art and archaeology – Page 6 – vegetarian in a leather jacket

Monasterboice, County Louth, Republic of Ireland

About seven centuries and 8.5 miles of country roads separate Old Mellifont Abbey from our next stop. The ancient monastic settlement of Monasterboice (Mainistir Bhuithe, or “monastery of Buithe”) was probably founded in the late 5th or early 6th centuries by St. Boyne (St. Buithe), a follower of St. Patrick whose name is now shared by the nearby river and valley. It was an important religious and intellectual center of Celtic Christianity until Mellifont Abbey and the Cistercian order displaced it in the 12th century. Now primarily a cemetery encircled by a low, stone wall, the site includes the remains of two small churches, an imposing but topless round tower, and enormous, heavily decorated Celtic crosses. From a distance, however, these features tend to be subtly camouflaged amongst the cemetery’s full trees and more recent gravestones. Across the street, a gleaming field of bright yellow rapeseed abuts the parking lot.

Monasterboice’s three medieval High Crosses date from the 10th century. Composed of a circle—representing the sun—overlaying the upper portion of a Roman cross, Celtic crosses are tangible examples of the syncretism that occurred between native traditions and the foreign import of Christianity. Like most religious art of the middle ages, their carvings served a didactic purpose and may have been brightly painted for better legibility. No traces of polychromy now exist, however, so theories concerning their original appearance remain purely speculative.

Monasterboice. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — The North High Cross with reconstructed base, Monasterboice.

The North cross, standing closest to the road, is the simplest, most inconspicuous, and most damaged of the three. Only the upper portion of the original, with a central image of Christ, remains.

The West cross, located closest to the round tower and the ruins of one of the site’s two later churches, is the tallest of the group at 21 ft. Carvings of biblical scenes and abstract patterns envelope its surface, although the details of the figures have largely worn away.

Muiredach’s Cross, Monasterboice. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — Muiredach’s Cross

Nearby stands Muiredach’s Cross, known for its particularly fine and well-preserved carvings featuring scenes from the life of Christ and the Old Testament. It is named for the inscription at its base, which (according to my DK guide) reads: “A prayer for Muiredach by whom this cross was made.” Despite standing at an impressive 18 ft., Muiredach’s Cross seems almost squat next to the slim, taller forms of the Western cross and round tower.

Even without its roof, the site’s 10th or 11th century round tower stands at 110 ft., although it was once significantly taller. Burials raised the ground level of the cemetery, and as a result the tower’s entrance appears to float just above the earth. When it was first constructed, the same opening would have been installed at least 15 feet up, reachable only by ladder.

Narrow, free-standing structures, round towers were used for both storage and protection against Norse invaders, but were only partially effective in either case. In 1097, Monasterboice’s tower went up in flames, and the medieval manuscripts it contained were destroyed.

All photos by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013.

Old Mellifont Abbey, County Louth, Republic of Ireland

Old Mellifont Abbey. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — The 13th century lavabo at Old Mellifont Abbey once contained a fountain for monks to wash their hands.

The ruins of Old Mellifont Abbey lie only 10-15 winding miles from Brú na Bóinne, but attract far fewer visitors. According to Heritage Ireland, a small entrance fee is required. However, the site is open and I must admit that we, not realizing admission was expected, skipped the visitor center and went in for free.

Although the original Anglo-Norman complex was once one of the most magnificent structures in the country and housed, at its peak, around 400 monks, it is now almost completely reduced to ruin. For an imaginative visitor, the foundation is left to map the extensive edifice, while the remaining walls of the octagonal lavabo (washing house) evoke its former grandeur.

Mellifont’s claim to fame rests dually on the unusual, partially preserved lavabo and on its status as the first Cistercian abbey in Ireland. This latter fact is of both religious and architectural historical importance, for with the introduction of a more formal, continental monastic order came a more formal, continental monastic architecture. Mellifont therefore represents the entrance point in Ireland for a style of medieval architecture that, in structure and format, already dominated in Western Europe.

Mellifont (literally, “honey fountain”) traces its origins to the mid-12th century, when Archbishop (later, Saint) Malachy invited over a group of conservative monks from Clairvaux, France in the hope that their presence would encourage less scandalous behavior in the local orders. Finding themselves unwelcome, the French monks returned home before the abbey’s completion. Yet their brief presence was apparently more influential than their departure. Not only did the construction of Mellifont continue, but several more Cistercian abbeys quickly sprung up around it. Eventually, Mellifont served as the central motherhouse for 21 lesser monasteries.

