Introduction by David Platzker This vinyl LP is a unique work of art by Gilbert & George on which they revisit their first mature work, The Singing Sculpture from 1969, when they presented themselves as a Living Sculpture singing with a recording of Flanagan and Allen’s Depression-era song “Underneath the Arches.” In a pre-digital…
To look inside this book, click here. Named one of the top 50 Books of 2015 by Design Observer and the AIGA Edited by Eva Respini. With contributions by Walid Raad and Finbarr Barry Flood Walid Raad is one of the leading artists of his generation and an influential voice in art…
To look inside this book, click here. Edited by Klaus Biesenbach and Christophe Cherix. With contributions by Yoko Ono, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Jon Hendricks, Clive Phillpot, David Platzker, Francesca Wilmott, and Midori Yoshimoto Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971 examines the beginnings of Ono’s career, demonstrating her pioneering role in visual art, performance, and…
By Frank Viva This whimsical children’s book by award-winning author and illustrator Frank Viva explores MoMA’s collection through the adventures of Young Frank, an aspiring architect, who lives in New York City with his grandfather, Old Frank, also an architect. Young Frank likes to use anything he finds—macaroni, pillows, toilet paper, shoes—to make buildings…
Edited by Laurence Kardish. With contributions by Laurence Kardish, Kelly Sidley, and Michael T. Taussig Published to accompany a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art’s—Aernout Mik’s first in the United States—this volume is a vivid exploration of the artist’s work and process. Laurence Kardish, former curator in the Museum’s Department of Film, discusses…
Edited by Adam Pendleton with Alec Mapes-Frances, introduction by Stuart Comer, with contributions by Adrienne Edwards, Mario Gooden, Danielle A. Jackson, and Lynne Tillman In his paintings, drawings, and other works, the artist Adam Pendleton calls on a broad range of artistic and cultural currents—including Dada, Minimalism, and Black Power—to explore the ways in…
To look inside this book, click here. By Anne Umland On first encountering Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s diminutive Head (1920), one might wonder whether it is an abstract sculpture, a playful portrait, or a functional object. Indicative of the artist’s pursuit to break down the conventional boundaries between the fine and applied arts, the work…
To look inside this book, click here. By Shamoon Zamir Helen Levitt’s photographs from the 1930s and ’40s are extraordinarily vivid evocations of New York City street life and its protagonists. Capturing evanescent configurations of gesture, pose, and expression, her images reveal the street as surreal theater, and everyday life as art and mystery. The…
By Emily Braun The unexpected encounter of a rubber glove, a green ball, and the head from a classical statue gives rise to one of the most compelling paintings in the history of modernist art: Giorgio de Chirico’s Song of Love (1914). This uncanny image exemplifies what de Chirico called “metaphysical” painting, which creates…
To look inside this book, click here. By Gwen Allen In 1981 Cindy Sherman was commissioned to contribute a special project to Artforum magazine. Given a two-page spread to work with, she chose to explore the erotic centerfold—a standard feature of men’s “lifestyle” magazines ever since it was established by Playboy in the mid-1950s….
To look inside this book, click here. By Leah Dickerman In the mid-1950s Robert Rauschenberg began making what he called “Combines”—radically experimental works that mix paint and other art materials with things found in daily life. These hybrid creations offered a dramatic counterpoint to the gestural abstraction that prevailed in contemporary American painting….
To look inside this book, click here. By Anne Monahan Ten adults—men and women, black and white—fight, flee, or die over the twelve-foot span of American People Series #20: Die as an interracial pair of children cowers unnoticed in their midst. While Faith Ringgold was painting this apocalyptic vision in a Manhattan studio in…
By Diane Radycki Paula Modersohn-Becker painted her last self-portrait in autumn 1907, while she was pregnant with her first child. In the painting she gazes straight at the viewer, holding up two flowers—symbols of the creativity and procreativity of women artists—and resting a protective hand atop her swelling belly. Modersohn-Becker would die three…
To look inside this book, click here. Edited by Paola Antonelli and Michelle Millar Fisher. With contributions by Luke Baker, Anna Burckhardt, Stephanie Kramer, Mei Mei Rado, and Jennifer Tobias Items: Is Fashion Modern? presents 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a profound impact on global culture in the twentieth…
Edited by Laurence Kardish. With contributions by Ulrich Döge, Thomas Elsaesser, Laurence Kardish, Claudia Lenssen, Eric Rentschler, and Werner Sudendorff German cinema from the end of World War I to 1933—the years of the Weimar Republic—is widely appreciated for an Expressionist style of filmmaking characterized by anxiety, distorted narrative, and vivid plays of light…
Edited by Ana Janevski with Lilia Rocio Taboada. With contributions by Brandon Eng, Danielle Jackson, Piper Marshall, Chus Martínez, Jason Moran, Lilia Rocio Taboada, Molly Superfine, Gee Wesley, and Gillian Young. Photographic portfolio by Zoe Leonard When the portable video camera became available in the late 1960s, Joan Jonas was one of the first…