Recommended Reading
Kassia St Clair’s The Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brownthat changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book Kassia St Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colours and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilisation. Across fashion and politics, art and war, The Secret Lives of Colour tell the vivid story of our culture.
Never before translated into English, Rainer Maria Rilke’s fascinating Letters to a Young Painter, written between 1920 and 1926 toward the end of his life, is a surprising companion to his infamous Letters to a Young Poet. In eight intimate letters written to a teenage Balthus—who would go on to become one of the leading artists of his generation—Rilke encourages the young painter to take himself and his work seriously. Written toward the end of Rilke’s life, between 1920 and 1926, these letters paint a picture of the venerable poet as he faced his mortality, looked back on his life, and continued to embrace his openness toward other creative individuals.
Private museums like the Menil Collection in Houston, the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence or the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek have existed for a long time, but over the past decade, many more private museums have been founded all over the world. The Private Museum of the Future features interviews with 24 renowned private museum founders including: Ziba Ardalan (Parasol unit, London), Eli Broad (The Broad Museum, Los Angeles), Jochen Zeitz (Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town), Eugenio López Alonso (Museo Jumex, Mexico City), and Dakis Joannou (Deste Foundation, Athens), among various others.
What it Means to Write About Art: Interviews with art critics by Jarrett Earnest
Equal parts oral history and analysis of craft, What it Means to Write About Art offers an unprecedented overview of American art writing. Jarrett Earnest's wide-ranging conversations with critics, historians, journalists, novelists, poets and theorists—each of whom approaches the subject from a unique position—illustrate different ways of writing, thinking and looking at art.
Pete Gershon’s Collision: The Contemporary Art Scene in Houston, 1972–1985
“You don't have to be from Houston to enjoy this uniquely Texan tale, a microcosm of the trials and tribulations of any ambitious city's art scene. Part regional history, part institutional critique, always sympathetic to artists, Collision is a well written, fast moving, and entertaining fusion of archival detail and artworld expose.” —Lucy R. Lippard, art critic