Art & Design Now
Book Reviews
Our pick of the best art and design releases.
Dennis Hopper Photography 1961-1967
Published by Taschen. £35
Most of us know Dennis Hopper as the actor who was in Easy Rider and Blue Velvet, but for most of his career he was also a keen photographer.
At age 18, Hopper acted alongside James Dean in Rebel without a Cause, and it was Dean who encouraged Hopper to take up photography.
In this book we are treated to a collection of pictures of some of the pop culture movers and shakers of the 1960’s. Martin Luther King, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg, Andy Warhol, and the Grateful Dead all appear in this book.
There a photos of Ike and Tina Turner in the recording studio, John Wayne and James Dean on set, Jane Fonda at the beach, and Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein in his studio.
With a movie-acting career that spanned 5 decades, Hopper’s acting roles were diverse, and saw him playing everything from a Nazi on the Twilight Zone, to a hippy biker in the cult movie Easy Rider. He also was a screenwriter and director.
As well as over 400 photos, there is an introductory essay by friend and gallery curator Tony Shafrazi, a complete biography of Hopper’s acting and directorial roles, and quotes from interviews with Hopper’s famous subjects and friends. We get to see inside the life and work of a fascinating American personality.
London in the Sixties
by Rainer Metzger. Published by Thames & Hudson
Sixties’ London was the world’s hub of pop culture. Powered by youth, affluence and the mass media, its bold, creative spirit attracted an international roster of artists and luminaries in fields from pop music and fashion to literature and the visual arts. While a new aristocracy of rock stars and trendsetters ruled the roost, Pop Art took a witty and detached view of contemporary consumerism, and architecture looked towards a utopian future. This vibrant book paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of this exciting decade, featuring a stellar cast of artists, photographers, musicians, models, writers, designers and architects, including David Hockney, Francis Bacon, David Bailey, The Rolling Stones, Twiggy, Mary Quant, Diana Rigg, and Bridget Riley. The book has over 300 terrific illustrations showing the people and places that made London swing.
From Polaroid to Impossible: Masterpieces of Instant Photography – the Westlicht Collection
Published By Hatje Cantz. £35
When you think of Polaroid you probably think of the instant photos from birthdays and holidays past, but from the start the Polaroid Corporation were keen for professional photographers and artist to use their film too. In the 1960s Polaroid established its Artists Support Program where it traded cameras and film to artists in exchange for their Polaroid prints. In this way, the company amassed a collection that includes works by Ansel Adams, Charles Eames, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, and William Wegman. This book presents some of the highlights of this collection, now housed in the Westlicht Photography Museum in Vienna. There are pictures by almost 150 different artists, from famous names like Robert Rauschenberg and Helmut Newton, to lesser known contemporary artists. There are photographs from every genre and decade of Polaroid films’ existence. It’s a diverse and fascinating collection of images.
Paris: Portrait of a City
Published by Taschen. £45
This hefty book is a stunning visual history of Paris, captured over the past 160 year by some of history’s most famous photographers, from Daguerre to Helmut Newton. The 500 photos, most of them black-and-white, show the transformation of the Paris landscape and the monumental events of the city’s past, from the Paris Commune of 1871, the building of the Eiffel Tower to the riots of May 1968. It also captures more intimate moments: scenes of everyday life in streets, cafes, nightclubs and artists’ ateliers. The book’s editor, Jean Claude Gautrand, is one of France’s leading experts on photography. He spent three and a half years deep in the city’s archives, libraries and private collections, searching for the images for this book. This book, published by Taschen, is part of a series of visual portraits of the World’s greatest cities, other books are dedicated to New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, and London.
The Day of the Peacock: Style for Men 1963-1973
By Geoffrey Aquilina Ross. Published by V&A Publishing. £24.99
The Sixties saw an explosion of creativity and flamboyance in men’s fashion that came to be known as the Peacock Revolution. The Day of the Peacock takes a fascinating look at the shops, designers and celebrities that made it happen, all illustrated with stylish period photos from the V&A’s superb archive.
The Sixties saw profound changes in people’s attitudes and behavior, and this was reflected in the fashions of this turbulent decade. Not since the Dandies of the early 19th century had men been so extravagant in their attire.
The book covers key developments and the personalities involved, and recalls the optimism of the Sixties. There are profiles of designers including Tommy Nutter and Dougie Millings, and boutiques like Granny Takes a Trip, Mr Fish and Hung on You.
The book covers Saville Row tailors, Kings Road boutiques and developments on the High Street. There are great photos of Mick Jagger, Michael Fox, Rod Stewart, David Hockney, George Melly, and others in a variety of stylish outfits.
Geoffrey Aquilina Ross, the author, was at the centre of the London fashion scene in the Sixties, as he was the first men’s fashion editor at Vogue. He knew many of the people in this book and is well placed to tell the history of this period. The text is well written and informative.
Architecture Now! 8
By Philip Jodidio. Published by Taschen.
Architecture Now! 8 is a stylish selection of the latest buildings by the world’s leading architects. The book is truly a global survey, featuring projects from more than 30 countries. The buildings range from homes and corporate headquarters, museums and art centres, to schools, shops and a mosque.
Advances in engineering and computer aided design have allowed innovative and dynamic forms to be built. In the past these would have been impossible to design and test properly, now almost any form can be built, given enough effort and money. This book features some incredible sculptural buildings, like the Design Museum at Holon, Israel, designed by Ron Arad and Terrain Architects spiral tower in Austria.
Other issues shaping design are sustainability and energy consumption, as seen in Norman Foster’s Masdar Institute in Abu Dhabi, and bamboo school buildings in Thailand and Indonesia. Architecture Now! 8 is a snap shot of the latest developments in architecture worldwide.
