In this book the author treats art as an action performed by the artist as agent, rather than examining it from the point of view of its audience as contemplators.

Why is this art? The world of contemporary art can seem intimidating, absurd, and self-obsessed, while the sums of money exchanged are baffling. Writing on contemporary art is often tortured and confused, ignoring the important questions: What is contemporary art? How does it relate to money and power? How is it made? Will it survive? To answer these questions, Katya Tylevich and Ben Eastham offer a series of short biographies on eight great works of twenty-first century art by Martin Creed, Barry McGee, Camille Henrot, Marina Abramovic, Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe, Erwin Wurm, Michaël Borremans, and Gregory Crewdson. They follow these paintings, films, installations, experiences, experiments, sculptures, and performances through all the key stages of their existence so far – from the delicate quiet of the studio to the grand chaos of the art world. A funny, engaging, personal guide through the world of art today, My Life as a Work of Art takes as its starting point the only really important thing: the work of art itself.

In a world filled with great museums and great paintings, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the reigning queen. Her portrait rules over a carefully designed salon, one that was made especially for her in a museum that may seem intended for no other purpose than to showcase her virtues. What has made this portrait so renowned, commanding such adoration? And what of other works of art that continue to enthrall spectators: What makes the Great Sphinx so great? Why do iterations of The Scream and American Gothic permeate nearly all aspects of popular culture? Is it because of the mastery of the artists who created them? Or can something else account for their popularity? In Famous Works of Art—And How They Got That Way, John B. Nici looks at twenty well-known paintings, sculptures, and photographs that have left lasting impressions on the general public. As Nici notes, there are many reasons why works of art become famous; few have anything to do with quality. The author explains why the reputations of some creations have grown over the years, some disproportionate to their artistic value. Written in a style that is both entertaining and informative, this book explains how fame is achieved, and ultimately how a work either retains that fame, or passes from the public consciousness. From ancient artifacts to a can of soup, this book raises the question: Did the talent to promote and publicize a work exceed the skills employed to create that object of worship? Or are some masterpieces truly worth the admiration they receive? The creations covered in this book include the Tomb of Tutankhamun, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, El Greco’s The Burial of Count Orgaz, Rodin’s The Thinker, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and Picasso’s Guernica. Featuring more than sixty images, including color reproductions, Famous Works of Art—And How They Got That Way will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered if a great painting, sculpture, or photograph, really deserves to be called “great.”

The first major history of the glamorous art biennial. Biennials have proliferated across the globe since the end of the Cold War and have now stabilized at about 200 a year. While this quintessentially contemporary form has significant roots in the world expositions of the 19th century, Jones argues that the biennial is also the platform for an important new aesthetic shift. Moving away from a focus on visual looking in the mid 20th century, the art world today embraces experience: art fairs give the feel of closeness and spaciousness, crowds, and they engage all our senses, even taste. Jones argues that the dominance of installation art and the simultaneous rise of biennialsor recurring art fairsneed to be examined as joint phenomenamutually reinforcing and linked to specific geo-political and aesthetic conditions. From the rise of tourism to the flows of art commerce, Jones hatches a new way to track the development of international art fairs in nearly every corner of the globe: from the early world fairs of London, Paris, Chicago, and New York to art fairs proper in Venice, Sao Paulo, Havana, Berlin, Lyon, and Beijing, as well as Kassel s Documenta, Whitney Biennial, and moreall explained through a rapidly evolving aesthetics of experience that has never, until now, been addressed in such a substantial way."

How are we to think of works of art? Rather than treat art as an expression of individual genius, market forces, or aesthetic principles, Michael Jackson focuses on how art effects transformations in our lives. Art opens up transitional, ritual, or utopian spaces that enable us to reconcile inward imperatives and outward constraints, thereby making our lives more manageable and meaningful. Art allows us to strike a balance between being actors and being acted upon. Drawing on his ethnographic fieldwork in Aboriginal Australia and West Africa, as well as insights from psychoanalysis, religious studies, literature, and the philosophy of art, Jackson deploys an extraordinary range of references—from Bruegel to Beuys, Paleolithic art to performance art, Michelangelo to Munch—to explore the symbolic labor whereby human beings make themselves, both individually and socially, out of the environmental, biographical, and physical materials that affect them: a process that connects art with gestation, storytelling, and dreaming and illuminates the elementary forms of religious life.

A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

Heidegger and the Work of Art History explores the impact and future possibilities of Heidegger’s philosophy for art history and visual culture in the 21st century. Scholars from the fields of art history, visual and material studies, design, philosophy, aesthetics and new media pursue diverse lines of thinking that have departed from Heidegger’s work in order to foster compelling new accounts of works of art and their historicity.

These books are a modern fitness studio for the brain! A total of 300 diverse puzzles help to keep your mind flexible and train your mental stamina in logical and mathematical thinking. Time and time again, the collection of widely-varied games of mental agility contained in these two volumes will set you new tasks to challenge your grey cells! Accept the challenge posed by these two training programs and discover the fun of finding your own logical path through the puzzle labyrinth! After the global hit Ars Sacra, Rolf Toman and his team embark on a journey once more. The Palace of Versailles and St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican are the outstanding buildings from this epoch. There are undreamed-of jewels in Europe and America, the New World, waiting for discovery. Magnificent libraries, vaults of science or mysterious gardens, skilled works of porcelain and illusionistic painting, to name just a few aspects of this complex epoch. With his passion and meticulousness, photographer Achim Bednorz succeeded to get details in front of his camera that cannot even be seen on the original locally. The photographs that are exclusive for this volume are particularly well-presented in their large format. The author Barbara Borngasser wrote her take on Baroque history to fit, and swiftly takes the reader into the Great World Theater, the Theatrum Mundi. SELLING POINTS: Completely new breath-taking photographs by Achim Bednorz The composition will pull the reader into the book emotionally Completely new texts by the editor of bestseller Ars Sacra (Rolf Toman) Contains the most current scientific knowledge on the topic Lavish layout and high quality look like Ars Sacra 800 photographs

The Work of Art is an essential twenty-first century roadmap for turning your creative work into a thriving business. Featuring brass-tacks useful information for creative entrepreneurs of every skill set, this book covers topics from personal branding, budgeting, and mental health, to guidance on clearing the hurdles that come forth as you rise to steady success. Heidi Luerra is the Founder & CEO of RAW: natural born artists, the world's largest independent arts organization. For almost 20 years, Heidi has worked with artists of all creative genres. Starting her own clothing line at a young age, she earned her business stripes the hard way. Over the past decade, Heidi has grown RAW to a worldwide operation in over 80 cities with over 200k artists in the RAW community (so she's got some stuff to say). Heidi offers no-nonsense advice (because who needs the fluff?), warnings against common creative pitfalls (because we don't have to fall for them), and real step-by-step action guides (because creative success takes planning). Heidi uses her own personal stories and sloppy mistakes (perhaps even oversharing) to demonstrate key lessons for creatives, including patience, persistence and best practices. She also profiles 15 working creative entrepreneurs from an array of artistic fields who have arrived at their own rewarding success. You'll travel along the path of what it really looks like to charge in the direction of your dreams. The Work of Art is cheeky, fun, and as honest as it gets.