The Heritage of Giotto's Geometry

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Laurence Schmidlin

À la fin des années 1960, le dessin fit l'objet d'un développement singulier qui s'observa en particulier aux États-Unis. Les artistes américains diversifièrent considérablement ses formes en l'adaptant à l'échelle architecturale jusqu'à le matérialiser dans le volume, sous une forme plastique. Ils ajustèrent ses dimensions et parfois ses techniques, l'exécutant sur des supports tels que le mur, le sol ou la surface terrestre, et ils portèrent leur attention sur sa dimension processuelle. Cette expansion spatiale, dite spatialisation, fut le fruit de différents facteurs, dont le rejet du pictocentrisme moderniste, le nivellement de la hiérarchie entre les médiums et l'avènement de nouvelles valeurs comme le primat du concept. Ce livre est consacré à ce phénomène du dessin qui, quittant le support du papier, accéda à la troisième dimension. Il pose son extension physique comme la conséquence de son intermédialité en particulier avec la performance et la sculpture, dans un cadre où les arts visuels étaient appelés de manière générale à se déployer dans l'espace. