Dieter Buchhart

The ultimate and authoritative introduction to Songye culture, sculpture, masks, and iron forging This lavishly illustrated book brings a new approach to the masterpieces of Songye, a Bantu ethnic group from the central Democratic Republic of the Congo, exploring the styles of the different regions, the identification of Songye master artists, and the specificity of Kifwebe masks. The World of Songye displays a large number of unpublished and specially commissioned photographs of Songye works of art from private and public collections, and of historic field photographs. Edited by the unchallenged specialists of the subject with contributions from ten distinguished writers, World of Songye analyzes Songye aesthetics and symbols, the Songye representation of animals and weapons and the history of collecting Songye artifacts on the field. It also explores the religious and magical functions and powers of Songye objects and their influence on modern art, focusing in particular on Jean-Michel Basquiat.Distributed for Mercatorfonds

The artist’s most inspired works in one volume.Jean-Michel Basquiat—artist and art world provocateur—took New York City by storm with his powerful and complex works that relentlessly engaged with charged sociopolitical issues, including race, police brutality, and structural inequity. In this important volume, devoted to an exhibition at the Brant Foundation in their newly opened Manhattan outpost featuring the artist’s key works, Basquiat’s art returns to its East Village roots, contextualized for the first time in decades in the very neighborhood that served as one of his greatest inspirations.Dieter Buchhart, noted Basquiat scholar and curator, brings together one hundred of the artist’s most important works, focusing on the best examples of the many subjects that informed Basquiat’s work, from jazz, anatomy, sports figures, comics, classical literature, the African diaspora, and art history. The exhibition partially restages three of the artist’s critical early shows, including an exhibition of the artist’s paintings and drawings of heads at Robert Miller Gallery; his most important canvases from Gagosian Gallery’s 1982 show in Los Angeles; and Basquiat’s solo show at Fun Gallery in the East Village. Buchhart also considers in-depth the artist’s so-called stretcher bar paintings, in which the normally hidden wooden supports for stretched canvases are exposed, works that have yet to be explored at length by scholars. In so doing, Buchhart offers a critical assessment of the enduring importance and legacy of the artist’s work.© Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.

Calder Now documents an exhibition at the Kunsthal Rotterdam which explores the enduring influence of the work of Alexander Calder (1898-1976) on contemporary art. Shown alongside pieces by Calder himself are works by 10 contemporary artists, including Olafur Eliasson, Simone Leigh, Ernesto Neto, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Sarah Sze. The text explores the way their work resonates with Calder's main artistic interests, such as the reflection of light and movement. Three noted art historians elaborate on themes such as the participatory and progressive nature of Calder's art.

Basquiat first came to prominence when he collaborated with Al Diaz to spray-paint enigmatic statements under the pseudonym SAMO©. From there he went on to work with others on collages, Xerox art, postcards, performances, and music before establishing his reputation as one of the most important painters of his generation. This book places his collaborations in a wider art historical context and looks at his career through the lens of performance. Six thematic chapters offer compelling research, with essays from poet Christian Campbell on SAMO©; curator Carlo McCormick on New York/New Wave; writer Glenn O’Brien on the downtown scene; academic Jordana Moore Saggese on Basquiat’s relationship to film and television; and music scholar Francesco Martinelli on Basquiat’s obsession with jazz. This insightful survey also features rare archival material and extensive illustrations, demonstrating how Basquiat’s legacy remains more powerful and relevant than ever today.

In 2018 the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, is hosting exhibitons on two of the greatest artists of the 20th century - Egon Schiele, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Both exhibitions have the same curator, and are taking place at the same time. The shows illustrate exactly what it is that linked the two artists: line, and the use of expressive force.This, the catalogue of the Basquiat exhibition, labelled "the definitive exhibition" by its curator, brings together 120 of the artist's most important masterpieces, sourced from interational museums and private collections. With the astonishing radicalness of his artistic practice, Basquiat renewed the concept of art with enduring impact. This Basquiat retrospective centres on the idea of Basquiat's unique energetic line, his use of words, symbols, and how he integrates collage in his paintings, sculptures, objects, and large-scale drawings.The catalogue includes texts by great authors, including Paul Schimmel who tells of his meeting with Basquiat in California; Francesco Pellizi who knew Basquiat well and has not written about him for a long time; and Okwui Enwezor who talks about the Afro American identity.

The first book to explore the mutual influence of the groundbreaking modernists Kurt Schwitters, Joan Miro, and Hans Arp. Featuring approximately 100 key works, along with numerous reference images, this book explores the work of Kurt Schwitters, Joan Miro, and Hans Arp and the ways in which the artists influenced each others' artistic pursuits. It examines the artists' shared commitment to geometric forms over natural ones and their individual strategies for fusing painting and sculpture to mine the depths of assemblage. United by an impulse to renew and transform art, to "assassinate" painting, Schwitters, Miro, and Arp experimented with collage and assemblage in order to build on the achievements of Cubism and break with prior traditions. Not only did their work resonate within their own artistic circles, but it continues to inspire subsequent generations to this day.

Through his graffiti-inspired drawings, paintings, sculptures, murals, and other works, Keith Haring created an immediately recognizable visual iconography that spoke to an enormous population - gay and straight, young and old, male and female. His importance in the annals of popular culture is indisputable, but little attention has been paid to his advocacy for social justice. Haring's political perspective is the focus of this visually arresting selection of works that traces the artist's development and historical significance and gives new gravitas to his career. Accompanying a major exhibition at the de Young museum in San Francisco, this book features more than 130 works of art, including large-scale paintings on tarpaulin and canvas, sculptures, and subway drawings. Together they create a narrative that explores Haring's responses to nuclear disarmament, racial inequality, capitalist excess, environmental degradation, and other prevalent social issues. Essays and conversations with writers, critics, and art dealers round out this important analysis of Haring's life, career, and passion. Exhibition Itinerary, de Young museum, San Francisco, 8th November 2014 - 8th February 2015.

The publication presents an overview of the artist's works from the end of the 1990s onward and reflects on the meaning of chance, play and research in Brudermann's work, as emphasized by the letters, playing cards and business cards that are inserted between the pages of the book.