After centuries of influence and power, Mellifont was demolished in the 1500s following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1556, Edward Moore built a fortified manor house using the abbey’s scavenged remains. William of Orange used the location as his headquarters during the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The site was finally abandoned in 1727.

All photos by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013.

Newgrange, Brú na Bóinne, County Meath, Republic of Ireland

After the tour of Knowth, our little group of eight-ish piled into the van and headed back to the rendezvous lot, where we would transfer to another vehicle bound for Newgrange. While the group to Knowth hardly filled a fourth of the van that carried us there, the group to Newgrange could barely fit into two of the same large buses. This disparity in popularity is emblematic of the sites’ relative fame. Between its gleaming wall of quartz and re-enactment of the winter solstice, Newgrange nearly sparkles with tourist readiness and appeal, but loses the intimacy and relative freedom offered by its older neighbor.

Newgrange. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz. — Reconstructed quartz and granite retaining wall, Newgrange

The site consists of a solitary great mound, although smaller satellite graves are visible in the fields across the road.

Small satellite mounds across the road from Newgrange. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — Small satellite mounds across the road from Newgrange

Unlike the primary mounds at both Knowth and Dowth, the tomb at Newgrange contains just one chambered passage, which visitors may enter as part of a guided group. Photography is not allowed inside the tomb, but professional images are readily available on the web, including World Heritage Ireland’s official website.

Newgrange’s interior provides a sense of what the similarly chambered “female” passage at Knowth must have looked like before later changes made it largely impassible. The long narrow tunnel is lined with decorated slate standing stones and opens into a wider room bordered by three niches which once contained cremated remains and burial offerings. The original corbelled ceiling stands intact at a height of about 20 feet.

Entrance to the Newgrange passage with decorated kerbstone and roof box. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — Entrance to the Newgrange passage with decorated kerbstone and roof box

But perhaps Newgrange’s most impressive feature is the play of light that occurs on the winter solstice. From outside, a second, smaller opening is visible above the entrance. Due to the gradual upward slope of the interior passage, this same opening is actually parallel to the floor of the chambered room. Normally this relationship is imperceptible, and the chamber—at least when empty of tourists—remains pitch black. However, for a few days around the winter solstice a beam of light finds its way through the upper passage and falls across the northern niche, lighting the room for a few brief minutes at sunrise. The site offers a lottery each year to allow a small number of visitors the opportunity to experience this phenomenon in person. For those of us not lucky enough to be among the chosen, the tour recreates an abbreviated but still impressive version using artificial light.

Decorated kerbstones, Newgrange. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — Decorated kerbstones, Newgrange

Outside, Newgrange offers a small number of intricately decorated and well-preserved kerbstones. Chief among these is the impressive (and well photographed) entrance stone. Entrance stones are common features of passage tombs, and tend to be large enough to make entry difficult but not impossible. They were probably intended to demarcate the boundary of the tomb, signifying the divide between the dead and the living, the sacred and the profane.

View of Knowth from Newgrange. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — View of Knowth

All photographs by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013, unless otherwise stated.

Knowth, Brú na Bóinne, County Meath, Republic of Ireland

Knowth, Brú na Bóinne, County Meath, Ireland. Panorama by Joshua Albers, May 24, 2013.

At the end of May, Josh and I took an eight day trip to Ireland. We emerged, windswept and damp, with over 5,000 photographs, which I have since whittled down to more reasonable, post-sized selections.

The art and history of Ireland are outside my particular expertise, so the information included in these posts has been culled from guidebooks (DK and Lonely Planet), related websites, our many lovely guides, and a variety of materials provided at the sites themselves.

Passage tombs at Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Passage tombs at Knowth

Our first day outside of Dublin began at Brú na Bóinne, one of the island’s three UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The valley of Brú na Bóinne contains three Neolithic centers—Knowth, Newgrange, and Dowth—each of which possesses a great mound (large passage tomb) and smaller satellite graves. Only Knowth and Newgrange are open to visitors, and these are only accessible through tours provided by the visitor center. Such stringent oversight is unusual in Ireland, but it allows for better preservation of these important, fragile monuments.

Decorated kerbstones at Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013 — Decorated kerbstones at Knowth

Satellite tomb at Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Satellite tomb at Knowth

Knowth is the first stop for those who choose to visit both open sites. Of the three centers, Knowth is the oldest, was utilized for the longest period of time (up to about 1400), and is arguably the most complex.

