Thoughts on a variety of subjects relevant to art
Over the years, I have read and reread many fascinating books on art and the art market. Below is an annotated bibliography of some of my favorites.
Jim Byrd
- Art and the Power of Placement by Victoria Newhouse. The Monticello Press, 2005.
Newhouse studies the intersection of the spectator and the art object to show that the presentation of art is crucial to its power. Her study is historical in its reach and contemporaneous in its inclusion of recent museum exhibits. A unique and important study.
- Progress in Art by Suzi Gablik. Rizzoli Press, 1977.
Gablik argues that historical movements in art arise from cognitive, moral, and economic realities. For Gablik, contemporary artists have been seduced by the culture of consumerism. They have failed the heroic legacy of modernism.
- Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees by Lawrence Weschler. California Press, 1982.
Weschler’s biography of the artist, Robert Irwin, shows the reader that art can begin with customization of hot rods, as it did for Irwin.
- Pictures and Tears by James Elkins. Routledge Press, 2001.
Elkins asks an unexpected question. We cry at the movies, watching television, and reading books; but we don’t cry when we look at art. Why?
- Pictures of Nothing by Kirk Varnedoe. Princeton Press, 2006.
"What is abstract art good for?" Just as Gombrich argued for Representation in "Art and Illusion", more than 50 years ago, Varnedoe now argues compellingly for the aesthetic value in Abstraction.
- The Psychostrategies of the Avant Garde by Donald Kuspit. Cambridge Press, 2000.
Kuspit asserts that Avant Garde art was a necessary response by individual artists to the threat of engulfment by the crowd formed by the emerging culture of modernity. Kuspit sees the Avant Garde artist as seeking to assert his individuality to transcend the crowd.
- Nothing if Not Critical by Robert Hughes. Knopf Press, 1987.
Hughes is the most articulate art critic of his time. His grasp of art history and how it bears on contemporary art is unmatched. It is all done with a great turn of phrase and sense of humor.
- Transcendental Style in Film by Paul Schrader. Da Capo Press, 1972.
Schrader’s study of the film makers Ozu, Bresson, and Dreyer shows us that these artists moved across cultures toward the same formal style to express the sacred in cinema. A seminal work in the study of cinema.
- Moving Pictures by Anne Hollander. Knopf Press, 1986.
Hollander, the wide-ranging author of Sex and Suits and Seeing Through Clothes marries Northern European painting to modern cinema. Drawn together by their narrative realities, these seemingly disparate art forms describe human life by the same means of light, scale, focus and framing. As always, Hollander is highly original.
- The Power of Images by David Freedberg. Chicago Press, 1989.
Freedberg explores the psychodynamics of the power of all images across forms and cultures. From votive images to vandalized works of art, Freedberg defines our complex response to images.
- Words, Script and Pictures by Meyer Schapiro. George Braziller Press, 1996.
Contemporary art is fraught with the conjunction of pictures and words. First published in 1996, Schapiro's essay remains a foundational and important study of the relationship between pictures and words.
- Writings by Agnes Martin. Cantz Press, 1992.
This collection of writings by Martin reveals an artist of fierce intelligence and radiant humility. If you want to know what art can and should be, read these writings.
"When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life."
- Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before by Michael Fried. Yale Press, 2008.
While researching a book on Caravaggio, Fried could not help but notice the large crowds attending museum exhibits of Photography. In an effort to answer this development, he wrote this book about current photographic practice before finishing his study of Caravaggio. Fried is convinced that Photography, through the widespread practice of large scale prints by numerous photographers, has achieved a categorical transposition as an art form. As a result, Fried believes photography has confronted the issues of theatricality, literalness, and objecthood. With this development, photography has achieved parity with painting. It has left the Salon.
- The Twelve Million Dollar Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson. Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2008.
Many books have been written about the economics of the art market. Thompson's is the single best study to date. It is current and comprehensive.
- The Shock of the New by Ian Dunlop. American Heritage Press, 1972.
Dunlop's critical survey of the important exhibitions of the late 19th and early 20th Century, including the "Salon des Refuses" (1863), the "Armory Show" (1913) and others, acutely conveys the cultural bewilderment that artists like Manet, Matisse and Duchamps engendered in the society of the day. Dunlop's close friend, Bob Hughes, later used the same title to convey his own bewilderment with the art of the late 20th Century in his television series: "The Shock Of The New."