Growing Up: the Young British Artists at 50
Published by Prestel. £24.99
This book provides a personal, intimate account of the meteoric rise of the Young British Artists, who exploded onto the London art scene in the 1990’s. Acting as their own curators, running their own galleries and staging exhibitions in abandoned warehouses, they created a new model of how to operate as artists, and helped shaped today’s art scene. Now five of the most prominent members of the group— Anya Gallaccio, Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Michael Landy, and Sarah Lucas—are profiled in this collective portrait. Based on personal interviews by Jeremy Cooper and on his years of close observation of the London art world, this book includes his insightful commentary as well previously unpublished photographs and letters. The result is a fascinating combination of biography and art history that both traces the YBAs’ collective legacy and contemplates their individual futures.
The Ruins of Detroit
By Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. Published by Steidl. £78
Marchand & Meffre’s portrait of a once great city’s decline is both sad and fascinating. The book features 186 images of the interiors and exteriors of abandoned factories, schools, office buildings, homes, a dentist’s surgery and a police station, the entire fabric of an industrial society in total ruin. We’re not talking a few empty buildings here, we talking entire neighbourhoods, covering hundreds of acres abandoned and decaying. It is amazing just how fast our man-made environment is reclaimed by nature. The images are like something from a post-apocalyptic movie, a world without people. The large format photographs are beautifully composed and lit, and allow you to take it lots of detail. The book’s foreword gives some of the reasons for Detroit’s decline, the decentralization of the car industry, the white flight to the suburbs, but what is surprising is that the decline started so long ago, some of these buildings were abandoned in the 1950s.
Paul Klee: Life & Work
Published by Hatje Cantz. £45 / €49.80
A comprehensive, illustrative monograph on the artist Paul Klee (1879–1940). This book charts the career of one of the masters of 20th century art. The book illustrates Klee’s work from his early caricature-like drawings, through his abstract colour compositions painted at the Bauhaus in the 1920’s, to the haunting and inventive images he painted in his last years in Bern. His journal entries, teaching notes and letters are used to provide background to the life and work of this thoughtful artist and teacher.
François Berthoud Studio - The Art of Fashion Illustration
Published by Hatje Cantz. £32 / €35
Elegant and erotic: unique illustrations from the world of fashion
Swiss artist François Berthoud (born 1961) is one of today’s most outstanding fashion illustrators. His career started in the fashion capital of Milan in 1982, and soon his stylish fashion illustrations were featuring in magazines such as Vanity and Vogue. His expressive, highly aesthetic linocuts, drip paintings, and computer graphics feature in countless fashion advertising campaigns—from Yves Saint Laurent, Bulgari, Calzedonia, and Ferragamo to Viktor & Rolf and Sonia Rykiel. This book includes sketches and development drawings, allowing the reader to appreciate the whole creative process.
Beckmann & America
Published By Hatje Cantz. £35
Max Beckmann is considered one of Germany’s greatest 20th century painters. A figurative painter throughout his career, his art comes directly from his personal experiences of World War 1, the social and political turmoil of Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s, his exile to Amsterdam and his final emigration to America. Though his work depicts real people and objects, they are actually metaphors, as Beckman seeks to depict hidden meanings of human existence. He saw the world as a vast stage on which the real and the magical, the personal and the societal, were played out simultaneously.
Beckmanns work evolved throughout his career, and was influenced by the art movements of the times, while remaining clearly his own style. Around WW1 his work was influenced by Cubism and Expressionism, in the 1920’s his work was seen as part of the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit). The works featured in this book include paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture from the period he lived in America, from 1947 to 1950, during which he produced a highly expressive and original body of work, in a final burst of creativity.
Living in Morocco
by Barbara & René Stoeltie. Published by Taschen. £8.99
This interior design book features some of the most stunning private homes and traditional hotels in Marrakech, Tanger and the Atlas mountains. Morocco has been popular with rich Europeans since the 19th century, but is most associated with the 1960’s jet set of heiresses, writers and rock stars. The homes featured belong mainly to a variety of wealthy European artists, and designers, but there is one home in the book, belonging to a rural Berber family of modest means.
A 1930’s villa, tiled courtyard houses, and a former pavilion are just some of the homes featured in this book. Highlights include a beautifully restored palace in Medina, and the Marrakech home of legendary American designer Bill Willis. The book’s full-page photographs are stunning, and the text is charming and informative.
To celebrate 25 years in business, Taschen has re-issued some of their most popular titles, including this one, at special low prices. The other titles in the series are Living in Bali, Greece and Mexico.
Groundwaters: A Century of Art by Self-taught and Outsider Artists
By Charles Russell. Published by Prestel
Visionary art, art brut, art of the insane, naïve art, vernacular art, “raw vision”— these are some of the types of art made by self-taught and Outsider Artists. What these artists have in common is that they don’t have an art education, and they produce work that is outside the traditional definitions of fine art. Outsider Art was first recognised in the 19th century by German psychiatrists who appreciated the profound artistic expression in the work of some mental patients. This type of art became know to progressive artists in the early 20th century, who used it, along with children’s’ art and “ethnic” art, as an inspiration for much modern and contemporary art. The influence of outsider is clearly seen in the work of artists from Jean Dubuffet to Tracey Emin.
This book brings together works by twelve of the most influential self-taught artists of the 20th century. Each represents a facet of the outsider art phenomenon, from mental patients like Adolf Wölfli and Martín Ramírez, through vernacular masters like Bill Traylor and Thornton Dial, to artists who seem to be in touch with other worlds, such as Madge Gill and Henry Darger.