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Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South
Royal Academy of Arts
2023
144
A wide-ranging survey of Black art in the American South, from Thornton Dial and Nellie Mae Rowe to the quilters of Gee's Bend For generations, Black artists from the American South have forged a unique art tradition. Working in near isolation from established practices, they have created masterpieces in clay, driftwood, roots, soil, and recycled and cast-off objects that articulate America's painful past--the inhuman practice of enslavement, the cruel segregationist policies of the Jim Crow era and institutionalized racism. Their works respond to issues ranging from economic inequality, oppression and social marginalization to sexuality, the influence of place and ancestral memory. Among the sculptures, paintings, reliefs and drawings included here--the majority from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation in Atlanta--are works by Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Hawkins Bolden, Bessie Harvey, Charles Williams, Mary T. Smith, Purvis Young, Mose Tolliver, Nellie Mae Rowe, Mary Lee Bendolph, Marlene Bennett Jones, Martha Jane Pettway, Loretta Pettway and Henry and Georgia Speller. Also featured are the celebrated quiltmakers of Gee's Bend, Alabama, and work from the neighboring communities of Rehoboth and Alberta.
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Tauba Auerbach
Folds
Co-published by the artist and Bergen Kunsthall
2011
100 pages
In connection with Tauba Auerbach’s exhibition “Tetrachromat” at Bergen Kunsthall, Folds presents Auerbach’s eponymous painting series for the first time in book form. In these paintings Auerbach twists and folds the canvas before applying the paint. In its stretched form the flat canvas conjures a trompe l’oeil rendering of its previous three-dimensional state. Transferred to the medium of the book, the paintings are presented here in a new and unexpected way alongside mathematical diagrams and three texts. Auerbach works with a number of printed media, and the book enjoys a quite central position in her oeuvre: from highly sophisticated book sculptures that are somewhere between physical objects and non-narrative books, to a series of individually made artist books—most recently [2,3] (2011), a pop-up book where six detailed paper sculptures emerge from the book’s pages.
Tauba Auerbach
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Radcliffe Bailey
Memory As Medicine
High Museum of Art/Prestel
2011
160 pages
The catalogue features essays by Carol Thomson (author), and contributions by Edward S. Spriggs, Rene Paul Barilleaux, Michael Rooks and Manthia Diawara. This book offers the first mid-career survey of work by American artist Radcliffe Bailey. The volume reproduces more than 70 works, many of which have never been published before, and considers Bailey's work in a major essay and four shorter discussions. In these large- and small-scale pieces Bailey explores ideas of ancestry, race, memory, struggle, and sacrifice, including the artist's own engagement with African sculpture in connection with an investigation into his family's DNA.
Radcliffe Bailey
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Chris Ballantyne
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Hernan Bas
Hernan Bas
Rizzoli
2014
274 pages
Written by Hernan Bas, Contribution by Jonathan Griffin and Nancy Spector, Introduction by Christian Rattemeyer. This book chronicles the work of this young figurative painter, whose moody portraits reflect the youth of contemporary culture. Hernan Bas is known for his overgrown landscapes and intimate figurative portraits of beautiful boyish and hip young men. With a style that is energetic and gestural, his work nods to abstract expressionism yet remains contemporary in feel. His pieces are romantic and often uncompromisingly sexual, with dark narratives or open landscapes. A soft palette is met with the gorgeous contrast of unpredicted dark hues and vibrant colors, while his loose brushwork creates intricate textures. This lavish monograph is the most complete book devoted to Bas's career thus far, focusing on his paintings, film stills, and illustrations. With over 200 color plates and with texts by Christian Rattemeyer, Jonathan Griffin, and Nancy Spector, this gorgeous volume presents the intricate and sensuously delightful work of this up-and-coming artist, whose work personifies epic romance by embracing both the decadence and nastiness of pleasure.
Hernan Bas
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Gee's Bend
Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt
Tinwood Books
2006
224 pages
In 2002, Gee’s Bend burst into international prominence through the success of Tinwood’s Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibition and book, which revealed an important and previously invisible art tradition from the African American South. Critics and popular audiences alike marveled at these quilts that combined the best of contemporary design with a deeply rooted ethnic heritage and compelling human stories about the women.Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt is a major book and museum exhibition that will premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), in June 2006 before traveling to seven American museums through 2008. The book's 330 color illustrations and insightful text bring home the exciting experience to readers while displaying all the cultural heritage and craftsmanship that have gone into these remarkable quilts.
