Brandon Taylor

"When Constructivism emerged shortly after the Russian Revolution, its central principles concerned structure and efficiency in the work of art and the nature and properties of materials. In a series of eight essays, Brandon Taylor examines the origins of these principles and their extraordinary consequences for the rest of modern art. Even before Constructivism, structure was a vital ingredient in Cubist art. After it, ideas about faktura or the "madeness" of an art object-and about its rational organization-became stock-in-trade for De Stijl in Holland and Art Concret in France and bore decisively on other currents such as Surrealism and abstract art. After 1945, artistic movements including Systems, Kinetic and Minimal Art were all touched by the long reach of Constructivist ideals. Recent art has proved no exception. Taylor shows that casual attitudes to materials, even the collapse of Constructivist ideals, have helped form the artistic tenor of our times"--

"Offering a critical perspective-rather than a traditional survey, this provocative text explores the art of the last twenty years-the latter 1970s, the 1980s, and the first half of the 1990s-in both a thematic and chronological fashion. Using an engaging and approachable style-and an abundance of color illustrations, it takes a long look at dominant tendencies in contemporary art in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, and Russia-and provides a series of challenging view points on the most advanced art forms, themes, and issues."--Amazon

"Since the early 1960s, Burhan Doğançay examines the social, cultural and political transformation of modern and contemporary urban culture through the use of walls. As an urban traveller, he has been tracking walls in various cities across the world for almost half a century. With the guise of an anthropologist, Doğançay examines these surfaces that are open to all manners of contemporary interventions ranging from posters to slogans, and messages with sexual content to newspaper clippings. Doğançay's works with different techniques and styles, are positioned in both a historical and contemporary ground through their incorporation of the icons of popular culture and political symbols. Fifty Years of Urban Walls: A Burhan Doğançay Retrospective stands as an anthology for Doğançay's last 50 years of work. With works that range from small sized pieces to big canvases, and installations that run beyond the walls, to various materials and pursuits, this exhibition unrolls the background to Doğançay's ways of working. The exhibition gathers together 14 distinct series and periods of time with works coming from different collections all over the world. The accompanying catalogue presents images of works along with explanatory texts, which provide different perspectives to his ouevre while documents and photographs on Doğançay's life alludes to his urban traveller identity."--Publisher's website.

"What is form in modern art? How could a work of art achieve its organic life in a world increasingly dominated by mechanism, by new technology? In this new book, Brandon Taylor proposes that biology and the life sciences themselves supplied many of the analogies and metaphors by which modern artists were guided. For the creative giants of the period - Picasso, Miró, Kandinsky, Strzeminski, Dalí, Arp, Motherwell and Pollock, as well as less-known figures such as Taeuber, Erni and Kobro - questions of 'living' form loomed large in studio conversation, in the press, and in the writings of the artists themselves. In a book rich in new research and fresh thinking, a well-known art historian proposes six modalities of organic and vital life that pervade the radical experiments of modern art: the organic , the biomorphic , the ambiguous , the monstrous , the dialectical , and the liquid."--

"Art Today shows how contemporary art of the last three decades has been energized not merely by changing technologies of art-making but by the spread of new museum architecture, by the voice of the critic, and in recent times by the activity of the powerful international curator. Art Today also shows how the dominant narrative of advanced art in the USA and Western Europe has been invigorated by an expanding international network, from the West Coast of America, from Eastern and Central Europe, and more recently from Asia and Africa." "Reviewing the major controversies of the later twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, it also includes a discussion of the impact of the internet and digital art. Generously illustrated in colour and with a timeline, Art Today is ideal for students and gallery-goers looking for a guiding narrative to the most adventurous art of our time."--BOOK JACKET.