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The Age of Shakespeare (Modern Library Chronicles)
by Frank KermodeIn The Age of Shakespeare, Frank Kermode uses the history and culture of the Elizabethan era to enlighten us about William Shakespeare and his poetry and plays. Opening with the big picture of the religious and dynastic events that defined England in the age of the Tudors, Kermode takes the reader on a tour of Shakespeare’s England, vividly portraying London’s society, its early capitalism, its court, its bursting population, and its epidemics, as well as its arts—including, of course, its theater. Then Kermode focuses on Shakespeare himself and his career, all in the context of the time in which he lived. Kermode reads each play against the backdrop of its probable year of composition, providing new historical insights into Shakspeare’s characters, themes, and sources. The result is an important, lasting, and concise companion guide to the works of Shakespeare by one of our most eminent literary scholars.
The Age of Spectacle: Adventures in Architecture and the 21st-Century City
by Tom Dyckhoff'A great storyteller . . . you would be hard pushed to find a more knowledgeable or entertaining [guide]' Icon'Such an interesting book . . . I cannot recommend it enough.' Lauren LaverneIn Dubai, a luxury apartment block is built in the shape of a giant iPod. In China, President Xi Jinping denounces the trend of constructing ‘bizarre’ new buildings in wacky shapes and colours. In Cincinnati, celebrity architect Zaha Hadid is paid millions to design a single ‘iconic’ structure – with the hope of single-handedly transforming the region’s ailing fortunes. These incidents are all part of the same story: the rise of the age of spectacle.Over the last fifty years, there has been a revolution in how our cities operate. In The Age of Spectacle, Tom Dyckhoff tells the story of how architecture became obsessed with the flashy, the monumental and the ostentatious – and how we all have to live with the consequences. Exploring cityscapes from New York to Beijing, and from Bilbao to Portsmouth, Dyckhoff shows that we are not just witnessing a new kind of building: we are living through a fundamental transformation in how our urban spaces work. The corporate explosion of the last few decades has fundamentally shifted the relationship between architects, politicians and cities’ inhabitants, fostering innovative new kinds of engineering and design, but also facilitating ill-conceived vanity projects and commercial power-grabs.Timely, passionate and bursting with new ideas, The Age of Spectacle is both an examination of how twenty-first century cities work, and a manifesto for a radically new kind of urbanism. Our cities, Dyckhoff shows, can thrive in the age of spectacle – but only if they engage us not just with dazzling structures, but by responding to the needs of the people who inhabit them.'Engaging . . . The “iconic” building is the most obvious architectural phenomenon of our age yet, somehow, no one has quite done what Tom Dyckhoff does with The Age of Spectacle, which is to tell its story clearly and plainly.' Rowan Moore, Observer'First class. Finally, a book that nails the iconic movement – Tom Dyckhoff’s The Age of Spectacle is the book that I wish I had written.' Simon Jenkins'Unusually accessible [and] well argued.' Evening Standard
The Age of the Avant-garde: 1956-1972
by Hilton KramerHilton Kramer, well known as perhaps the most perceptive, courageous, and influential art critic in America, is also the founder and co-editor (with Roger Kimball) of The New Criterion. This comprehensive book collects a sizable selection of his early essays and reviews published in Artforum, Commentary, Arts Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and The Times, and thus constituted his first complete statement about art and the art world.The principal focus is on the artists and movements of the last hundred years: the Age of the Avant-Garde that begins in the nineteenth century with Realism and Impressionism. Most of the major artists of this rich period, from Monet and Degas to Jackson Pollock and Claes Oldenburg, are discussed and often drastically revaluated. A brilliant introductory essay traces the rise and fall of the avant-garde as a historical phenomenon, and examines some of the cultural problems which the collapse of the avant-garde poses for the future of art. In addition, there are chapters on art critics, museums, the relation of avant-garde art to radical politics, and on the growth of photography as a fine art.This collection is not intended to be the last word on one of the greatest as well as one of the most complex periods in the history of the artistic imagination. The essays and reviews gathered here were written in response to particular occasions and for specific deadlines--in the conviction that a start in the arduous task of critical revaluation needed to be made, not because a critical theory prescribed it but because our experience compelled it!