Knowth’s great mound possesses two entrances (referred to as the “male”/western and “female”/eastern chambers due to their relative shapes), but visitors can only go into a contemporary passage and small exhibition space near the less impressive western passage. Chunks of white quartz and dark, rounded granite are scattered on the ground around both entrances of Knowth, while the same kinds of stones have been reconstructed into supporting walls at Newgrange. This discrepancy is probably more reflective of changes in archaeological practices and philosophy towards reconstruction than a difference in original use and placement at the two mounds.

Entrance to the recently built exhibition space by the western, "male" passage at Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Entrance to the recently built exhibition space by the western, “male” passage at Knowth

Inside the western passage at Knowth. Photo by Joshua Albers, May 24, 2013.

Entrance to the eastern, "female" passage at Knowth. Photo by Joshua Albers, May 24, 2013. — Entrance to the eastern, “female” passage at Knowth. Photo by Joshua Albers, May 24, 2013.

More importantly, Knowth boasts the largest collection of Megalithic art in Europe, most of which is still in-situ. A good sampling can be found on the slabs, or kerbstones, around the base of the central mound, although much of what exists is located in the primary but inaccessible “female” chamber.

Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, 2013. — Decorated kerbstones around the primary mound at Knowth

Knowth also differs from Newgrange in that the site includes a number of smaller satellite passage tombs clustered closely around the central mound.

Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Satellite and primary tombs, Knowth

Inside the entrance to one of several small passage tombs at Knowth (visible concrete added as part of reconstruction). Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Inside the entrance to one of several small passage tombs at Knowth (visible concrete added as part of reconstruction)

Satellite tomb overlooking the Boyne Valley, Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Satellite tomb overlooking the Boyne Valley, Knowth

Although all passage graves contain cremated human remains, it is likely that the great tombs also had additional, ritualistic functions, as suggested by the fact that their passages were tall enough for people to walk through, and each was lit at either a solstice or equinox.

Knowth and Newgrange were also once sites of woodhenges (reconstructed at Knowth), which post-date the mounds by several centuries. Like the large passages, these henges were arranged to correspond to significant dates in the year’s cycle.

Reconstruction of the woodhenge at Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Reconstruction of the woodhenge at Knowth

At both sites, archaeological reconstruction was aided by kerbstones which ring the bottom of most passage tombs; similar large stones line the interior passageways of the primary mounds. Abstract imagery—particularly spirals, circles, and undulating lines—has been engraved into the surfaces of over a hundred of the boulders. It is unclear what, if anything, these “symbols” represent, although they may depict aspects of the landscape, particularly the sun, rivers, hills, and even the mounds themselves.

Decorated kerbstones around the primary mound at Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Decorated kerbstones around the primary mound at Knowth

Stairs climbing the great mound, Knowth. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Stairs climbing the great mound, Knowth

Wind-whipped Josh on Knowth's great mound. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — Wind-whipped Josh on Knowth’s great mound

View of the Boyne Valley from the top of Knowth's great passage tomb. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013. — View of the Boyne Valley from the top of Knowth’s great passage tomb

All photos by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 24, 2013, unless otherwise noted.

Teach Yourself Modern and Contemporary Art Bibliography, Part 2: The Twentieth Century

Fred Tomaselli, Dead Eyed Bird Blast, 1997. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz.

Once again, this bibliography should be understood as in-progress. There are currently some important holes, the most obvious and serious being Fluxus as well as the recent arts of China and Latin America. I hope to add these later.

In addition to checking out some or all of the following books and essays, the most helpful thing anyone can do in increasing their understanding of modern and contemporary art is to go to exhibitions and read the wall labels.

General

Lynn Gamwell. Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science, and the Spiritual. Princeton University, 2002.
This book begins in the mid-19th century and concludes in the early 20th century. It is a great alternative to a regular survey book for those who are particularly interested in the role of science in Modern art. [also listed in the 19th century bibliography]

Nicholas Mirzoeff. “The Multiple Viewpoint: Diaspora and Visual Culture,” in The Visual Culture Reader, Second Edition. Edited by Nicholas Mirzoeff. Routledge, 2002. 204–214.

Helen Molesworth. Part Object, Part Sculpture. Wexner Center for the Arts, 2005.

Alex Potts. The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist. Yale, 2000.
This beautifully produced book covers a broad range of sculpture, but focuses primarily on Western productions from the 20th century. Although the writing is clear enough for the casual reader, the content, which deals with the shifting philosophical underpinnings of sculpture, is more complex than most historical or stylistic surveys.

