GORDON BENNETT

Be Polite™

Aileen Burns & Johan Lundh (Eds.)

Gordon Bennett: Be Polite™ follows the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2016) exhibition of largely unseen works on paper by one of Australia’s most visionary and critical artists, Gordon Bennett (1955–2014). The touring exhibition and publication are the first to present Bennett’s works since his death. Though rarely seen in an exhibition context, Bennett’s sketches, drawing, writings and poems have long formed the foundation of his artistic practice. This unique hardcover publication features selected works comprised of drawings, acrylic/gouache and watercolor paintings surrounding poetry, and essays from the early 1990s to the early 2000s—revealing the artist’s research focus, working methods and ultimately, his ambitions for his work. Also included are three new essays by art historian Ian McLean and curator/arts writers Helen Hughes and Julie Nagam.

Add to your order

LENE BERG

Caroline Ugelstad (Ed.)

What is the difference between reality and fantasy? Lene Berg explores these seemingly mutually exclusive worlds in her films, including 2012’s Kopfkino. The premise is simple: Eight women sit behind a long table, dressed as various female stereotypes, and exchange stories about the fulfillment of their sexual fantasies. Starting with a scripted conversation, the actors perform with no direction, changing and adding details and anecdotes from their own lives. Manifesta 9 curator Katerina Gregos writes “Berg crafts short, witty, incisive, and often humorous filmic stories, using lo-fi means to interrogate the question of history and historiography.” This publication, accompanying the exhibition of Kopfkino and other films at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, features essays from Sabeth Buchmann, Katerina Gregos, and Dieter Roelstraete, among others.

Add to your order

Bernadette Corporation

Eine Pinot Grigio, Bitte

Add to your order

JUDITH BERNSTEIN

Dicks of Death

For over five decades, New York–based feminist artist Judith Bernstein’s most powerful and intense relationship has been with her work. As a graduate student at Yale in the 1960s, she began to use the phallus as a metaphor for feminism and male posturing. This is where Bernstein (b. 1942) became fascinated with explicit graffiti that she discovered in men’s bathrooms, finding inspiration in the raw humor and unedited scrawls. This in-your-face oversized monograph captures the graffiti influences, aggression and humor strongly represented within the body of her work from 1966 to 2016. There’s a gritty and visceral quality to these political drawings. The charcoal works represent an amalgamation of antiwar, feminism and sexuality. The art confronts the viewer with the urgency and complexity of human relationships—issues that perpetually arise and tension that resonate from our origins to today. Includes installation photographs from Alex Zachary Gallery, NY; New Museum, NY; and Hauser & Wirth, London.

Add to your order

HARRY BERTOIA

The Standard Oil Commission

The publication coincides with the exhibition and auction of masterworks by Harry Bertoia from the Standard Oil Commission. In 1974, at the base of Edward Durell Stone’s modernist structure on Chicago’s lakefront, Harry Bertoia composed the largest installation of sounding sculptures. Three large-scale Sonambients, among the best to come to the market, along with a selection of tabletop sculptures and maquettes from the commission make up this historic collection. This volume documents some of Bertoia’s influential public commissions, including the story behind the Standard Oil Commission and its many details.

Add to your order

BETTER THAN DE KOONING

Andreas Baur, Esther Leslie & Marcus Weber (Eds.)

One of the driving forces in 20th-century painting—the process of de- and reconstruction of the image of the human body—is picking up speed once again. The title, Better than de Kooning, refers to a painting made in 2008 by the American artist Peter Saul, whose innovative politpop painting style was nourished by Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, underground comics and political caricature. Presenting over 50 paintings made between 1961 and the present by 14 international artists investigating mass-media influences in their work, this exhibition catalog demonstrates the conceptual interconnections among caricature, comics and 19th- and early 20th-century animated films. With works by Peter Saul, Lee Lozano, Maria Lassnig, Michel Majerus, Dieter Krieg, Tim Berresheim, Jana Euler, Katrin Plavcak, Jon Rafman, Gunter Reski, Matthias Schaufler, Jim Shaw, Amy Sillman and Sue Williams.

Add to your order

Michael Beutler

Pecafil

Add to your order

More from the Black Pocketbook Series

HEIKE BEYER

Scarcely Able to Stand

Fine threads delicately stretch from the white blossoms of a bouquet of flowers across the exhibition space. This is, in fact, a living installation, one that changes with every visit, as petals wilt and the musty smell of decomposing greenery fills the gallery air. German artist Heike Beyer’s contemplative works allow us to “feel immediate welcoming kindness rather than vanitas,” states Catrin Lorch in his review of the installation at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. This hybrid artist book cum catalog documents this site-specific work created only for the exhibition. Beyer’s works are not just about the subject of decoration or the transience and deception of beautiful appearances. Rather, her interest lies in the process of transformation: how forms change as they decay, how memory fades and what remains. Included is a text from Documenta XIII organizer Christine Litz and an interview with curator Kasper König.

Add to your order

BEYOND THE GLOBE

8th Triennial of Contemporary Art U3

Boris Groys (Ed.)

The subject of this year’s 8th Triennial of Contemporary Art Slovenia, curated by internationally renowned philosopher, art critic, and media theorist Boris Groys is the integral nature of cosmic and global processes. The fully illustrated softcover catalog presents photographs of installations, texts, and projects by a variety of contributors including artists, theorists, researchers, and curators, most of whom were born in or work in Lublijana. Organized alphabetically in sections with short texts and explanatory captions, the contributors address a cosmos that is a harmonious, utopian universe, but also uncontrollable and unknown–the source of a specifically modern fear or uneasiness that could be described as “cosmic anxiety.” Together they explore the many possibilities of connection between the artistic and the scientific imagination– cosmos as analysis of sci-fi culture, corporeal immortality and critiques of contemporary technology. Contributors include, Zdenka Badovinac, Jože Barši, Boris Beja, Irena Boric, Blaž Božic, BridA, Chang Tsong-Zung and Gao Shiming plus many more.

Add to your order

BEYOND THE DISPLAY

Phenomenal Art and Design in the 21st Century

Mika Iwasaka (Ed.)

This gorgeous compendium of art installations currently on the forefront of art and technology is a must-have for all art libraries, collectors and artists pushing into this exciting new realm. Illustrated in full-bleed spreads with brief explanatory texts is the work of 59 world-renowned artists currently working in the area of phenomenal art and design. Projects such as WOW’s Bloom Skin (2012), Ryoji Ikeda’s Spectra London (2014), Olafur Eliasson’s Round Rainbow (2005) and Model for a Timeless Garden (2011), Zimoun’s 329 (2013), Troika’s Cloud (2008), Daito Manabe+Motoi Ishibashi’s Particles, Seiko Mikami’s Desires of Codes (2010), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Levels of Nothingness (2009), Random International’s Rain Room (2012) and The Workers’ After Dark (2014), among many others are organized into sections—sound, light, space, wind, sculpture and performance—and demonstrate how physical perception is being elaborated and extended through a variety of virtual technologies.

Add to your order