The endlessly prolific Hans Ulrich Obrist has a new book out this week, titled Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Architects, tracing a series of the artist’s ongoing conversations with artists and designers over the course of his career, including pieces with David Hockney and Marina Abramovic. (more…)
Marina Abramovic has announced that she is preparing to publish her memoirs, due for the fall of 2016. The book will be released in conjunction with the artist’s 70th birthday. “My experiences have always been a big part of my work — they’re the source of everything I do, they’re my inspiration,” Abramovic said in a statement. “I hope that by sharing my story, I can give people the courage to do the things they’re afraid to do in their own lives.” (more…)
DIS has announced the release of a new book, celebrating the oft-maligned form of the #artselfie, and featuring a selection of viewers capturing themselves alongside iconic artworks using their smartphones. The book, available from boutique press Jean Boîte Editions, is available for €19. (more…)
Artist Grayson Perry’s newest book, Playing to the Gallery, is out this month, tracing the artist’s early development and insights into the practice, inspiration and politics behind his unique work. “I firmly believe,” Perry says early in the book, “that anyone is eligible to enjoy art or become an artist – any oik, any prole, any citizen who has a vision they want to share.” (more…)
Cory Arcangel‘s ongoing project Working on My Novel has finally been published in book form, compiled from posts by Twitter users in which they use the phrase “working on my novel. ” “Now that I have a great domain name I can start writing on my novel,” reads the first tweet. (more…)
The London Underground has released a new brochure and map for the Tube, featuring design by artist Rachel Whiteread. The new map design features a series of holes on the front cover, offering snapshots of the routes listed inside. “As a sculptor I cast empty spaces,” Whiteread explained. “It therefore seemed appropriate to make some holes in London which theoretically could be filled up.” (more…)
Cécile Eluard, daughter of surrealist poet Paul Eluard, is interviewed in the Guardian this week, recounting her experiences growing up surrounded by some of the most famous artists of the day, including Max Ernst, Dali, and Pablo Picasso, who would take her to boxing matches. “He never got old,” Eluard says of Picasso. “I never felt the 40-odd years between us. We would go and have a swim in Vallauris, I would come and visit him whenever I liked in his studio in rue des Grands Augustins in Paris. He would show me his little sculptures made of bric-Ã -brac. He was so alive, so earthy, so absolutely not abstract!” (more…)
More information is being released on the upcoming Damien Hirst biography, the Art Newspaper reports. The book, which will see release next year, will include a look at Hirst’s early work curating the now famed show Freeze in London’s docklands, and the Sensation show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. (more…)
Writer Melanie Gerlis summarizes her book Art as an Investment? in the Financial Times this week, which reports on the current interest in the art market by major banking and investment firms, and questions the assurances of its value and use in the market. While often compared favorably to other assets, analysis shows that it is not quite as ideal of a market as some would attest. She writes: “Equating a popular asset with a profitable asset is misleading. From an investment point of view, art seems to be a very fragile prospect.” (more…)
Former Auction House head Simon de Pury has reportedly signed a book deal with St. Martin’s Press after leaving Phillips auction house last year. The book will be “a look inside the auction world in his voice,” says executive editor Jennifer Weis. “Stories, history, the highlights, the problems, everything.” (more…)
Sotheby’s director Philip Hook has unveiled a new guide, welcoming the uninitiated into the often “meaningless” terminology embraced by the institutional art world. Exploring the meaning of overused words like “important” (“historically significant but hard to sell”), Breakfast at Sotheby’s: An A-Z of the Art World offers a look into the language of the commercial art world. “They are words the meaning of which has become twisted by the desire to energize banality, to elevate mediocrity, or simply to make a sale.” (more…)
The Economist profiles the recent release of Geordie Greig’s Breakfast with Lucian, a biography of the famously reclusive painter Lucian Freud. Delving into the artist’s private, occasionally impulsive lifestyle, the book is proffered as an intriguing read, recalling stories of sordid love affairs, and Freud’s notorious gambling streak. (more…)
Damien Hirst has unveiled his latest project, a children’s ABC’s book featuring a letter for letter survey of own work, and a different, corresponding font. The artist spoke with The Guardian this week, discussing the book, his inspirations as a young artist, and his thoughts on “painting like a child.” “The childlike quality of some of Picasso’s drawings is precisely what makes them so masterful and extraordinary; the ability to express complete visions, feelings and portraits through a continuous line.” (more…)
Artist Eric Fischl spoke with the Wall Street Journal this week about his upcoming book, Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas, as well as his career and work. “I thought I was opening up a pretty wide door. I thought that I was offering something I wish had taken a greater hold than it did. Which is that you turn to art to connect to other people, and you connect through common experience and emotional experience and life experience. It’s something that gives form to all the more difficult aspects of our lives.” He says. (more…)
Luc Tuymans, The Summer Is Over (Installation View), via David Zwirner
With a consistency that can almost be regarded as mechanical, 2013 marks another show by Belgian painter Luc Tuymans at David Zwirner in New York. Since joining the gallery in 1994, the Belgian painter has held solo exhibitions in the gallery every two years, and is currently presenting a new series of thematically interwoven works that expound on his sparsely colored, figurative approach, titled The Summer is Over.