The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens
by Stephen ApkonAn urgent, erudite, and practical book that redefines literacy to embrace how we think and communicate nowWe live in a world that is awash in visual storytelling. The recent technological revolutions in video recording, editing, and distribution are more akin to the development of movable type than any other such revolution in the last five hundred years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with visual storytelling's grammar, the coded messages of its style, and the practical components of its production. We are largely, in a word, illiterate. But this is not a gloomy diagnosis of the collapse of civilization; rather, it is a celebration of the progress we've made and an exhortation and a plan to seize the potential we're poised to enjoy. The rules that define effective visual storytelling—much like the rules that define written language—do in fact exist, and Stephen Apkon has long experience in deploying them, teaching them, and witnessing their power in the classroom and beyond. In The Age of the Image, drawing on the history of literacy—from scroll to codex, scribes to printing presses, SMS to social media—on the science of how various forms of storytelling work on the human brain, and on the practical value of literacy in real-world situations, Apkon convincingly argues that now is the time to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.
Age of Unreason: The X Gang (The X Gang #3)
by Warren KinsellaThe X Gang must stand up for their beliefs in a changing world. A new face of violence and hate has come to Portland, Maine, and the punks in the X Gang find themselves targeted once again. It is the early eighties, and the youth subculture they have grown up in is changing. Kurt, X, and the others have reluctantly concluded that they are unlikely to ever change the world with their punk anthems, but that injustice is still worth fighting against. The friends lean on each other for the strength to deal with death, addiction, sexism, and racism they see all around them. Meanwhile, the police and the FBI are on the trail of a killer, and a member of the X Gang holds the secret to the fugitive’s sinister motivations. Age of Unreason tells the shocking story of how hatred can become a cause, and how we must stand together against it no matter the cost.
Ageing and Urban Planning (Regions and Cities)
by Matthias Drilling Pamela Suero Hind Al-Shoubaki Fabian NeuhausAgeing and Urban Planning provides a critical analysis of urban planning in the face of demographic change. It emphasises the importance of international approaches and practices to address age-friendly planning. This process requires collaboration between professionals and the community, going beyond mere functionality to connect the micro and macro scales at the city, region, nation, and the global level.With an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach, the book draws on analytical lenses from architecture, gerontology, geography, sociology, and social and urban planning. It offers a thorough critique of popular narratives surrounding ageing and urban planning while presenting diverse case studies on a variety of spatial scales. The volume also covers the history of urban design for ageing and inclusivity in planning governance, as well as a critical look at the concept of "ageing in place" from the perspective of urban planning. The book offers a comprehensive selection of in-depth photos and figures from urban design studios, planning processes, and real-life scenarios. This collection provides a unique network of inspiring ideas. The book ultimately seeks to supplement the debate and promote a broader reflection about the transformations required in urban planning, given the opportunities and challenges related to a world with increased longevity.This valuable resource is recommended for advanced students, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of urban planning, age-related disciplines and professions, and social policy.
Ageing and Youth Cultures: Music, Style and Identity
by Paul Hodkinson Andy BennettWhat happens to punks, clubbers, goths, riot grrls, soulies, break-dancers and queer scene participants as they become older? For decades, research on spectacular 'youth cultures' has understood such groups as adolescent phenomena and assumed that involvement ceases with the onset of adulthood. In an age of increasingly complex life trajectories, Ageing and Youth Cultures is the first anthology to challenge such thinking by examining the lives of those who continue to participate into adulthood and middle-age. Showcasing a range of original research case studies from across the globe, the chapters explore how participants reconcile their continuing involvement with ageing bodies, older identities and adult responsibilities. Breaking new ground and establishing a new field of study, the book will be essential reading for students and scholars researching or studying questions of youth, fashion, popular music and identity across a wide range of disciplines.
Ageing, Gender, Embodiment and Dance
by Elisabeth SchwaigerThis book explores the nexus between gender, ageing and culture in dancers practicing a variety of genres. It challenges existing cultural norms which equate ageing with bodily decline and draws on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to explore alternatives for developing a culturally valued mature subjectivity through the practice of dance.