Joan Rothfuss and Elizabeth Carpenter. Bits and Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole: Walker Art Center Collections. Walker Art Center, 2005.
As one of the pre-eminent museums for contemporary art in the United States, the Walker’s collection catalogue reads as a who’s-who in contemporary art, up to the date of publication. Although not every included artist is equally well represented, the catalogue nonetheless serves as a good introduction to the variety of contemporary practices.

Essay Collections

Hal Foster. The Return of the Real: The Avant-Garde at the End of the Century. MIT Press, 1999.

Salah Hassan and Iftikhar Dadi (eds). Unpacking Europe: Towards a Critical Reading. NAi, 2001.
Among other things, this exhibition catalogue and essay collection serves as a critique of, and counter-point to, the canonical narrative of Western Art.

Rosalind Krauss. Passages of Modern Sculpture. MIT, 1977.
This is a definitive collection of essays and should be read (critically) by anyone with a serious interest in Modern art.

Primitivism

William Rubin. Primitivism in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern. The Museum of Modern Art, 1984.
See also: Thomas McEvilley. Artforum 23 (November 1984): 54–61 and Artforum 28 (March 1990): 19–21. [Artforum essays in Flam and Deutch, Primitivism and 20th Century Art: A Documentary History]

AUSTRIA

Turn-of-the-century Vienna: Secession, Expressionism, and the Wiener Werkstätte
Compared to contemporary movements in France and Germany, Viennese artists are under-represented outside of Austria. For those interested in this period, the small but excellent Neue Museum in New York has a solid collection of art and design, and also periodically hosts related temporary exhibitions. Otherwise, Vienna is the place to go.

Elisabeth Schmuttermeier and Christian Witt-Dörring (eds). Postcards of the Wiener Werkstätte: A Catalogue Raisonné (Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection). Neue Museum, 2010.

Kirk Varnedoe. Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture and Design. The Museum of Modern Art, 1986.

Peter Vergo. Art in Vienna, 1898–1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and Their Contemporaries. Phaidon, 1975.

Viennese Actionists (1960s)
There are even fewer resources on the Viennese Actionists in the US. Exhibitions and other resources are more common in Europe, particularly Austria.

Museum Hermann Nitsch. Hatje Cantz, 2008.

Stephen Barber. The Art of Destruction: The Films of the Vienna Action Group. 2004.

Malcolm Green. Writings of the Vienna Actionists. Atlas, 1999.

FRANCE

Fauvism and Matisse

John Elderfield. The Wild Beasts: Fauvism and its Affinities. The Museum of Modern Art, 1976.
There are larger, more recent books on Fauvism, but Elderfield’s slim volume is still a useful and accessible introduction.

John Elderfield. Henri Matisse: A Retrospective. The Museum of Modern Art, 1992.

Cubism

T. J. Clark, “Cubism and Collectivity,” in Farewell to an Idea. Yale, 1999.

William Rubin, et al. Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism. The Museum of Modern Art, c. 1989.

Brancusi
A number of museums around the country possess works by Brancusi. However, some of the best collections are to be found at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Friedrich Teja Bach, Margit Rowell, and Ann Temkin. Constantin Brancusi. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995.
If you read one book on Brancusi, this should be it. An excellent and far-reaching catalogue of the sculptor’s production.

Athena Spear. Brancusi’s Birds. New York University, 1969.
A closer look at one of Brancusi’s most discussed series of sculpture, covering related topics ranging from Romanian folklore to the importance of the base.

Purism
See also the “Europe Between the Wars” section, below, for related materials.

Kenneth Silver, “Purism: Straightening Up After the Great War,” Artforum 15 (March 1977): 56–63.
There are good books on the subject of Purism, but Silver’s article outlines the basics and is probably all most people will need.

GERMANY AND RUSSIA

Kandinsky, the Blaue Reiter, and the Blue Four

Kandinsky. Guggenheim, 2009.
A well-illustrated catalogue and good survey of Kandinsky’s work.

Vivian Endicott Barnett and Josef Helfenstein (eds). The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Klee in the New World. Dumont, 1997.

Wassily Kandinsky. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Translation and introduction by M.T.H. Sadler. Dover, 1977 [1914].

Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. The Blaue Reiter Almanac, Documents of 20th-Century Art. Viking, 1974 [1965].

German Art Before and After WWI: Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit
See also “Dada” section for other relevant readings.

Max Beckmann. Self-Portrait in Words: Collected Writings and Statements, 1903–1950. Edited by Barbara Buenger. University of Chicago, 1997.

Maud Lavin. Cut with the Kitchen Knife: The Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Hoch. Yale, 1993.

