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Anthony Fontenot’s book uncovers the surprisingly libertarian heart of the most influential British and American architectural and urbanist discourses of the postwar period, expressed as a critique of central design and a support of spontaneous order. "Non-design" illuminates the unexpected philosophical common ground between enemies of state support, most prominently(...)
Non-design: Architecture, liberalism, and the market
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Anthony Fontenot’s book uncovers the surprisingly libertarian heart of the most influential British and American architectural and urbanist discourses of the postwar period, expressed as a critique of central design and a support of spontaneous order. "Non-design" illuminates the unexpected philosophical common ground between enemies of state support, most prominently the economist Friedrich Hayek, and numerous notable postwar architects and urbanists like Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Reyner Banham, and Jane Jacobs. These thinkers espoused a distinctive concept of 'non-design,' characterized by a rejection of conscious design and an embrace of various phenomenon that emerge without intention or deliberate human guidance. This diffuse and complex body of theories discarded many of the cultural presuppositions of the time, shunning the traditions of modern design in favor of the wisdom, freedom, and self-organizing capacity of the market. Fontenot reveals the little-known commonalities between the aesthetic deregulation sought by ostensibly liberal thinkers and Hayek’s more controversial conception of state power, detailing what this unexplored affinity means for our conceptions of political liberalism. "Non-design" thoroughly recasts conventional views of postwar architecture and urbanism, as well as liberal and libertarian philosophies.
Architectural Theory
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Agnes Martin’s (1912–2004) celebrated grid paintings are widely acknowledged as a touchstone of postwar American art and have influenced many contemporary artists. Martin’s formative years, however, have been largely overlooked. In this revelatory study of Martin’s early artistic production, Christina Bryan Rosenberger demonstrates that the rapidly evolving creative(...)
Drawing the line: the early work of Agnes Martin
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Agnes Martin’s (1912–2004) celebrated grid paintings are widely acknowledged as a touchstone of postwar American art and have influenced many contemporary artists. Martin’s formative years, however, have been largely overlooked. In this revelatory study of Martin’s early artistic production, Christina Bryan Rosenberger demonstrates that the rapidly evolving creative processes and pictorial solutions Martin developed between 1940 and 1967 define all her subsequent art. Beginning with Martin’s initiation into artistic language at the University of New Mexico and concluding with the reception of her grid paintings in New York in the early 1960s, Rosenberger offers vivid descriptions of the networks of art, artists, and information that moved between New Mexico and the creative centers of New York and California in the postwar period. She also documents Martin’s exchanges with artists including Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ad Reinhardt, and Mark Rothko, among others. Rosenberger uses original analysis of Martin’s art, as well as a rich array of archival materials, to situate Martin’s art within the context of a dynamic historical moment. With a lively, innovative approach informed by art history and conservation, this fluidly written book makes a substantial contribution to the history of postwar American art.
Contemporary Art Monographs
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In this book the author offers a critical, philosophical, and historical inquiry into the characteristics and consequences of this consumer subculture. For Azuma, one of Japan’s leading public intellectuals, otaku culture mirrors the transformations of postwar Japanese society and the nature of human behavior in the postmodern era. He traces otaku’s ascendancy to the(...)
Otaku: Japan's Database Animals
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In this book the author offers a critical, philosophical, and historical inquiry into the characteristics and consequences of this consumer subculture. For Azuma, one of Japan’s leading public intellectuals, otaku culture mirrors the transformations of postwar Japanese society and the nature of human behavior in the postmodern era. He traces otaku’s ascendancy to the distorted conditions created in Japan by the country’s phenomenal postwar modernization, its inability to come to terms with its defeat in the Second World War, and America’s subsequent cultural invasion. More broadly, Azuma argues that the consumption behavior of otaku is representative of the postmodern consumption of culture in general, which sacrifices the search for greater significance to almost animalistic instant gratification.
Architectural Theory
Serious play
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This volume shows how postwar designers embraced whimsy and eclecticism in their work, exploring playfulness as an essential construct of modernity. Following World War II, Americans began accumulating more and more goods, spurring a transformation in the field of interior decoration. Storage walls became ubiquitous, often serving as a home's centerpiece. Designers such(...)