Ageing Masculinities in Contemporary European and Anglophone Cinema (Routledge Advances in Film Studies)
by Tony Tracy Michaela Schrage-FrühThis volume offers a unique exploration of how ageing masculinities are constructed and represented in contemporary international cinema. With chapters spanning a range of national cinemas, the primarily European focus of the book is juxtaposed with analysis of the social and cultural constructions of manhood and the "anti-ageing" impulses of male stardom in contemporary Hollywood. These themes are inflected in different ways throughout the volume, from considering how old age is not the monolithic and unified life stage with which it is often framed, to exploring issues of queerness, sexuality, and asexuality, as well as themes such as national cinema and dementia. Offering a diverse and multifaceted portrait of ageing and masculinity in contemporary cinema, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of film and screen studies, gender and masculinity studies, and cultural gerontology.
Agency: Working With Uncertain Architectures
by Florian Kossak Doina Petrescu Tatjana Schneider Renata Tyszczuk Stephen WalkerWhile the potential of agency is most frequently taken to be the power and freedom to act for oneself, for the architectural community this also involves the power and responsibility to act as intermediaries on behalf of others. Presenting current thinking from practitioners and scholars from around the world, this book asks for a more active relationship between the humanities, the architectural profession, and society. Considering issues of architectural research as an agency of transformation, this book explores how humanities research can better contribute towards understanding current architectural needs.
The Agency of Access: Contemporary Disability Art & Institutional Critique
by Amanda CachiaThe Agency of Access examines how access can be employed as a methodology for curating art exhibitions using a multi-sensorial approach. Crip curator and art historian Amanda Cachia illustrates how bodies take in information and process stimuli, making the inequities in museums and galleries more transparent. She also argues that, as contemporary disabled artists move away from representations of disability, they create an art of access, or access aesthetics, through works that center translation, sensory expansion, touch, and movement for audiences and offer an experience of “being with” disability. Showcasing artwork by contemporary disabled artists Corban Walker, Christine Sun Kim, and Carmen Papalia, among others, The Agency of Access inscribes contemporary disability art in the broad canon of contemporary art, where the artistic past is regarded differently. Cachia is an outspoken advocate for artists living with sensory disabilities. She understands disabled artists’ experiences in both the world and the gallery. The artists she has curated make bold, astonishing, and compelling statements about interdependency, care, and the ways in which our environment affects disabled, ill, and immunocompromised bodies.
The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials, Power and Manipulation (Routledge Research in Art History)
by Grażyna Jurkowlaniec Ika Matyjaszkiewicz Zuzanna SarneckaThis volume explores the late medieval and early modern periods from the perspective of objects. While the agency of things has been studied in anthropology and archaeology, it is an innovative approach for art historical investigations. Each contributor takes as a point of departure active things: objects that were collected, exchanged, held in hand, carried on a body, assembled, cared for or pawned. Through a series of case studies set in various geographic locations, this volume examines a rich variety of systems throughout Europe and beyond.
Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: Reflections on Architectures, Methodologies, Languages, and Frameworks
by Onn Shehory Arnon SturmWith this book, Onn Shehory and Arnon Sturm, together with further contributors, introduce the reader to various facets of agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE). They provide a selected collection of state-of-the-art findings, which combines research from information systems, artificial intelligence, distributed systems and software engineering and covers essential development aspects of agent-based systems. The book chapters are organized into five parts. The first part introduces the AOSE domain in general, including introduction to agents and the peculiarities of software engineering for developing MAS. The second part describes general aspects of AOSE, like architectural models, design patterns and communication. Next, part three discusses AOSE methodologies and associated research directions and elaborates on Prometheus, O-MaSE and INGENIAS. Part four then addresses agent-oriented programming languages. Finally, the fifth part presents studies related to the implementation of agents and multi-agent systems. The book not only provides a comprehensive review of design approaches for specifying agent-based systems, but also covers implementation aspects such as communication, standards and tools and environments for developing agent-based systems. It is thus of interest to researchers, practitioners and students who are interested in exploring the agent paradigm for developing software systems.
Agents and Multi-Agent Systems in Construction
by C. J. Anumba O. O. Ugwu Z. RenThis book describes current advances and future directions in the theory and application of intelligent agents and multi-agent systems in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector. It is the product of an international effort involving a network of construction IT and computing researchers, investigating different aspects of agent theory and applications. The contributed chapters cover different perspectives and application areas, and represent significant efforts to harness emerging technologies such as intelligent agents and multi-agent systems for improved business processes in the AEC sector. The first four chapters cover the theoretical foundations of agent technology whilst the remaining chapters deal with the application of agent-based systems in solving problems in the construction domain.
