VANITY FAIR ON ART NOVEMBER 2019
Private View Books
A THOUSAND WORDS Irrepressible voices, overlooked
artists and whispered conspiracies: the new titles speaking volumes by Honey Luard
A
rt publishing trends reect
society’s wider concerns,
driven by exhibition
programming in museums
and galleries across the world, for often
it is these institutions that produce the
landmark publications that re-route art
history. Unsurprisingly therefore, a
number of the best recent titles take up
the challenge of repositioning and
honouring some of the many
overlooked women artists of past years.
The minimalist German artist
Charlotte Posenenske is one such
example, and the book produced by the
American museum Dia Art Foundation
and Koenig Books to accompany Dia’s
recent show is a long overdue tribute to
this important sculptor. Similarly,
Cindy Sherman’s summer exhibition
at the National Portrait Gallery in
London was the opportunity for a
celebration of a masterful image-maker
who, from the very outset, has
challenged perceptions of identity,
gender, age and status. The many
personalities that come to life in
Sherman’s self-portraits—which span
40 years—are the subject of this
elegantly designed and authoritative
catalogue authored by Paul Moorhouse.
The standalone monograph on the
formidable 85-year-old painter, Rose
Wylie, penned by Tate curator Clarrie
Wallis, is a much-awaited homage to
the artist’s years of unwavering
commitment to her métier.
One benet of walking away with an
exhibition catalogue, other than the
fact that you can revisit the show after
you’ve left, is the opportunity for
greater revelations and exploration of
the corners beyond the gallery walls.
Published to accompany the universally
praised exhibition at the Fondation
- Charlotte Posenenske: Work in Progress (Dia Art Foundation and Koenig Books) 2. Cindy Sherman (National Portrait Gallery Publications)
- Rose Wylie by Clarrie Wallis (Lund Humphries) 4. Appearance Stripped Bare: Desire and the Object in the Work of Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons, Even (Phaidon)
- Louise Bourgeois and Pablo Picasso: Anatomies of Desire (Hauser & Wirth) 6. Pablo Picasso: Blue and Rose Periods (Fondation Beyeler and Hatje Cantz)
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Magdalene Odundo:
The Journey of Things is an
example of the very best in book
design. Outmanoeuvring perceived
notions of the catalogue format, this book
enlivens Odundo’s choice of ceramics,
presented earlier this year at The Sainsbury
Centre, Norwich. Modest in size and held
together by elastic, the loose binding
allows for pages of varied opacity, so
that the reproductions often nd
each other in surprising ways.
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DON STAHL POSENENSKE COVER
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