís Sert (1902-83) began in 1927, when as a student in republican Spain he became an acolyte of Le Corbusier, invited him to Barcelona, then went to Paris to work for him. They shared an interest in painting and were life-long friends, and as a result of this early encounter with his hero, Sert, the subject of a new book from Yale, became a leading figure in Ciam, the Corb-led International Congress of Modern Architecture.

Set in Thrall to the Makeover Thomas Muirhead TBDOnline 8/8/08

Call Number: ART  NA9085  S47  J67X  2008  (LC)

Posted by Chris

New @ the A&A, Wall and Piece by Banksy

Via Random House: “Artistic genius, political activist, painter and decorator, mythic legend or notorious graffiti artist? The work of Banksy is unmistakable, except maybe when it’s squatting in the Tate or New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Banksy is responsible for decorating the streets, walls, bridges and zoos of towns and cites throughout the world.”

More from wikipedia here and check out an interesting discussion of copyright laws as they pertain to Banksy and other graffiti artists here.

Posted by Chris

New at the Arts Library, The Yale building project: the first 40 years

Via Yale University Press: “Conceived by architect Charles W. Moore and begun in the context of social activism and dramatic institutional change during the 1960s, the Yale Building Project has contributed to the education of many of this country’s leading architects, serving as the model for “design-build” programs at universities nationwide. The Yale Building Project: The First 40 Years is the first comprehensive history of this important initiative.”

Yale U. Marks 40 Years of Building Community Scott Carlson Chronicle of Higher Education 8/16/07

More on the building project here and here.

Posted by Chris

New Books @ the Art & Architecture Library

Simulation image, Daisy Chain Twist, 2004-5. Jennifer Steinkamp

Northrup, JoAnne with contributions by Dave Hickey and Dan Cameron. Jennifer Steinkamp. New York: Prestel Verlag & San Jose Museum of Art, 2006.

This monograph on the artist Jennifer Steinkamp jumped off the shelf with its holographic cover. Previously unfamiliar with Steinkamp’s work, the book is a solid introduction to her rather intriguing career as an artist working with digital/computer animation for close to 30 years. Influenced by California Light & Space art (James Turrell, Robert Irwin), experimental film, and a dash of 1960s psychedelia, Steinkamp’s art is an odd combination of a trippy light show and rigorous formal invesitgations of light, space, and technology.

The artist also has a cool website with additional information.

Posted by: Ian M.

New at the A&A Library, Creative Time: The Book

Experimental public art troupe, Creative Time, has published a book and true to form, the book itself is the result of an art installation. Each book cover is a unique display of colors, sounds and weather recorded in New York. The A&A’s copy of the book shows information collected from Battery Park on 9/8/06 at 12:34PM. Find information about the making of the cover and more here.

From the book description: “For more than 30 years, Creative Time has been an avatar of public art in the city, working to engage art and the environment, artists and the public. Creative Time: The Book shows how a single organization made it possible for thousands of artists to present awe-inspiring works that engage, taunt, seduce, enliven, and transform a city.

“Creative Time artworks have been seen in spaces both lofty and modest. Light projections have appeared on the Beaux-Arts entrance to the New York Public Library and from Ground Zero in the now famous Tribute in Light Memorial to 9/11. Signage has popped up on Times Square’s Astrovision screen and along the boardwalks of Coney Island. Music has blasted in Central Park as well as under tunnels in DUMBO, Brooklyn.”

Posted by Chris

Self portrait with cows going home

Aperture

“Hungarian born photographer Sylvia Plachy goes home for the last time in a bitter sweet final parting with her home land. Self Portrait with Cows Going Home, Plachy’s latest book, is a powerful personal memoir told through images and anecdotes about her beginnings in communist Hungary, to her migration to Austria, then New York with her parents and her repeated journeys back to Hungary…Her pictures of her son Adrian Brody on the set of The Pianist, in 2001, are used towards the beginning of the book to paint the picture of Hungary after the revolution.”

Note from Take Great Pictures.comSee photos from the book via the link above and at Aperture.and read it at the Arts Library!

Posted by: Tanya

new books!

Find a list of the Newest Art and Architecture Library books here!