Jill Lloyd. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Royal Academy of Arts, 2003.
This monograph on Kirchner also serves as an accessible introduction to German Expressionism.

Olaf Peters. Otto Dix. Neue Galerie, 2010.

Sabine Rewald, Ian Buruma, and Matthias Eberle. Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity. The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.

Walter Gropius. “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus [1923],” in Art in Theory: 1900–1990. Blackwell, 1993. 130–135.

Russia: Suprematism and Constructivism
I am still waiting for a single accessible, informative, and enjoyable text on Constructivism. However, the movement is too important to the development of later art to exclude.

Yve-Alain Bois. “Lissitsky’s Radical Reversibility,” Art in America 76, 4 (April 1988). 160–181.

Briony Fer. “Metaphor and Modernity: Russian Constructivism,” Oxford Art Journal 12, 1 (1989). 14–30.

Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner. “The Realistic Manifesto,” in The Tradition of Constructivism. Edited by Stephen Bann. Da Capo, 1974.

Maria Gough. “Faktura: The Making of the Russian Avant-Garde,” Res 36 (Autumn 1989). 32–59.

Nina Gurianova, et al. Kasimir Malevich: Suprematism. Guggenheim, 2003.

Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (eds). Art in Theory: 1900–1990. Blackwell Press, 1992. See the manifestos on pages 308–330.

Christina Lodder. Russian Constructivism. Yale, 1984.

Victor Margolin. The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy: 1917–1946. University of Chicago, 1997.

Margarita Tupitsyn. “From the Politics of Montage to the Montage of Politics: Soviet Practice 1919 through 1937,” in Montage and Modern Life: 1919–1942. MIT, 1992.

NETHERLANDS

Mondrian and De Stijl

De Stijl, 1917–31: Visions of Utopia. Walker Art Center, 1981.

Yve-Alain Bois and Angelica Rudenstine. Mondrian: 1872–1944. National Gallery of Art, 1995.

Nancy Troy. The De Stijl Environment. MIT, 1983.

ITALY

Futurism

Italian Futurism 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe. Guggenheim, 2014.

Umbro Apollonio (ed). Futurist Manifestos. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1973.
See especially the manifestos by Marinetti and Boccioni.

Rosalind Krauss. “Analytic Space: Futurism and Constructivism,” in Passages of Modern Sculpture. MIT, 1977.

Christine Poggi. Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism. Princeton University, 2009.

Caroline Tisdall and Angelo Bozzolla. Futurism. Thames and Hudson, 1977.

JAPAN

MAVO

Gennifer Weisenfeld. MAVO: Japanese Artists and the Avant-Garde, 1905–1931. University of California, 2001.

Alexandra Munroe. Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky. Harry N. Abrams, 1994.

INTERNATIONAL MODERNISM

Although Futurism, Cubism, and the Bauhaus gathered together multinational artists or had ramifications outside their countries of origin, they are each still largely associated with Italy, France, and Germany, respectively. In contrast, the following movements are intrinsically international and should be understood as such.

Europe Between the Wars: “The Return to Order”

Emily Braun, et al. Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy and Germany, 1918–1936. Guggenheim, 2011.

Kenneth Silver. “Matisse’s Retour à l’ordre,” Art in America (June 1987), 110–123ff.

Dada

Dorothea Dietrich, et al. Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris. DAP, 2008.

William A. Camfield, Marcel Duchamp: Fountain. The Menil Collection, 1989. 13–61.

Molly Nesbit. “The Language of Industry,” in The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp. Edited by Thierry de Duve. MIT, 1991. 351–384.

Surrealism

André Breton. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Translated by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane. University of Michigan, 1969.
See especially “Manifesto of Surrealism” (1924) and “Second Manifesto of Surrealism” (1930).

Hal Foster. Compulsive Beauty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993.

Rosalind Krauss and Jane Livingston. L’Amour fou: Photography and Surrealism. Arts Council of Great Britain, 1986.

Frances Morris (ed). Louise Bourgeois. Rizzoli, 2008.

Jennifer Mundy (ed). Surrealism: Desire Unbound. Tate, 2001.

Michael R. Taylor. Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2009.
This exhibition catalogue focuses on Duchamp’s last and most Surrealistic work, Étant donnés, as well as its relevant context and legacy. Made secretly over the course of 20 years while Duchamp was an ex-patriot in New York, this sculptural installation is well worth the kind of deep analysis it receives here and is an excellent jumping-off point for a broader understanding of Surrealism and Surrealist circles in New York.

AMERICA

Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann. Exiles + Emigrés: The Flight of European Artists from Hitler. LACMA, 1997.

