Hillel Schwartz: The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles, 2nd ed. (1996/2013)

The Culture of the Copy is an unprecedented attempt to make sense of the Western fascination with replicas, duplicates, and twins. In a work that is breathtaking in its synthetic and critical achievements, Hillel Schwartz charts the repercussions of our entanglement with copies of all kinds, whose presence alternately sustains and overwhelms us. Through intriguing, and at times humorous, historical analysis and case studies in contemporary culture, Schwartz investigates a stunning array of simulacra—counterfeits, decoys, mannequins, and portraits; ditto marks, genetic cloning, war games, and camouflage; instant replays, digital imaging, parrots, and photocopies; wax museums, apes, and art forgeries, not to mention the very notion of the Real McCoy. Working through a range of theories on biological, mechanical, and electronic repro­duction, Schwartz questions the modern esteem for authenticity and uniqueness. The Culture of the Copy shows how the ethical dilemmas central to so many fields of endeavor have become inseparable from our pursuit of copies—of the natural world, of our own creations, indeed of our very selves.

This updated edition takes notice of recent shifts in thought with regard to such issues as biological cloning, conjoined twins, copyright, digital reproduction, and multiple personality disorder. At once abbreviated and refined, it will be of interest to anyone concerned with proglems of authenticity, identity, and originality.

First published in 1996
Publisher Zone Books, New York, 2013
ISBN 1935408453, 9781935408451
480 pages

Review (Terence Hawkes, London Review of Books, 1997)
Review (Francis Kane, The New York Times, 1997)
Review (Todd Gitlin, Los Angeles Times, 1997)

Publisher
Google books

Download (removed on 2014-3-20 upon request of the publisher)

William C. Wees: Vorticism and the English Avant-Garde (1972)

An early study on the English avant-garde movement.

Publisher University of Toronto Press, and Manchester University Press, 1972
ISBN 0719005043
273 pages

Commentary (Wallace Martin, Contemporary Literature, 1974)
Review (George Waterston, Canadian Literature, 2013)

PDF (106 MB, no OCR)
See also Blast at Monoskop wiki

Herbert Bayer, Walter Gropius, Ise Gropius (eds.): Bauhaus 1919–1928 (1938)

Bauhaus 1919-1928 remains one of the most valuable accounts of the Bauhaus school. The book was published in conjunction with the Museum Of Modern Art exhibition (December 7, 1938-January 30, 1939) and is a point-for-point record of actual programs and projects at the Bauhaus, prepared by Herbert Bayer under the general editorship of Walter Gropius and Ise Gropius and with the collaboration of a dozen other Bauhaus teachers — including Kandinsky, Klee, Feininger, Schlemmer, Itten, Moholy-Nagy, Albers, and Breuer. Rather than a retrospective history, it is a collection of photographs, articles, and notes prepared on the field of action. It may be considered as much a work of the Bauhaus as it is a work about it.

Includes work by all the Bauhaus faculty including Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer, Herbert Bayer, Josef Albers, Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Schlemmer, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe, Anni Albers, Otti Berger, Gunta Stolzl, Max Bill and many others.

The exhibition gave the first comprehensive review of the development of the institute under Gropius (no material from the later Bauhaus was shown). Preparation and technical arrangements were entrusted to Herbert Bayer, paving the way for his own emigration to America shortly afterwards. An accompanying Bulletin was a privilege, sent to members of MOMA. (Source)

Bauhaus 1919-1928
With a Preface by Alfred H. Barr, Jr.
Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1938
224 pages
via Joaquim Moreno, update via MoMA

The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 6, Vol. 5 (Dec 1938): Bauhaus Exhibition
Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1938
8 pages
via David Levine

Publisher
Worldcat

PDF (Book, 42 MB, updated on 2016-9-17)
PDF (Bulletin)