The stairway to the sun & dance of the comets: four fairy tales of home and one of astral pantomime
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"The Stairway to the Sun & Dance of the Comets" brings together two short books, originally published in 1903, by the anti-erotic godfather of German science fiction, Paul Scheerbart. "The Stairway to the Sun" consists of four fairy tales of sun, sea, animals, and storm, each set in a different, fantastical locale: from the giant fever-dream palace of an astral star to a(...)
The stairway to the sun & dance of the comets: four fairy tales of home and one of astral pantomime
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$17.95
(available to order)
Summary:
"The Stairway to the Sun & Dance of the Comets" brings together two short books, originally published in 1903, by the anti-erotic godfather of German science fiction, Paul Scheerbart. "The Stairway to the Sun" consists of four fairy tales of sun, sea, animals, and storm, each set in a different, fantastical locale: from the giant fever-dream palace of an astral star to a dwarf’s glass underwater lair in the jellyfish kingdom. Scheerbart’s sad, whimsical tales provide gentle, simple, though unexpected morals that outline his work as a whole: treat animals as one would treat oneself, mutual admiration will never lead to harm, and if one is able to remember that the world is grand, one will never be sad in one’s own life. "Dance of the Comets", though published as an “Astral Pantomime,” was originally conceived as a scenario for a ballet, and one that Richard Strauss had planned to score in 1900 (and which Gustav Mahler even accepted for the Vienna Opera). Though the project was never realized, Scheerbart’s written choreography of dance, gesture, costume, feather dusters, violet moon hair, and a variety of stars and planets outlines a symbolic sequence of events in which everyone—enthusiastic maid, temperamental king, indifferent executioner, foolish poet—seeks, joins, and in some cases, becomes a celestial body: a “dance” toward higher aspirations and a staging of Scheerbart’s lifelong yearning for a home in the universe.
Critical Theory
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The Space Race was an exhilirating moment in history, alternately frighten-ing, thrilling, awe-inspiring, and ultimately, sublime. Its most enigmatic element was the competition. The Soviets seemed less technologically sophisticated (at least from the American perspective) but in fact won many of the races: first satellite to orbit the earth; first man in space; first(...)
Kosmos: a portrait of the Russian Space Age
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The Space Race was an exhilirating moment in history, alternately frighten-ing, thrilling, awe-inspiring, and ultimately, sublime. Its most enigmatic element was the competition. The Soviets seemed less technologically sophisticated (at least from the American perspective) but in fact won many of the races: first satellite to orbit the earth; first man in space; first unmanned landings on Mars, Venus, and the Moon; first woman in space; most powerful rockets; and, until its recent fiery death, the most long-lived space station to name but a few. The inherent contradictions of the age--the mixture of technologies high and low, of nostalgia and progress, of pathos and promise--are revealed in Kosmos, Adam Bartos's astonishing photographic survey of the Soviet space program. Bartos' fascination with this subject led him to seek out places like the bedroom where Yuri Gagarian slept the night before his history-making flight into space, located in the Baiknour Cosmodrome, the one-time top-secret space complex in the Kazakh desert. Bartos also takes us inside the cockpit of the Merkur space capsule, used to ferry crew members and supplies to the super-secret Almaz orbital space stations, and behind the changing screens cosmonauts used before being fitted for their space suits at Zvezda, the chief manufacturer of Soviet life-support systems. In total, Kosmos presents over 100 of Bartos's photographs, rich with the incongruities of the history, science, culture, and politics of the Space Age.
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November 2001
Photography monographs
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Intrigued and inspired by the neon beer signs on shopfronts in his San Francisco neighborhood, Bruce Nauman created his first neon piece, "Window or wall sign", in 1967. He wanted, he said, to achieve "an art that would kind of disappear - that was supposed to not quite look like art." Light offered Nauman a medium both elusive and effervescent, but one that could also(...)
Contemporary Art Monographs
January 2006, Milwaukee
Elusive signs : Bruce Nauman works with light
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Intrigued and inspired by the neon beer signs on shopfronts in his San Francisco neighborhood, Bruce Nauman created his first neon piece, "Window or wall sign", in 1967. He wanted, he said, to achieve "an art that would kind of disappear - that was supposed to not quite look like art." Light offered Nauman a medium both elusive and effervescent, but one that could also aggressively convey a message. Over the first three decades of his career, Nauman used the medium of light to explore the twists and turns of perception, logic, and meaning with the earnest playfulness that characterizes all his art. "Elusive signs" focuses on the discrete body of Nauman's work that uses neon and fluorescent light in signs and room installations, and includes images of nearly all Nauman's work with light. After "Window or wall sign", Nauman embarked on a series of neons that grappled with the semiotics of body and identity, and with "My name as though it were written on the surface of the moon" (1968), he forces the viewer to contemplate the role of naming in forming identity. Language - signs and symbols - plays an important role in Nauman's art. His later neon works emphasize the neon as a sign, presenting provocative twists of language and offering harsh and humorous sociopolitical commentary in such pieces as "Run from fear, fun from rear" (1972). This series culminates in the monumental, billboard-size "One hundred live and die" (1984), which employs overwhelming scale to bombard the viewer with sardonic aphorisms. In the essays that accompany the images of Nauman's work, Joseph Ketner II of the Milwaukee Art Museum (which originated the exhibit this book accompanies) and critics Janet Kraynak and Gregory Volk analyze the works in light both as a body of work and as an access point to Nauman's entire career.
Contemporary Art Monographs