Tabea Lurk: Tony Conrad. Video – und darüber hinaus (2015) [German]

“Celebrated as a musician, filmmaker, video and performance artist, Tony Conrad (1940-2016) achieved his breakthrough in 1966 with the experimental film The Flicker. In addition to his film work (including the so called Yellow Movies), his violin performances have also achieved broad recognition. This monograph focuses on about 70 video works produced by the artist since 1977, which previously have not been systematically studied. Beginning from Conrad’s earlier rather materialistic approach, in ‘A Videographic View of the Artist’s Vita’ the text follows the artist’s shift from experimental film to a more image-driven videographic approach. The chapter ‘Last Call for Video’ comments on Tony Conrad’s influential interaction with the Buffalo-based group of appropriation artists. Then ‘Video as Critique of Television’ interrogates the interplay between (video) art and society as a reflection of the telematic culture of the 1980s. The last chapter, ‘Video in Tension with Music’, returns to the beginning of the artist’s career and comments on Tony Conrad’s identity as a musician.”

Publisher Peter Lang, Bern, 2015
Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0
ISBN 9783034320375, 303432037X
450 pages

Publisher
OAPEN
WorldCat

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Hito Steyerl: Circulacionismo. Circulationism (2014) [English/Spanish]

“Using video installations and reflection in essays, Hito Steyerl presents a critical apparatus for analyzing the way in which the images produced by television, cinema and contemporary art are inscribed in a visual and economic regime. These are produced, circulated, distributed and consumed in a framework of audiovisual capitalism and form part of different institutional mechanisms of the art world, including the museum. From this perspective, the images are converted into a vehicle of social relations with an ambivalent status insofar as they are both commodity and means of political statement. A second problem raised by the artist is the truth condition of images. Her work repeatedly makes use of appropriated or poor-quality images, together with documentary-type elements, with the aim of questioning the relationship between documentary, reality and representation.”

This book contains Steyerl’s essays “Too much world: Is the Internet dead?” and “Theodore W. Adorno. Timeline”, and the essay “Weather for Liquidity” by Brian Kuan Wood.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Hito Steyerl: Circulationism held from 27 September 2014 – 1 March 2015 at MUAC in Mexico City which brought together three of her recent works: Adorno’s Grey (2012), Museum as Battlefield (2012) and Liquidity Inc. (2014).

Publisher Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, 2014
Folio MUAC series, 23
ISBN 6070257545, 9786070257544
71 pages

Publisher
WorldCat

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Richard J. Powell: Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century (1997)

“The African diaspora—a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism—has generated a wide array of artistic achievements in our century, from blues to reggae, from the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner to the video installations of Keith Piper. This study of 20th-century black art is the first to concentrate on the art works themselves, and on how these works, created during a major social upheaval and transformation, use black culture both as subject and as context.

From musings on the “the souls of black folk” in early twentieth-century painting, sculpture, and photography to questions of racial and cultural identities in performance, media, and computer-assisted arts in the 1990s, the book draws on the works of hundreds of artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, Wifredo Lam, Jacob Lawrence, Spike Lee, Archibald Motley, Jr., Faith Ringgold, and Gerard Sekoto; biographies of more than 160 key artists provide a unique and valuable art historical resource.

Richard Powell discusses the philosophical and social forces that have shaped a black diasporal presence in 20th-century art. Placing its emphasis on black cultural themes rather than on black racial identity, this book is an important exploration of the visual representations of black culture throughout the twentieth century.”

Publisher Thames & Hudson, London, 1997
World of Art series
ISBN 0500202958, 9780500202951
256 pages

Reviews: Deborah Kempe (Art Documentation 1997), Steven Nelson (Art Journal 1998), Kymberly N. Pinder (Art Bulletin 1999), Elizabeth Harney (Nka 1999), Donna Seaman (Booklist).

Author (2nd ed.)
Publisher (2nd ed.)
WorldCat

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