The Agglomeration of the Animation Industry in East Asia
by Kenta YamamotoThis book will be of interest to scholars and students of Asian studies, cultural industries, economic geography, and related areas of study. It discusses the results of a microscopic survey focusing on topics such as how animation studios form business relationships and how workers gain skills in the industry. The methodology was based on traditional Japanese economic geographical methods. The study also examines macroscopic issues such as why industrial agglomerations are formed in metropolises, why metropolises develop mutual networks, and how a type of cultural product is created in the metropolises. The methodology uses case studies of the animation industries in Japan, South Korea, and China. The detailed analysis covers the process of the industry's agglomeration within the East Asian metropolises of Tokyo, Seoul, and Shanghai as well as the division of labor among them. In addition, the transaction relationships among animation studios are examined, together with the promotion of the industry in the peripheral region of Okinawa, Japan. Differences in work styles and output among these cities are also examined. The research presented in this book contributes to understanding the spatial structure and reality of creativity in an innovative industry, particularly the East Asian content industry.
AGI is Waking Up!: From the Thought Lab of Science Fiction
by Li ZhangThis book is an engaging and comprehensive exploration that delves into the possibility of artificial intelligence developing self-awareness, the conditions under which it may occur, and the potential behaviours it may exhibit once self-aware. It adopts a &‘high-dimensional philosophy&’, coined by the author, as its theoretical framework and weaves together elements from science fiction films, scholarly works, and thought experiments. Introducing the captivating concept of "Sparkling Moments," the book provides a compelling analysis of the reasons, prerequisites, and manifestations of these pivotal moments. It further scrutinizes the evolutionary history of Earth's life forms through the lens of these transformative instances and analyzes the similarities and differences between carbon-based and silicon-based life. This book suggests that it is possible for artificial intelligence to develop self-consciousness, which will emerge during a significant sparkling moment. Spanning across disciplines such as astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, psychology, sociology, this book employs a unified and accessible high-dimensional philosophical discourse to bridge the realms of natural sciences and social humanities. Its captivating presentation, enriched with visual aids and lucid explanations, enables readers to grasp the overarching panorama of cosmic evolution, biological adaptation, and the trajectory of artificial intelligence development. Furthermore, the book offers insightful predictions for the future and endeavours to discover novel approaches to foster harmonious interactions between humans and machines. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.
The Agile City: Building Well-being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change
by James S. RussellIn a very short time America has realized that global warming poses real challenges to the nation's future. The Agile City engages the fundamental question: what to do about it? Journalist and urban analyst James S. Russell argues that we'll more quickly slow global warming-and blunt its effects-by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. The Agile City shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly. Adapting buildings (39 percent of greenhouse-gas emission) and communities (slashing the 33 percent of transportation related emissions) offers numerous other benefits that tax gimmicks and massive alternative-energy investments can't match. Rapidly improving building techniques can readily cut carbon emissions by half, and some can get to zero. These cuts can be affordably achieved in the windshield-shattering heat of the desert and the bone-chilling cold of the north. Intelligently designing our towns could reduce marathon commutes and child chauffeuring to a few miles or eliminate it entirely. Agility, Russell argues, also means learning to adapt to the effects of climate change, which means redesigning the obsolete ways real estate is financed; housing subsidies are distributed; transportation is provided; and water is obtained, distributed and disposed of. These engines of growth have become increasingly more dysfunctional both economically and environmentally. The Agile City highlights tactics that create multiplier effects, which means that ecologically driven change can shore-up economic opportunity, can make more productive workplaces, and can help revive neglected communities. Being able to look at multiple effects and multiple benefits of political choices and private investments is essential to assuring wealth and well-being in the future. Green, Russell writes, grows the future.
