Photography After FrankPhilip Gefter
Aperture, 2009
1597110957, 9781597110952
224 pages
In Photography After Frank, former New York Times writer and picture editor Philip Gefter presents the tale of contemporary photography, starting with a pivotal moment: Robert Franks seminal work in the 1950s. Along the way, he connects the dots of photographys transformation into what it is today. Gefter begins with Franks challenge to the notion of photographys objectivity with the grainy, off-handed spontaneity of The Americans. Next comes the staged document and postmodernisms further challenge to image fidelity. Other themes are photojournalism, the diversity of portraiture, the influence of private and corporate collections on curatorial decisions, and how the market shapes art making. Throughout the book, Gefter deftly connects Franks legacy with the work of dozens of important individual artists who followed in his wake, from Lee Friedlander and Nan Goldin to Stephen Shore and Ryan McGinley. The book includes texts written exclusively for this publication as well as essays drawn from Gefters critical writings, reviews, and even obituaries. Photography After Frank offers a page-turning yet journalistic approach bound to appeal to students and artworld aficionados, alike.
A Thousand Years of Nonlinear HistoryManuel De Landa
Swerve Editions, 2000
0942299329, 9780942299328
333 pages
Following in the wake of his groundbreaking War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, Manuel De Landa presents a radical synthesis of historical development over the last one thousand years. More than a simple expository history, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History sketches the outlines of a renewed materialist philosophy of history in the tradition of Fernand Braudel, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari, while also engaging the critical new understanding of material processes derived from the sciences of dynamics. Working against prevailing attitudes that see history as an arena of texts, discourses, ideologies, and metaphors, De Landa traces the concrete movements and interplays of matter and energy through human populations in the last millennium.
De Landa attacks three domains that have given shape to human societies: economics, biology, and linguistics. In every case, what one sees is the self-directed processes of matter and energy interacting with the whim and will of human history itself to form a panoramic vision of the West free of rigid teleology and naive notions of progress, and even more important, free of any deterministic source of its urban, institutional, and technological forms. Rather, the source of all concrete forms in the West's history are shown to derive from internal morphogenetic capabilities that lie within the flow of matter-energy itself.
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective JoyBarbara Ehrenreich
Macmillan, 2007
0805057242, 9780805057249
336 pages
Drawing on a wealth of history and anthropology, Barbara Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. From the earliest orgiastic Mesopotamian rites to the medieval practice of Christianity as a “danced religion” and the transgressive freedoms of carnival, she demonstrates that mass festivities have long been central to the Western tradition. In recent centuries, this festive tradition has been repressed, cruelly and often bloodily. But as Ehrenreich argues in this original, exhilarating, and ultimately optimistic book, the celebratory impulse is too deeply ingrained in human nature ever to be completely extinguished.
Cabinet of Natural Curiosities: Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri 1734-1765 : Based on the Copy in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The HagueAlbertus Seba, Irmgard Musch, Rainer Willmann, Jes Rust
Taschen, 2001
3822816000, 9783822816004
587 pages
Albertus Seba's "Cabinet of Curiosities" is one of the 18th century's greatest natural history achievements and remains one of the most prized natural history books of all time. Though it was common for men of his profession to collect natural specimens for research purposes, Amsterdam-based pharmacist Albertus Seba had a passion that led him far beyond the call of duty. His amazing, unprecedented collection of animals, plants and insects from all around the world gained international fame during his lifetime. After decades of collecting, Seba commissioned illustrations of each specimen and arranged the publication of a four-volume catalog detailing his entire collection. This superb, complete reproduction is taken from a rare, hand-colored original.
Charley Harper: An Illustrated LifeTodd Oldham, Charley Harper
Ammo Books, 2007
0978607651, 9780978607654
421 pages
Charley Harper was an American original. For over six decades he painted colorful and graphic illustrations of nature, animals, insects and people alike, from his home studio in Cincinnati, Ohio until he passed away in 2007 at the age of 84. Renowned New York based designer Todd Oldham rediscovered Charley's work in 2001, and collaborated closely with him in the ensuing years; combing through his extensive archive to edit and design this stunning monograph. This coffee table tome is a beautiful tribute to Charley Harper's singular style, which he referred to as Minimal Realism.
The nature of order : an essay on the art of building and the nature of the universeBk. 1. The phenomenon of life
Bk. 2. The process of creating life
Bk. 3. A vision of a living world
Bk. 4. The luminous ground.
Christopher Alexander, Center for Environmental Structure
Taylor & Francis, 2002
0972652914, 9780972652919
476 pages
What is happening when a place in the world has life? And what is happening when it does not? In Book 1 of this four-volume work, Alexander describes a scientific view of the world in which all space-matter has perceptible degrees of life, and sets this understanding of living structure as an intellectual basis for a new architecture.
He identifies fifteen geometric properties which tend to accompany the presence of life in nature, and also in the buildings and cities we make. These properties are seen over and over in nature, and in cities and streets of the past, but have all but disappeared in the deadly developments and buildings of the last one hundred years.
The book shows that living structure depends on features which make a close connection with the human self, and that only living structure has the capacity to support human well-being.
The other three volumes of The Nature of Order continue this thesis with three complementary views giving a masterful prescription for the processes which allow us to generate living structure in the world. They show us what such a world must gradually come to look like, and describe the modified cosmology in which "life" as an essential quality, together with our inner connection to the world around us-towns, streets, buildings, and artifacts-are central to a proper understanding of the scientific nature of the universe.
