Authors: Cornelia Butler. Richard Shiff. Matthew Monahan. Marlene Dumas.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: D.A.P./Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Publication Date: 2008-06-01


Reviews :

    In her expressionistic drawings and paintings of the last three decades, acclaimed South African artist Marlene Dumas has focused on the human figure, probing themes of love, desire, despair and confusion in order to slyly critique social and political attitudes toward women, children, people of color and others who have historically been victimized. From her evocative portraits, based on photographs of friends and family as well as figures culled from printed pornography, to her large-scale images highlighting charged relationships within groups, Dumas' work explores the contradictions behind the physical reality of the body, merging acute social commentary with personal experience and art-historical antecedent to create unsettling and ambiguous psychological statements.
Accompanying Dumas' first major mid-career survey in the U.S., with stops in three major American cities, (one yet to be announced) this substantial, fully-illustrated publication features a newly commissioned essay by renowned scholar Richard Shiff, placing the artist's work in relation to both American figurative painting since the 1980s and Abstract Expressionism. The book also includes curator Cornelia H. Butler's examination of Dumas' photographic sources and shorter texts by Lisa Gabrielle Mark and Matthew Monahan. Writings by the artist, as well as an extensive illustrated exhibition history and bibliography, complete this comprehensive examination of the work of one of the most thought-provoking artists working today.
Born in Capetown, South Africa, in 1953, Marlene Dumas has lived in Amsterdam since 1976. Over the last three decades she has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the U.S., including the Tate Gallery, London; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. In 1995 she represented The Netherlands at the 46th Venice Biennale....

Authors: Monica B. Visona. Robin Poynor. Herbert M. Cole. Preston Biler.
Paperback, 560 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Publication Date: 2007-07-13
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    A History of Art in Africa, Second Edition, is the only comprehensive art historical survey of the African continent to incorporate discussions of contemporary art and artists.  It is both a reliable resource for art historians and an accessible introduction to the vibrant arts of Africa....

Authors: Robert Farris Thompson.
Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Vintage
Publication Date: 1984-08-12
Edition: 1st Vintage Books ed

Reviews :

    This book reveals how five distinct African civilizations have shaped the specific cultures of their New World descendants....

Authors: Richard H. Wilkinson.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication Date: 1994-06


Reviews :

    The art of ancient Egypt has excited imaginations for centuries. But without knowledge of hieroglyphic images, Egypt's rich artistic legacy, from colossal statues to finely wrought jewelry and miniscule charms, remains obscure. Here, for the first time, is an introduction to the symbolic language of hieroglyphics. 358 illustrations....

Authors: Iris Hahner. Maria Kecskesi. Lazlo Vajda.
Paperback, 287 pages
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
Publication Date: 2007-04-30


Reviews :

   

Now available in a flexi edition, this beautiful volume presents nearly 250 of the finest African masks from the incomparable Barbier-Mueller collection, which is unique in its vast number of masterpieces and wide geographic scope.

The book includes one hundred color plates accompanied by in-depth descriptions, as well as numerous black-and-white photographs of the masks as they are used in religious and secular ceremonies. An introductory text by renowned scholars describes how the masks are constructed, examines their significance in African culture, and offers insight into the universal practice of masquerading. A unique contribution to the literature on African art, this book is also a wonderful introduction to countless fascinating, age-old spiritual traditions still practiced today.

...

Authors: Jean-Baptiste Bacquart.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication Date: 2002-09


Reviews :

    The marvelous achievements of black African artists over thousands of years are revealed and superbly portrayed in this book. The earliest pieces date from the beginning of the first millennium, the most recent from the early twentieth century before the commercial production of art for the tourist trade. All were made by Africans for their own use.

Jean-Baptiste Bacquart has divided Africa south of the Sahara into forty-nine cultural areas. Each section studies the most important tribe within that area, surveying its social and political structures as well as its artistic production. The art is analyzed according to type—in most instances masks, statues, and everyday objects such as utensils, furniture, and jewelry. When appropriate, further information on artistically related tribes is provided. Each section contains lavishly presented color photographs of all the major object types, documentary black-and-white illustrations, and its own bibliography.

A detailed reference section with information on key collections open to the public and a glossary completes this invaluable publication, the only one to present the entire range of black African art in accessible form. 865 illustrations and photographs, 195 in color....

Authors: Alida J. Boye. John O. Hunwick.
Hardcover, 176 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication Date: 2008-11-17


Reviews :

   

The extraordinary manuscripts of Timbuktu: invaluable historical documents, objects of tremendous beauty, and a testament to a great center of learning and civilization.

For centuries, trading caravans made epic journeys across the Saharan sands to reach the markets of the legendary city of Timbuktu, where they traded salt, gold, slaves, textiles—and books. By the mid-fifteenth century, Timbuktu had become a major center of Islamic literary culture and scholarship. The city's libraries were repositories of all the world's learning, housing not only works by Arab and Islamic writers but also volumes from the classical Greek and Roman worlds and studies by contemporary scholars.

The astonishing manuscripts of Timbuktu form the lavish visual heart of this book. Beautifully graphic, occasionally decorated, these exquisite artifacts reveal great craftsmanship as well as learning. All were written in the Arabic script, but not all are in Arabic, for they also feature a range of local African languages.

Aside from scholarly works, the surviving manuscripts include a wealth of correspondence between rulers, advisers, and merchants on subjects as various as taxation, commerce, marriage, divorce, adoption, breastfeeding, and prostitution, providing a vivid insight into the ordinary life and values of the day.

...

Authors: Gay Robins.
Paperback, 272 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 2008-09-15
Edition: Revised

Reviews :

   

From the awesome grandeur of the Great Pyramids to the delicacy of a face etched on an amulet, the spellbinding power of ancient Egyptian art persists to this day. Spanning three thousand years, this beautifully illustrated history offers a thorough and delightfully readable introduction to the artwork even as it provides insight into questions that have long engaged experts and amateurs alike. In its scope, its detail, and its eloquent reproduction of over 250 objects, Gay Robins’s classic book is without parallel as a guide to the art of ancient Egypt. And her eagerly awaited new edition includes many new color photographs and a fully revised and updated bibliography.

...

Authors: Alisa LaGamma. Christine Giuntini.
Paperback, 72 pages
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Publication Date: 2008-12-18


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Zahi Hawass.
Hardcover, 264 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
Publication Date: 2008-09-16


Reviews :

    Mysterious boy king Tutankhamun returns to the U.S. in 2008, bringing rare treasures never before seen outside Egypt. For the millions of fans wanting a keepsake and chronicle of this magnificent new exhibition, this book will delight. Created by world-renowned art historians under the guidance of Zahi Hawass—director of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and a well-known media personality—it surveys 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history by focusing on the lives and lifestyles of great pharaohs. Master photographer Sandro Vannini spotlights every dazzling artifact, using an innovative technique that makes the image jump off the page. The book’s design echoes the exhibition, grouping objects representing family life, religious practices, funerary rituals, and gold. In each artifact—a queen’s eye makeup container, a likeness of a princess eating duck, a sarcophagus made for a prince’s cat—we glimpse the life of ancient Egyptian royalty: exotic and fascinating, yet so human. Gold gleams in a leopard-mask of gilded wood, a brilliant pendant bearing tiny goddesses, even the golden finger and toe covers of Tutankhamun himself, meant to protect his extremities in the afterlife. Featuring more than 120 treasures, a dozen evocative landscape and archaeology photos, and illuminating text, this book makes palpable the excitement, riches, and mysteries of ancient Egypt. It will be prominently displayed in all exhibition venues, and its contents will interest visitors to the show as well as Tut enthusiasts across the country....