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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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THE ART OF LOOKING
How to Read Modern and Contemporary Art
Lance Esplund, the art critic for The Wall Street Journal, combines his decades of experience in art criticism with his sensibility as an artist to present the definitive and authoritative introduction to modern and contemporary art.
A hand-signed porcelain urinal. An abstract drip painting. A silent 700 hour performance.
Art has changed since the days of Giotto, Michelangelo, and even Picasso--and many of us are perplexed. Do modern and contemporary artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, and Marina Abramovic represent civilization's highest achievements? Or is something else afoot?
In The Art of Looking, renowned art critic Lance Esplund shows that works of Modern and contemporary art are not as indecipherable as they might seem to be. Nor do they represent a dramatic break from the past. He situates more recent movements in the tradition of art and examines the threads that tie the art of the past to that of the present. For instance, Esplund elucidates the similarities between Picasso and El Greco; between the ancient Egyptian Pyramids and sculptor Richard Serra's monumental Torqued Ellipses. The Art of Looking will open the eyes of viewers who think that contemporary art is obtuse, nonsensical, and irrelevant, as well as the eyes of those who think that the art of the past has nothing to say to our present.
As our expert guide, Esplund has curated a personalized selection of moving and important works, using them as examples to walk the reader through the formal, emotional, and metaphoric experience of art, illuminating how an artist builds and explores a theme. Eager to democratize a genre that can feel inaccessible, Esplund empowers viewers to trust their own eyes, guts, and common sense. With The Art of Looking, readers will have the confidence to evaluate and appreciate galleries and museums for themselves, whether they are looking at a Greco-Roman statue, a Byzantine Madonna, a Rembrandt portrait, a Marina Abramovic performance, or one of Richard Serra's monumental sculptures.
Lance Esplund is an art critic for the Wall Street Journal. Trained as a painter, he has taught at the Parsons School for Design and the New York Studio School. His essays have appeared in Art in America, Harper's, and The New Republic among others. Esplund lives in Milton, Pennsylvania, and Brooklyn, New York.
Art has changed since the days of Giotto, Michelangelo, and even Picasso--and many of us are perplexed. Do modern and contemporary artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, and Marina Abramovic represent civilization's highest achievements? Or is something else afoot?
In The Art of Looking, renowned art critic Lance Esplund shows that works of Modern and contemporary art are not as indecipherable as they might seem to be. Nor do they represent a dramatic break from the past. He situates more recent movements in the tradition of art and examines the threads that tie the art of the past to that of the present. For instance, Esplund elucidates the similarities between Picasso and El Greco; between the ancient Egyptian Pyramids and sculptor Richard Serra's monumental Torqued Ellipses. The Art of Looking will open the eyes of viewers who think that contemporary art is obtuse, nonsensical, and irrelevant, as well as the eyes of those who think that the art of the past has nothing to say to our present.
As our expert guide, Esplund has curated a personalized selection of moving and important works, using them as examples to walk the reader through the formal, emotional, and metaphoric experience of art, illuminating how an artist builds and explores a theme. Eager to democratize a genre that can feel inaccessible, Esplund empowers viewers to trust their own eyes, guts, and common sense. With The Art of Looking, readers will have the confidence to evaluate and appreciate galleries and museums for themselves, whether they are looking at a Greco-Roman statue, a Byzantine Madonna, a Rembrandt portrait, a Marina Abramovic performance, or one of Richard Serra's monumental sculptures.
Lance Esplund is an art critic for the Wall Street Journal. Trained as a painter, he has taught at the Parsons School for Design and the New York Studio School. His essays have appeared in Art in America, Harper's, and The New Republic among others. Esplund lives in Milton, Pennsylvania, and Brooklyn, New York.
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Book
Published 2018-11-27 by Basic Books |
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Book
Published 2018-11-27 by Basic Books |