Art, word and image

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Jerome Silbergeld and Dora C.Y. Ching

The calligrapher and book artist Xu Bing has been called the most innovative Chinese artist of our time. As a citizen of both China and the United States and the first Asian-American artist to win the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "genius award," Xu Bing has fascinated and challenged audiences around the world with his imaginative textual art. From his 4,000 unreadable Chinese-looking characters, which unite Asian and Western audiences alike in an egalitarianism of induced illiteracy, to his invention of a "square words" language that makes "Chinese" readable by anyone at all, Xu Bing's use of language is at once artistically brilliant, highly entertaining, and profoundly subversive--a sharp-witted, masterly word-play that, in his own words, "strikes at the very essence of culture."In exhibitions on four continents, Xu Bing's printed art, mixed-media installations, and performance pieces--from books and calligraphic sculptures to inscribed pigs--have fascinated specialists and general audiences alike and generated a growing body of literature. This volume presents the first multidisciplinary study of Xu Bing's art and its intellectual implications. Included is an illuminating account by Xu Bing of his own work, as well as essays by leading scholars in a number of different fields.The essays address the place of this work within the long history of Chinese calligraphic practice, examine it in the context of Chinese intellectual dissidence, discuss Japanese avant-garde parallels, and judge it from a Western art-historical viewpoint.

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Fernando Lázaro Carreter

*El dardo en la palabra*, el libro en el que Lázaro Carreter recoge las incorrecciones y gazapos, tanto hablados como escritos, de los medios de comunicación, ha sido un éxito sin precedentes para un texto de estas características. El volumen, que reúne artículos publicados desde 1975 hasta 1996 en algunos periódicos españoles, le permite al filólogo enseñar a hablar y a escribir mejor y mostrar los errores que se cometen en la prensa, la radio y la televisión.

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Anne Rivers Siddons

Their lives would never be the same. Colquitt and Walter Kennedy enjoyed a life of lazy weekends, gathering with the neighbors on their quiet, manicured street and sipping drinks on their patios. But when construction of a beautiful new home begins in the empty lot next door, their easy friendship and relaxed get-togethers are marred by strange accidents and inexplicable happenings. Though Colquitt's rational mind balks at the idea of a "haunted" house, she cannot ignore the tragedies associated with it. It is as if the house preys on its inhabitants' weaknesses and slowly destroys the goodness in them -- ultimately driving them to disgrace, madness and even death.

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Yves Draussin

Décrire la ville, la rendre sensible, perceptible, en démontrer les formes, les évolutions, la complexité visible et invisible ; et en expliquer les échecs. Mais ce récit entend également replacer la conception dans son contexte évènementiel, redonnant aux acteurs la paternité de leurs décisions et de leur influence sur le présent et le futur de la ville. Ainsi, l'identité de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines s'est forgée, principalement dans l'urbanisme, l'architecture et l'art public de son centre.(Ouvrage comportant 85 photos)