Gee's Bend
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Mary Lee Bendolph
Gee’s Bend: Get Ready
Clarkson Potter
2021
A magnificent 1000-piece puzzle featuring a colorful, intricately patterned quilt by artist Mary Lee Bendolph, matriarch of the historic quilting community in Gee’s Bend, Alabama, and published by Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, California.
Mary Lee Bendolph
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Essie Bendolph Pettway
Gee’s Bend: Equal Justice
Clarkson Potter
2021
An extraordinary 1000-piece puzzle that portrays an intricate, geometric-patterned quilt in mesmerizing shades of teal, lavender, pink, and royal blue stitched by Essie Bendolph Pettway, a member of the historic Gee's Bend quilting community, and published by Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, California.
Essie Bendolph Pettway
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McArthur Binion
McArthur Binion Re:Mine
Black Dog Publishing
2015
80 pages
Over his forty-year career, artist McArthur Binion has developed a unique visual language through the fusion of Minimalism and personal narratives. This monograph, Binion’s first, is produced in conjunction with the artist’s inaugural solo show at a New York gallery and on the occasion of his exhibition Re:Mine at Galerie Lelong.
McArthur Binion
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Squeak Carnwath
Painting Is No Ordinary Object
Pomegranate Communications
2009
159 pages
The paintings of Squeak Carnwath (American, b. 1947), often subtly illuminated by meticulously applied layers of glaze, embody complex layers of meaning. "Paintings are not ordinary objects," the artist observes. "Painting is a carrier of meaning, of human touch. Each brush stroke or smear of pigment is freighted with philosophical inquiry." In Carnwath's works, rows of writing are placed to slow the eye, "to put the viewer in real time." Recurring motifs touch on personal and universal themes, from a rabbit tentatively seeking its place in a chaotic world to the seated blue Medicine Buddha, healer of ills and reminder of the latent Buddha nature in each of us. Published in conjunction with the exhibition organized by the Oakland Museum of California, Squeak Carnwath: Painting Is No Ordinary Object celebrates the wonder and spirit embodied in each of Carnwath's works. Over eighty full-color reproductions trace the development of the artist's distinctive style from the 1970s to the present, while essays by curator Karen Tsujimoto and art critic John Yau explore the personal, social, and artistic context of this powerful body of work.
Squeak Carnwath
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Thornton Dial
Hard Truths/The Art of Thornton Dial
Prestel
2010
240 pages
Celebrating Thorton Dial's contributions to American art, this book surveys the career of one of our most original contemporary artists, whose epic work tackles the most compelling social and political issues of our time. Born in poverty in Alabama, Dial has lived his entire life in the American South, and his art, informed by decades of struggle as a black working-class man, reveals a unique perspective on America's most difficult and pervasive challenges, such as its long history of race and class conflict, the war in Iraq, and the 9/11 tragedy. This monograph includes reproductions of 70 of Dial's large-scale paintings, drawings and found object sculptures spanning twenty years of his artistic career. Drawing inspiration from the rich symbolic world of the black rural South and with no formal education, Dial has developed a truly distinctive and original style. Incorporating salvaged objects in his work-from plastic grave flowers and children's toys to cow skulls and goat carcasses-he creates highly charged assemblages combined with turbulent fields of expressionistic painting. With commentary from historian David Driskell, cultural critic Greg Tate, and art historian Joanne Cubbs, this volume brings long-overdue recognition to Dial's remarkable career and offers audiences an unprecedented look into the creative world of this important artist.
Thornton Dial
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Thornton Dial
Thornton Dial in the 21st Century
Tinwood Books
2006
324 pages
Self-taught African American artist Thornton Dial (born 1928) is an acclaimed, original artist. This tribute to his work includes nearly 150 images and focuses on his post-9/11 output, including a haunting suite inspired by that event, homages to his famous friends the Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, and pieces drawing on his memories of an impoverished Southern childhood. The book also has a rich overview of Dial's pre-9/11 work. An in-depth biography and contextualizing essays by leading art historians shed new light on Dial's life and work.