Abstract Expressionism

Emile de Antonio. Painters Painting (1972) [DVD 2010]

Serge Guilbaut. How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art: Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War. University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Michael Leja. Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s. Yale, 1993.

Ann Temkin (ed). Barnett Newman. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2002.

Stephanie Terenzio (ed). The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell. University of California, 1999.

Jeffery Weiss. Mark Rothko. National Gallery of Art, 1998.

Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg: Between AbEx and Pop

Paul Schimmel (ed). Robert Rauschenberg: Combines. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2005.

Jeffery Weiss. Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955–1965. National Gallery of Art, 2007.

Los Angeles
See also The Rise of the Sixties under “Art of the 1960s and 70s.”

Robin Clark (ed). Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface. University of California, 2011.

Rebecca Peabody, et al. Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art, 1945–1980. Getty, 2011.

Native American (U.S. and Canada)

The Spirit Within: Northwest Coast Art from the John H. Hauberg Collection. Seattle Art Museum, 1995.
In this context, I especially recommend Nora Marks Dauenhauer’s essay, “Tlingit At.óow: Traditions and Concepts,” as a window into the role of tradition and traditional objects in Tlingit culture.

Janet C. Berlo and Ruth B. Phillips. “The Twentieth Century: Trends in Modern Native Art,” in Native North American Art. Oxford University, 1998. 208–239.
The line between “Modern” and “Contemporary” art is blurred here, but the emphasis in this chapter is primarily on works that are more in keeping with broader “Contemporary” practices.

Peter Macnair, Alan Hoover, and Kevin Neary. The Legacy: Tradition and Innovation in Northwest Coast Indian Art. University of Washington, 1984.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ART

Africa and the diaspora
See also the “1980–2010: A few biased selections” section for additional readings.

Okwui Enwezor. The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945–1994. Prestel, 2001.

N’Goné Fall and Jean Loup Pivin. An Anthology of African Art: The Twentieth Century. DAP, 2002.

Shannon Fitzgerald and Tumelo Mosaka. A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad. Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, 2003.

The “Return of the Real” in Art of the 1960s and 1970s: Minimalism, Pop, Land Art, Conceptualism, Performance, and their legacies
See also the “Viennese Actionists” section [above].

Donald Judd’s Marfa, Texas/Tony Cragg: In Celebration of Sculpture [2006, DVD].

Richard Serra: The Matter of Time. Bilbao: Guggenheim, 2005.

Thomas Crow. The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent. Harry N. Abrams, 1996.

Corinne Diserens (ed). Gordon Matta-Clark. Phaidon, 2003.
See especially the text by Thomas Crow, pages 7–132.

Jack Flam (ed). Robert Smithson: The Collected Writings. University of California, 1996.

Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann. Yayoi Kusama. Phaidon, 2000.
Covers Kusama’s career from the late 1950s through the 1990s.

Stephen Koch. Stargazer: Andy Warhol’s World and His Films, Second Edition. New York: Marion Boyars, 1985.

Daniel Marzona. Conceptual Art. Taschen, 2006.
A slim and inexpensive volume that offers a good introduction to Conceptual Art and several of the movement’s most notable artists. Consists of a brief historical overview in the introductory essay followed by a series of 2-page spreads, each focusing on a signature work by artists like Marcel Duchamp, Mel Bochner, and Ana Mendieta.

*James Meyer. Minimalism. Phaidon, 2010.
This is an abbreviated version of Meyer’s 2001 book, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties. Informative, well-illustrated, and to-the-point; highly recommended.

Pamela M. Lee. Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s. MIT, 2006.

Anne Rorimer. New Art in the 60s and 70s: Redefining Reality. Thames and Hudson, 2001.

Mark Rosenthal. Joseph Beuys: Actions, Vitrines, Environments. Tate, 2004.

Elizabeth Sussman (ed). Eva Hesse. SFMoMA, 2002.

Elizabeth Sussman and Fred Wasserman. Eva Hesse: Sculpture. The Jewish Museum, 2006.
Although shorter and more limited in scope than the SFMoMA catalogue, Eva Hesse: Sculpture has the advantage of being more easily available than the previous publication, while focusing on Hesse’s most iconic works through a collection of well-illustrated, thoughtful essays.

Eugenie Tsai and Cornelia Butler. Robert Smithson. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2004.
See especially Moira Roth’s interview with Smithson (p. 80-94) and the essays by Thomas Crow and Jennifer Roberts (p. 32-56 and p. 96-103, respectively).

