Schools, Periods & Styles Books

Seven Days in the Art World

Sarah Thornton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art.

The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion.

In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World

Sharon Waxman

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A journey across four continents to the heart of the conflict over who should own the great works of ancient art

Why are the Elgin Marbles in London and not on the Acropolis? Why do there seem to be as many mummies in France as there are in Egypt? Why are so many Etruscan masterworks in America? For the past two centuries, the West has been plundering the treasures of the ancient world to fill its great museums, but in recent years, the countries where ancient civilizations originated have begun to push back, taking museums to court, prosecuting curators, and threatening to force the return of these priceless objects.

Where do these treasures rightly belong? Sharon Waxman, a former culture reporter for The New York Times and a longtime foreign correspondent, brings us inside this high-stakes conflict, examining the implications for the preservation of the objects themselves and for how we understand our shared cultural heritage. Her journey takes readers from the great cities of Europe and America to Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, as these countries face down the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. She also introduces a cast of determined and implacable characters whose battles may strip these museums of some of their most cherished treasures.

For readers who are fascinated by antiquity, who love to frequent museums, and who believe in the value of cultural exchange, Loot opens a new window on an enduring conflict.

Wall and Piece

Banksy

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Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The collected works of Britain’s most wanted artist.

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 New York’s Metropolitan Museum or Museum of Modern Art.) Banksy is responsible for decorating the streets, walls, bridges and zoos of towns and cites throughout the world.

Witty and subversive, his stencils show monkeys with weapons of mass destruction, policeman with smiley faces, rats with drills and umbrellas. If you look hard enough you’ll find your own. His statements, incitements, ironies and epigrams are by turns intelligent and witty comments on everything from the monarchy and capitalism to the war in Iraq and farm animals.

His identity remains unknown, but his work is prolific. And now for the first time, he’s putting together the best of his work—old and new—in a fully illustrated color volume.

Banksy, real name unknown, was born in Bristol, England.

The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War

Lynn H. Nicholas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

See the movie if you can 3 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

After seeing the documentary movie with the same title, I was anxious to buy the book. The movie is based on the book and generally I find books preferable to movies. In this case, however, I would recommend the movie unless you are an art history major or World War II history buff. The book is a scholarly work with dense writing and extensive footnotes. While I can appreciate such texts, it was not what I was expecting since the movie is so engaging that I sat through it utterly entranced and with an intense desire to learn more.

rape of europe 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

What an eye opener. after reading this book one think the world war II was ment by the Germans to get hold on art only. One can never visit an museum in europe/america/ Argentina/south america/auction houses without thinking: what is the provenance of said article: also robbed / fenced/ stolen? How much blood is on it? Is there not an exhibition in London (March 2008) with stolen art by the Russian (so called reparation payment taken from hidden German wareshouses) this month full with French/Paris school / entarte kunst and more? Comming from France the loot was 28 thousant train wagons(containers)

After reading, one should feel never be save anymore regarding own collection!

Editorial Review:

The cast of characters includes Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering, Gertrude Stein and Marc Chagall--not to mention works by artists from da Vinci to Picasso. And the story told in this superbly researched and at times suspenseful book is that of the Third Reich's war on European culture and the Allies' desperate effort to preserve it. 90 illustrations and photos. 3 maps.

The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

Benjamin Blech, Roy Doliner

Amazon Price: $13.59 List Price: $19.99 Not yet published By: HarperOne

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Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Five hundred years ago Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world—the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.

The Sistine Secrets tells the fascinating story of how Michelangelo embedded messages of brotherhood, tolerance, and freethinking in his painting to encourage "fellow travelers" to challenge the repressive Roman Catholic Church of his time.

"Driven by the truths he had come to recognize during his years of study in private nontraditional schooling in Florence, truths rooted in his involvement with Judaic texts as well as Kabbalistic training that conflicted with approved Christian doctrine, Michelangelo needed to find a way to let viewers discern what he truly believed. He could not allow the Church to forever silence his soul. And what the Church would not permit him to communicate openly, he ingeniously found a way to convey to those diligent enough to learn his secret language."—from the Preface

Blech and Doliner reveal what Michelangelo meant in the angelic representations that brilliantly mocked his papal patron, how he managed to sneak unorthodox heresies into his ostensibly pious portrayals, and how he was able to fulfill his lifelong ambition to bridge the wisdom of science with the strictures of faith. The Sistine Secrets unearths secrets that have remained hidden in plain sight for centuries.