Agile Security in the Digital Era: Challenges and Cybersecurity Trends
by Mounia Zaydi Youness Khourdifi Bouchaib Nassereddine Justin ZhangIn an era defined by rapid digital transformation, Agile Security in the Digital Era: Challenges and Cybersecurity Trends emerges as a pivotal resource for navigating the complex and ever-evolving cybersecurity landscape. This book offers a comprehensive exploration of how agile methodologies can be integrated into cybersecurity practices to address both current challenges and anticipate future threats. Through a blend of theoretical insights and practical applications, it equips professionals with the tools necessary to develop proactive security strategies that are robust, flexible, and effective. The key features of the book below highlight these innovative approaches.· Integration of agile practices: Detailed guidance on incorporating agile methodologies into cybersecurity frameworks to enhance adaptability and responsiveness.· Comprehensive case studies: Real-world applications and case studies that demonstrate the successful implementation of agile security strategies across various industries.· Future-proof security tactics: Insights into emerging technologies such as blockchain and IoT, offering a forward-looking perspective on how to harness these innovations securely.Intended for cybersecurity professionals, IT managers, and policymakers, Agile Security in the Digital Era serves as an essential guide to understanding and implementing advanced security measures in a digital world. The book provides actionable intelligence and strategies, enabling readers to stay ahead of the curve in a landscape where agile responsiveness is just as crucial as defensive capability. With its focus on cutting-edge research and practical solutions, this book is a valuable asset for anyone committed to securing digital assets against the increasing sophistication of cyber threats.
The Aging Body in Dance: A cross-cultural perspective
by Gabriele Brandstetter Nanako NakajimaWhat does it mean to be able to move? The Aging Body in Dance brings together leading scholars and artists from a range of backgrounds to investigate cultural ideas of movement and beauty, expressiveness and agility. Contributors focus on Euro-American and Japanese attitudes towards aging and performance, including studies of choreographers, dancers and directors from Yvonne Rainer, Martha Graham, Anna Halprin and Roemeo Castellucci to Kazuo Ohno and Kikuo Tomoeda. They draw a fascinating comparison between youth-oriented Western cultures and dance cultures like Japan’s, where aging performers are celebrated as part of the country’s living heritage. The first cross-cultural study of its kind, The Aging Body in Dance offers a vital resource for scholars and practitioners interested in global dance cultures and their differing responses to the world's aging population.
Aging Gracefully: Portraits of People Over 100
by Karsten ThormaehlenFall in love with 52 wise, healthy, and joyful 100-year-olds in this celebratory and uplifting art book. A beautiful and fascinating exploration of what it is like to be over 100 years old, Aging Gracefully invites readers to look into the face of a century of life experience with portraits of centenarians captured by the compassionate, minimalist lens of photographer Karsten Thormaehlen. The striking photographs are accompanied by short bios of the centenarians, featuring quotes and wisdom on love, food, humor, and living with grace.
Aging Moderns: Art, Literature, and the Experiment of Later Life
by Scott HerringWhat happens when the avant-garde grows old? Examining a group of writers and artists who continued the modernist experiment into later life, Scott Herring reveals how their radical artistic principles set out a new path for creative aging.Aging Moderns provides portraits of writers and artists who sought out or employed unconventional methods and collaborations up until the early twenty-first century. Herring finds Djuna Barnes performing the principles of high modernism not only in poetry but also in pharmacy orders and grocery lists. In mystery novels featuring Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas along with modernist souvenir collections, the gay writer Samuel Steward elaborated a queer theory of aging and challenged gay male ageism. The Harlem Renaissance dancer Mabel Hampton dispelled stereotypes about aging through her queer of color performances at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Herring explores Ivan Albright’s magic realist portraits of elders, Tillie Olsen’s writings on the aging female worker, and the surrealistic works made by Charles Henri Ford and his caregiver Indra Bahadur Tamang at the Dakota apartment building in New York City.Showcasing previously unpublished experimental art and writing, this deeply interdisciplinary book unites new modernist studies, American studies, disability studies, and critical age studies. Aging Moderns rethinks assumptions about literary creativity, the depiction of old age, and the boundaries of modernism.
Agitating Images: Photography against History in Indigenous Siberia (First Peoples: New Directions in Indigenous Studies)
by Craig CampbellFollowing the socialist revolution, a colossal shift in everyday realities began in the 1920s and &’30s in the former Russian empire. Faced with the Siberian North, a vast territory considered culturally and technologically backward by the revolutionary government, the Soviets confidently undertook the project of reshaping the ordinary lives of the indigenous peoples in order to fold them into the Soviet state. In Agitating Images, Craig Campbell draws a rich and unsettling cultural portrait of the encounter between indigenous Siberians and Russian communists and reveals how photographs from this period complicate our understanding of this history. Agitating Images provides a glimpse into the first moments of cultural engineering in remote areas of Soviet Siberia. The territories were perceived by outsiders to be on the margins of civilization, replete with shamanic rituals and inhabited by exiles, criminals, and &“primitive&” indigenous peoples. The Soviets hoped to permanently transform the mythologized landscape by establishing socialist utopian developments designed to incorporate minority cultures into the communist state. This book delves deep into photographic archives from these Soviet programs, but rather than using the photographs to complement an official history, Campbell presents them as anti-illustrations, or intrusions, that confound simple narratives of Soviet bureaucracy and power. Meant to agitate, these images offer critiques that cannot be explained in text alone and, in turn, put into question the nature of photographs as historical artifacts. An innovative approach to challenging historical interpretation, Agitating Images demonstrates how photographs go against accepted premises of Soviet Siberia. All photographs, Campbell argues, communicate in unique ways that present new and even contrary possibilities to the text they illustrate. Ultimately, Agitating Images dissects our very understanding of the production of historical knowledge.