Paul Wood. Conceptual Art. Tate, 2002.
Another slim volume which takes a broad view of conceptual art, and would perhaps be better titled, The Conceptual Basis of Contemporary Art. Regardless, it is a very good introduction to contemporary productions in Europe and the Americas during the 1960s and 1970s.

1980–2010: A few biased selections
In addition to the below, which are mostly monographs, I also find biennial catalogues to be useful references for the major concepts, concerns, and artists of their times. The Venice Biennale is the oldest and most famous of the biennials, and its catalogues are also the easiest to come by. The 1997 Johannesburg Biennial was a pivotal exhibition, both intellectually and politically, but the catalogue is more difficult to find. A review by Carol Becker, originally published in Art Journal, can be found online via Google Books as part of her book, Surpassing the Spectacle.

For those interested in watching artists talk about their work, the Art:21 series—which covers a range of themes and methods from the 21st century—is also very informative. It is available on DVD.

Daina Augaitis. Brian Jungen. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2005.

Jack Bankowsky, Alison M. Gingeras, and Catherine Wood (eds). Pop Life: Art in a Material World. Tate, 2009.

Rainer Crone and Petrus Graf Schaesberg. Louise Bourgeois: The Secret of the Cells. Prestel, 2008.

Thierry de Duve. Jeff Wall: Complete Edition. Phaidon, 2010.

Okwui Enwezor, et al. Contemporary African Art Since 1980. Bologna: Damiani, 2009.

Dana Friis-Hansen, et al. Outbound: Passages from the 90’s. Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 2000.
This well-illustrated catalogue includes short but incisive texts on some of the most sustaining artists of the 1990s (and today), including Janine Antoni, Matthew Barney, Cai Guo-Qiang, Robert Gober, Ann Hamilton, Jim Hodges, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, and Fred Wilson.

Ann Goldstein. Barbara Kruger. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1999.

Eleanor Heartney. Roxy Paine. Prestel, 2009.

Jeff Koons, et al. Jeff Koons. Taschen, 2009.

Takashi Murakami. Super Flat. MADRA, 2000.

Louise Neri (ed). Looking Up: Rachel Whiteread’s Water Tower. Scalo, 1999.
An in-depth look at one of Whiteread’s major works. Highly recommended.

Norman Rosenthal. Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection. Thames and Hudson, 1998.
There has been a lot written on individual YBA artists—including Damian Hirst, Tracey Emin, and Yinka Shonibare—but this is the exhibition that introduced most of them to the US. It is also the exhibition that sparked serious discussion and controversy about public funding and censorship in the arts.

Nancy Spector. Matthew Barney: The Cremaster Cycle. Guggenheim, 2002.

Chris Townsend. The Art of Rachel Whiteread. Thames and Hudson, 2004.
A solid overview of Whiteread’s work up to the date of publication, approximately the first decade of her career.

Interviews, Novels, and Other Writings by Artists, Critics, and Philosophers

Georges Bataille. Story of the Eye. City Lights Books, 1987 [1928].
This is Bataille’s first novel and represents a particularly dark (but illustrative) form of Surreal pornography.

Walter Benjamin. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (Second Version),” in The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, by Walter Benjamin. Edited by Brigid Doherty, Michael W. Jennings, and Thomas Y. Levin. Harvard University Press, 2008. 19–55.

H. P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy. Wheaton: Quest, 1972 [1889]
Emerging near the end of the 19th century, Theosophy was important to a number of early 20th century artists, including Kandinsky, Mondrian, Kupka, and the Futurists. This abridged version of The Key to Theosophy may be useful to those who want a better understanding of one of the philosophical influences of the period or a peek into the zeitgeist of the late 1800s.

Louise Bourgeois. Destruction of the Father, Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews 1923–1997. MIT Press, 1998.

Andre Breton. Nadja. Translated by Richard Howard. Grove Press, 1960 [1928].
Breton was the founder of the Surrealist movement. This autobiographical novel about his encounter and affair with an unstable woman epitomizes the often troubling gender dynamics of Surrealism.

Michael Fried. Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews. University of Chicago, 1998.
See especially “Art and Objecthood (1967),” which critiques Minimalism with a focus on Morris and Judd. Judd’s response to this essay is also an iconic text and represents an important counter-point to Fried’s claims.

Clement Greenberg. Art and Culture. Beacon, 1961.
See especially “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” (p. 3-21).

Ernest Hemingway. A Moveable Feast. Scribner, 2003 [1964].
Hemingway’s account of his time in Paris in the 1920s.