Spectrum 15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (Spectrum (Underwood Books))

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Every Year 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Every year, I pre-order the Spectrum annual, and every year I enjoy it from cover to cover. Some of the most mind blowing artists work is presented in this book every single year. You will not be disappointed.

Another Mind-Blower 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

What can you say at this point? These annuals are an inspiration, a resource, and an accurate read on where the bar is in fantasy, sci-fi, and concept art. A total feast, once again.

Spectrum 15 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This series gets better every year. My favorite artists always appear in each issue, and new artists make the cut, too. As an artist myself interested in fantasy art I find this annual absolutely essential. The color quality of the entries is top notch. SPECTRUM is always inspiring! It makes me work harder!

Editorial Review:

With art drawn from a wide variety of sources — books, graphic novels, video games, films, galleries, and advertising — Spectrum 15 reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantasy art in today’s culture. Featuring over 300 exceptional works by artists from around the globe, this gorgeous full-color collection celebrates a cadre of creators working in every style and medium. Included are luminaries such as Brom, James Gurney, Marc Gabanna, Shaun Tan, and 2008’s Grand Master Award winner, John Jude Palencar.

Linda Nelson Stocks Folk Art: 2009 Desk Calendar

Linda L. Nelson

List Price: $13.99 By: Andrews McMeel Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $74.98

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Linda Nelson Stocks wall calendar 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I have purchased Linda Nelson Stocks calendars yearly for probably about ten years and never tire of the beauty of the country folk art on each page. There has never been a calendar that disappointed me yet.

Perect daily planner 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The most important part of a daily planner is of course, the area's to write in, but what is neglected is a place to keep items of importance. This calendar has 2 flaps attached to the front and back cover so you can slip in notices and items of constant use.
The beauty of the calendar shows American Folk Art, which is lovely but the flexibility and durability of this calendar - with the additional features, make it the one calendar I purchase every year.

Editorial Review:

Linda Nelson Stocks is a renowned folk artist best known for the paintings that graced the Lang Folk Art Calendar for many years. She lives, gardens, and continues to paint in Connecticut.

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art

Don Thompson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock’s drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million?

            Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.

            This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on  interviews with both past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the reader on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, revelatory, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark reveals a great deal that even experienced  auction purchasers do not know.

Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's

R. A. Scotti

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

For what it is worth 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As long as you don't approach the book expecting a definitive summary of 150 years of church history, it's an entertaining and fascinating read. I enjoyed the personal portraits of the characters in the book. It's the first book I read in Kindle, and I suspect I might have enjoyed the printed diagrams of the basilica more than the digital version, which I found difficult to read and impossible to enlarge.

Disappointing 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I am very disappointed in the quality of research and of the prose.
I found it almost impossible to keep myself engaged.

basilica 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Excelent reading for all those interested in the Italian High reinassance, reads like a novel.

Interesting study of the personalities 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Others have pointed out the errors in this book better than I could ... I don't much about building materials and achitecture.

I enjoyed reading this book because of the number of larger than life personalities involved in the construction of St. Peter's: from popes like Julius III and the Medici Popes to Raphael, Michelangelo and the other artists/architects involved in the massive project.

Editorial Review:

It was the splendor---and the scandal---of the age. In 1506

Frank Lloyd Wright The Houses

Alan Hess

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Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Architecture -> Architects, A-Z -> Wright, Frank Lloyd

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Frank Lloyd Wright is not only synonymous with architecture, his name is also synonymous with the American house in the twentieth century. In particular, his residential work has been the subject of continuing interest and controversy. Wright's Fallingwater (1935), the seminal masterpiece perched over a waterfall deep in the Pennsylvania highlands, is perhaps the best-known private house in the history of the world. In fact, Wright's houses-from his Prairie style Robie House (1906) in Chicago, to the Storer (1923) and Freeman (1923) houses in Los Angeles, and Taliesen West (1937) in the Arizona desert-are all touchstones of modern architecture. For the first time, all 289 extant houses are shown here in exquisite color photographs. Along with Weintraub's stunning photos and a selection of floor plans and archival images, the book includes text and essays by several leading Wright scholars. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses is an event of great importance and a major contribution to the literature on this titan of modern architecture.