This title looks at Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's 'Circle of Heads', his twelve large bronze animal heads depicting the ancient Chinese zodiac.

alist Peter Watson exposes smuggling and the evasion of customs and national laws--and questions certain practices within and around the venerable art auction house. Using leads provided by the tip, and a huge cache of stolen documents, Watson details genuine experts, tomb robbers, as well as false names and claims, evaluations, despoilation of national treasures, and more. photos.

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool accompanies the first career retrospective of the renowned American artist Barkley L. Hendricks, on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University from February 7, 2008 through July 13, 2008. Hendricks was born in 1945 in Philadelphia. His unique work contains elements of both American realism and postmodernism, occupying a space between the portraitists Chuck Close and Alex Katz and the pioneering black conceptualists David Hammons and Adrian Piper. Hendricks is best known for his life-sized portraits of people of color from the urban northeast. His bold portrayal of his subject's attitude and style elevates the common person to celebrity status. Cool, empowering, and sometimes confrontational, Hendricks' artistic privileging of a culturally complex black body has paved the way for today's younger generation of artists. This richly illustrated book contains 100 color images of paintings created from 1964 to the present. It focuses primarily on the artist's full-figure portraits, as well as lesser known early works and the artist's more recent portal-like landscape paintings. The catalog includes the most comprehensive bibliography on Hendricks to date, a timeline of the artist's life, and an interview with the artist by Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem. It also includes essays by Barkley L. Hendricks, Duke University art historian Richard J. Powell, exhibition curator Trevor Schoonmaker, and Franklin Sirmans, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection.

This volume explores the history of Sotheby's auction house, tracing its beginnings back to 1744. It was in the latter half of the 19th century, when economic instability forced the aristocrats to sell off many of their treasures, that Sotheby's began to lay the foundations of the modern art market. The Sotheby's-Christie's rivalry intensified in the early-1900s and they have been battling it out ever since over the likes of Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet. Lacey takes the reader through the unprecedented boom of the 1980s, when Van Gogh's Irises went for $53.9 million, and examines the catastrophic effects of an inflation still being felt today.

The growing world of animation art comes to life in a guide that details the role of animation art as a representation of popular culture

The Art of the Steal tells the story of several larger-than-life figures - the billionaire tycoon Alfred Taubman; the most powerful woman in the art world, Dede Brooks; and the wily British executive Christopher Davidge - who conspired to cheat their clients out of millions of dollars. It offers an unprecedented look inside this secretive, glamorous, gold-plated industry, describing just how Sotheby's and Christie's grew from clubby, aristocratic businesses into slick international corporations. And it shows how the groundwork for the most recent illegal activities was laid decades before the perpetrators were caught by federal prosecutors.

Celebrate 90+ years of Mickey Mouse with one of the most expansive illustrated publications on the Disney universe: behind-the-scenes shots, rare animation art, and vintage comics trace Mickey's cartoons, his comic adventures, the world of Mickey merchandise and memorabilia, as well as the legendary Mickey Mouse Club.

The lush array of artwork contained in this book shows the evolution of 'The lion king' including character development, animation, and final art. A poetic retelling of the story is woven throughout the visual gallery. The afterword focuses on both the inspirational sources, and the behind-the scenes process.

From January 2005, the Saatchi Gallery, London, will hold an exhibition devoted entirely to painting, opening with works by some of the most influential European artists of our time, followed by works of a newer generation. The Triumph of Painting marks this project and should stand as the definitive book of current art.