D.H. Lawrence. Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Penguin, 2006 [1928].
Banned in England and the US at the time of its original publication, Lady Chatterley’s Lover vividly illustrates the appeal of primitivism during the early 20th century and its relationship to the changing social landscape brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

Hans Ulrich Obrist. Interviews, Volume 1. Charta, 2003.
Obrist’s list of interviewees reads like a who’s who of contemporary artists, and the interviews themselves are informative.

Gertrude Stein. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Vintage, 1990 [1933].
Despite its name, this is Stein’s own auto-biography written through the eyes of her partner, Alice B. Toklas. As an avant-garde collector and writer, Stein became close to modern figures such as Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso, and her home in Paris often served as a hub for modern artists in the early 20th century.

Unica Zürn. The House of Illnesses. Translated by Malcolm Green. Atlas, 1993 [1977].
Unica Zürn became associated with Surrealist circles through her relationship with Hans Bellmer. This is an illustrated excerpt from Zürn’s Man of Jasmine, and serves as an account of her time in a hospital during a jaundice-induced fever.

Suicide, in life and in art

Stained glass dome in the Chicago Cultural Center. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz. — Stained glass dome in the Chicago Cultural Center

Suicide is like a lump in the throat of those left behind. It indicates the presence of issues that need to be discussed, but also creates a barrier to that discussion. I therefore beg your patience with the awkwardness of this post.

Last week began under the pall of suicide when a performance artist in my husband’s graduate program killed hirself by jumping out of a 5th floor studio window. Out of deference to hir own investment in gender ambiguity and in an attempt to maintain some of hir family’s privacy, I will refer to this student as “M” with the pronouns s/he, hir, and hirself.

I only met M once, but I liked hir and hir work immediately. As a performance artist who integrated hir life and production, s/he came across as outgoing, open, and bold. Performance art is perhaps the most difficult area to make a living in, yet to my eye M had real potential to make a name for hirself in the field.

So even as someone who barely knew hir, learning of M’s apparent suicide was a shock, and the days following have been underscored by sadness and unease at the realization of hir sudden and final absence. As with any unexpected death, one of the first questions after how, where, and when is why. But when we ask that question—especially when no answer is definitively left behind—the most alarming realization is the discovery of how easy it is to come up with reasons why someone in our current environment would choose to die. This is particularly true for an artist who was not only about to graduate into a terrible economy, but who was also openly part of the LGBT population in a society that is almost schizophrenic in its treatment of queer identity.

But the thought that most disturbs me, and that is the most difficult to even mention, is that hir suicide may also have been hir final work. It seems dangerous—even potentially disrespectful—to mention this possibility, and yet it is not as far-fetched as it might first sound. Again, M already self-consciously made work that was synonymous with hir life experience. It also would not be the first time an artist either orchestrated his own death as a final magnum opus or died as a result of a particularly dangerous project. Ray Johnson (whose life and bizarre death are the subject of the documentary, How to Draw a Bunny) and Bas Jan Ader (who disappeared at sea in 1975 while trying to cross the ocean alone in a tiny vessel for his work In Search of the Miraculous) are perhaps the most obvious examples. Finally, and most horrifyingly, at the time that s/he jumped to hir death, M was preparing for a group thesis exhibition which s/he had helped to title Splatter Platter.

Coincidentally, I ended my week at Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection, an exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center dedicated to depictions of death. As exemplified by this show, death as the result of political atrocities or as an abstract subject made visible through memento mori or codified in religious paraphernalia is a relatively common, even comfortable, subject in art and art history. What is much more difficult to breach is the idea of death as art. Even for a field in which self-mutilation and deprivation have become recognized practices for performance artists, this final taboo is one which we dare not broadly acknowledge.

Undoubtedly our collective squeamishness around this subject exists in no small part because public consideration of suicide as a form of practice can too easily fall into encouraging suicide, which, of course, no one wants to do. Yet this most extreme fusion of life and practice appears to be a real phenomenon whether we acknowledge it or not, and one that raises a number of important issues and questions that go to the heart of what it means to direct and shape one’s own life.

I think we are on the brink of having to deal with the subject of suicide in art as something broader than an individual or peculiar occurrence. How we deal with this morally, ethically, legally, emotionally, and practically difficult topic, though, is a complex challenge only the most daring individuals and (eventually) institutions will be willing to take on.

Whatever the circumstances of M’s death, hir abrupt loss represents an all-too-common tragedy, particularly for the friends and family s/he left behind. Right now, perhaps that’s all there really is to say.