By Ana Elena Mallet “There is design in everything,” declared Clara Porset, one of the most innovative Latin American designers of the twentieth century. Throughout her long career, Porset—who was born in Cuba but spent much of her life in Mexico—pioneered the design of modern interiors and furnishings, succeeding in an era that offered…
Edited by Alicia Legg. With a contribution by Mary Beth Smalley This catalog of 3,260 entries represents The Museum of Modern Art’s holdings of paintings and sculpture, with selected works on paper, through December 21, 1987. The first four editions of a catalog of the whole collection, Painting and Sculpture in The Museum of Modern…
By Robert Venturi Winner of the AIA’s 1996 Classic Book Award (Seventh Annual International Architecture Book Awards) First published in 1966, this remarkable book has become an essential document in architectural literature. As Venturi’s “gentle manifesto for a nonstraightforward architecture” the book expresses in the most compelling and original terms the postmodern rebellion…
To look inside this book, click here. Edited by Thomas J. Lax. With contributions by Doryun Chong, Adrienne Edwards, Kathy Halbreich, Deborah Jowitt, Ralph Lemon, Andre Lepecki, Fred Moten, Okwui Okpokwasili, Katherine Profeta, Will Rawls, and Bartholomew Ryan Ralph Lemon is one of the most significant figures to emerge from New York’s downtown…
Selected for AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers Award Edited by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi. With contributions from Damasia Lacroze and Erica DiBenedetto Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (1923–2014) created an unmistakable and entirely unique body of work, first as a writer and linguist and then in dazzling series of colorful drawings on a multitude of…
Edited by Leah Dickerman and Elsa Smithgall. With contributions by Elizabeth Alexander, Rita Dove, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, Tyehimba Jess, Yusef Komunyakka, Jodi Roberts, Patricia Spears Jones, Natasha Trethewey, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Crystal Williams, and Kevin Young. In 1941, Jacob Lawrence, then just twenty-three years old, made a series of sixty small tempera paintings on…
To look inside this book, click here. By Lucy Gallun Traveling through New Orleans on a cross-country road trip in 1955, the Swissborn photographer Robert Frank snapped a picture of a passing streetcar. The result, Trolley—New Orleans, is a searing image of everyday racism. The streetcar’s riders, framed by the vehicle’s windows, are divided…
Edited by Inés Katzenstein and María Amalia García with Karen Grimson and Michaëla de Lacaze. With contributions by Inés Katzenstein, María Amalia García, Mónica Amor, Irene V. Small. Interview with Luis Pérez-Oramas, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, and Glenn D. Lowry Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction explores the abstract and Concrete art movements that flourished…
Edited by Erica Papernik-Shimizu. With contributions by Erica Papernik-Shimizu and Gloria Sutton Shigeko Kubota was one of the first artists to commit to video in the early 1970s, drawn to its freedom from precedent and its expressive potential. Treating recently introduced portable video equipment like a “new paintbrush,” she interwove conceptual concerns and formal experimentation…
To look inside this book, click here. Edited by Isaac Julien with Cynthia Rose. With contributions by Paul Gilroy, Kobena Mercer, b. Ruby Rich, bell hooks, Mark Nash, Giuliana bruno, Christine Van Assche, Laura Mulvey, and Stuart Hall Riot is an intellectual autobiography of the artist Isaac Julien, whose trail-blazing career has pushed…
Edited by Inés Katzenstein. With a contribution by Julia Detchon Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond brings together a diverse array of artworks whose mobilization of Latin America’s varied histories animates both their politics and their poetics. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The…
Edited by Paola Antonelli, Anna Burckhardt, and Paul Galloway Every interaction in our onscreen lives—with ATMs, vending machines, retail websites, and video calls—takes place through an interface. Sometimes buggy and confusing, sometimes inviting and accessible, these interfaces, like other everyday tools, are seldom the object of critical examination, and often we don’t even notice…
By Jodi Hauptman Over the course of seven decades, the American artist Ellsworth Kelly produced a vast body of work—paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and even an architectural commission—devoted to the investigation of shape and color. His landmark 1951 painting Colors for a Large Wall was the culmination of an extraordinarily productive moment in Kelly’s early career,…
Edited by Ann Temkin and Dorthe Aagesen Created in 1911, Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio would go on to become one of the most influential works in the history of modern art. The painting, which has hung in MoMA’s galleries since 1949, depicts the artist’s studio in the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, filled with…
By Carolyn Lanchner Unique among the pioneers of modern art, Fernand Léger adopted the trappings of modernity as a primary subject of his work. This newer addition to the MoMA Artist Series features ten paintings selected from The Museum of Modern Art’s substantial Léger collection. Together they trace the artist’s career, illustrating his early…
By Carolyn Lanchner Robert Rauschenberg revolutionized postwar modernism with his experimental approach to the materials and content of art, setting the scene for Pop art, Conceptualism, and other movements that emerged in the 1960s. This book features nine pieces by Rauschenberg selected from The Museum of Modern Art’s substantial collection of his work, including…