Serious play
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This volume shows how postwar designers embraced whimsy and eclecticism in their work, exploring playfulness as an essential construct of modernity. Following World War II, Americans began accumulating more and more goods, spurring a transformation in the field of interior decoration. Storage walls became ubiquitous, often serving as a home's centerpiece. Designers such as Alexander Girard encouraged homeowners to populate their new shelving units with folk art, as well as unconventional and modern objects, to produce innovative and unexpected juxtapositions within modern architectural settings. Playfulness can be seen in the colorful, child-sized furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, who also produced toys. And in the postwar corporate world, the concept of play is manifested in the influential advertising work of Paul Rand.
Design, Periods and Styles
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This third volume brings the study of the photobook fully up to date, with specific exploration of the contemporary, postwar photobook. It covers key themes including the globalization of photographic culture, the personalization of photobooks, the self-publishing boom and the new 'layered' photobook approach.
The photobook : a history, volume III
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This third volume brings the study of the photobook fully up to date, with specific exploration of the contemporary, postwar photobook. It covers key themes including the globalization of photographic culture, the personalization of photobooks, the self-publishing boom and the new 'layered' photobook approach.
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March 2014
Photography Collections
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This monograph presents research by Vienna-based artist Sofie Thorsen (born 1971) on an artistic phenomenon of postwar Austria—sculptures designed by artists for children to play on. Thorsen's works make explicit the connections between abstract sculpture, architecture, urban planning and the aesthetics of play.
Sophie Thorsen : play sculpture
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This monograph presents research by Vienna-based artist Sofie Thorsen (born 1971) on an artistic phenomenon of postwar Austria—sculptures designed by artists for children to play on. Thorsen's works make explicit the connections between abstract sculpture, architecture, urban planning and the aesthetics of play.
Contemporary Art Monographs
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Canadian artist Michael Snow (born 1929) has been a central figure in North American postwar art; his influential films, such as Wavelength, rank alongside those of avant-garde auteurs such as Stan Brakhage and Gregory Markopoulos. Sequences is a complete monograph of Snow's work.
Michael Snow: sequences. A history of his works
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Canadian artist Michael Snow (born 1929) has been a central figure in North American postwar art; his influential films, such as Wavelength, rank alongside those of avant-garde auteurs such as Stan Brakhage and Gregory Markopoulos. Sequences is a complete monograph of Snow's work.
Canadian art
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Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant-Garde explores the extraordinary convergence of artists and other creators in Japan’s capital city during the radically transformative postwar period. Examining works from a range of media--painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, printmaking, video and film, as well as graphic design, architecture, musical composition and dance--this is the(...)
Tokyo 1955-1970: a new avant-garde
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Tokyo 1955–1970: A New Avant-Garde explores the extraordinary convergence of artists and other creators in Japan’s capital city during the radically transformative postwar period. Examining works from a range of media--painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, printmaking, video and film, as well as graphic design, architecture, musical composition and dance--this is the first publication in English to focus in depth on the full scope of postwar art in Japan. Essays by scholars Hayashi Michio and Miryam Sas and curator Mika Yoshitake discuss critical concepts in art and culture at this time, including “graphism,” which manifested itself across various mediums; the development of new sculptural languages; and the “intermedia” tendency that engendered provocative cross-pollination among artistic genres. Masatoshi Nakajima provides an illustrated chronology and Yuri Mitsuda supplies artist biographies.
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From a Nation Torn provides a powerful critique of art history's understanding of French modernism and the historical circumstances that shaped its production and reception. Within art history, the aesthetic practices and theories that emerged in France from the late 1940s into the 1960s are demarcated as postwar.
From a nation torn: decolonizing art and representation in France, 1945-1962
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From a Nation Torn provides a powerful critique of art history's understanding of French modernism and the historical circumstances that shaped its production and reception. Within art history, the aesthetic practices and theories that emerged in France from the late 1940s into the 1960s are demarcated as postwar.
Art Theory
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For a decade, Suburban Nation has given voice to a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and replace the last century’s automobile-based settlement patterns with a return to more traditional planning. This book presents a lively lament about the failures of postwar planning.
Suburbs
September 2010
Suburban nation: The rise of sprawl and the decline of the American dream
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For a decade, Suburban Nation has given voice to a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and replace the last century’s automobile-based settlement patterns with a return to more traditional planning. This book presents a lively lament about the failures of postwar planning.
Suburbs