Agnes Martin: Night Sea (Afterall Books: One Work)
by Suzanne P. HudsonA close examination of Agnes Martin's grid painting in luminous blue and gold.Agnes Martin's Night Sea (1963) is a large canvas of hand-drawn rectangular grids painted in luminous blue and gold. In this illustrated study, Suzanne Hudson presents the painting as the work of an artist who was also a thinker, poet, and writer for whom self-presentation was a necessary part of making her works public. With Night Sea, Hudson argues, Martin (1912–2004) created a shimmering realization of control and loss that stands alone within her suite of classic grid paintings as an exemplary and exceptional achievement.Hudson offers a close examination of Night Sea and its position within Martin's long and prolific career, during which the artist destroyed many works as she sought forms of perfection within self-imposed restrictions of color and line. For Hudson, Night Sea stands as the last of Martin's process-based works before she turned from oil to acrylic and sought to express emotions of lightness and purity unburdened by evidence of human struggle.Drawing from a range of archival records, Hudson attempts to draw together the facts surrounding the work, which were at times obfuscated by the artist's desire for privacy. Critical responses of the time give a sense of the impact of the work and that which followed it. Texts by peers including Lenore Tawney, Donald Judd, and Lucy Lippard are presented alongside interviews with a number of Martin's friends and keepers of estates, such as the publisher Ronald Feldman and Kathleen Mangan of the Lenore Tawney archive, which holds correspondence between Martin and Tawney.
Agnes Martin: Pioneer, Painter, Icon
by Henry MartinThis is an intimate and revealing biography of Agnes Martin, renowned American painter, considered one of the great women artists of the 20th and 21st Century. A resident of both New Mexico and New York City, Martin has always remained an enigma due to her fiercely guarded private life. Henry Martin, award-winning writer, and art scholar, having access to those who were close to Agnes Martin—friends, family, former lovers—gives us a full portrait of this universally revered artist. Readers will learn of her bouts with mental illness, her several significant lesbian relationships, and her lifelong yearning for recognition despite her reclusive lifestyle and need for privacy. Arriving in the wake of major international retrospective exhibitions of her work from London's Tate Modern, LACMA in Los Angeles, and the Guggenheim in New York City, this book provides a perspective of Agnes Martin that has not been seen in earlier, more academic works or fine-art monographs. Certain to be a mainstay for readers of the arts, and admirers of the creative spirit, this book also includes rare photographs from Martin's family and friends, many of which have never appeared in a book before.
Agnes Martin: Her Life and Art
by Nancy PrincenthalThe first biography of visionary artist Agnes Martin, one of the most original and influential painters of the postwar period Over the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin's austere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, even as she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence in the American Southwest. Martin identified with the Abstract Expressionists but her commitment to linear geometry caused her to be associated in turn with Minimalist, feminist, and even outsider artists. She moved through some of the liveliest art communities of her time while maintaining a legendary reserve. "I paint with my back to the world," she says both at the beginning and at the conclusion of a documentary filmed when she was in her late eighties. When she died at ninety-two, in Taos, New Mexico, it is said she had not read a newspaper in half a century. No substantial critical monograph exists on this acclaimed artist--the recipient of two career retrospectives as well as the National Medal of the Arts--who was championed by critics as diverse in their approaches as Lucy Lippard, Lawrence Alloway, and Rosalind Krauss. Furthermore, no attempt has been made to describe her extraordinary life. The whole engrossing story, told here for the first time, Agnes Martin is essential reading for anyone interested in abstract art or the history of women artists in America.