Thornton Dial
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Thornton Dial
Thoughts On Paper
The University of North Carolina Press
2012
224 pages
Thornton Dial (b. 1928), one of the most important artists in the American South, came to prominence in the late 1980s and was celebrated internationally for his large construction pieces and mixed-media paintings. It was only later, in response to a reviewer's negative comment on his artistic ability, that he began to work on paper. And it was not until recently that these drawings have received the acclaim they deserve. This volume, edited by Bernard L. Herman, offers the first sustained critical attention to Dial's works on paper. Concentrating on Dial's early drawings, the contributors examine Dial's use of line and color and his recurrent themes of love, lust, and faith. They also discuss the artist's sense of place and history, relate his drawings to his larger works, and explore how his drawing has evolved since its emergence in the early 1990s. Together, the essays investigate questions of creativity and commentary in the work of African American artists and contextualize Dial's works on paper in the body of American art.
Thornton Dial
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Torkwase Dyson
Torkwase Dyson: A Liquid Belonging
Pace Publishing
2023
80
Featuring unconventional materials and a range of written responses from her peers, Torkwase Dyson’s first publication is an artful, indispensable volume. Through her multidisciplinary practice guided by her working philosophy of Black Compositional Thought, Torkwase Dyson creates unique curvilinear and rectangular hypershapes and abstractions that speak to infrastructures of liberation and resistance. With its large-scale, site-specific installations and accompanying layered paintings, A Liquid Belonging, Dyson's recent exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York, explored these geometries on an architectural scale to invite viewers into new spatial and perceptual practices. The accompanying publication takes a similar approach, asking readers to engage with the forms and spatial actions that make up a book. Composed of one bound paper book and an array of unbound materials—including acetate and accordion-folded paper—all contained in a box-slipcase, it is as much an art object as it is an addendum to the exhibition. With new texts and experimental writing by Dionne Brand, LeRonn P. Brooks, Saidiya Hartman, Jaleh Mansoor, and Mabel O. Wilson and a conversation with Christina Sharpe, Torkwase Dyson: A Liquid Belonging takes a multifaceted approach to represent the artist’s wide influence.
Torkwase Dyson
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Kota Ezawa
The History of Photography Remix
Nazraeli Press
2010
56 pages
Using well-known films, videos, and photographs, Ezawa explores the appropriation and mediation of current events and images. The History of Photography Remix draws on important art and documentary photographs made throughout the history of the medium.
Kota Ezawa
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Caio Fonseca
Caio Fonseca
Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Valencia, Spain
2003
201 pages
A chronological survey of 20 years of painting, both figurative and abstract.
Caio Fonseca
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Charles Gaines Gaines
Charles Gaines: Palm Trees and Other Works
Hauser & Wirth Publishers
2019
144
Published alongside Charles Gaines’s 2019–20 exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, this monograph charts the evolution of the palm tree in Gaines’s work from the 1980s to the present. In a new text, David Platzker explores the cultural and art historical contexts of the series, particularly the recent ‘Numbers and Trees’ works, shown for the first time in Los Angeles, that take palm trees as their subject. Also featured is a conversation between Gaines and Cherise Smith, which delves into the conceptual underpinnings of the artist’s work. Additionally, this publication documents and discusses other works from Gaines’s decades-long career, including the ‘Manifestos’ series (2008–18), exploring the threads that unite various parts of his practice.
Charles Gaines Gaines
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Charles Gaines
Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989
The Studio Museum in Harlem
2014
168
Widely regarded as one of the leading exponents of postminimalist art in the late 1970s, Charles Gaines (born 1944) is known primarily for his photographs, drawings and works on paper that investigate systems, cognition and language. Considered against the backdrop of the Black Arts Movement of the 1970s and the rise of multiculturalism in the 1980s, the works in Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989 are radical gestures. Eschewing overt discussions of race, they take a detached approach to identity that exemplifies Gaines' determination to transcend the conversations of his time and create new paths. Charles Gaines: Gridwork 1974-1989 gathers significant examples from several of the artist's most important series, including 75 key works from the mid-1970s through the late 1980s. It features drawings and photographs from public and private collections--some of which were previously considered lost--and essays by leading scholars and curators.
Charles Gaines
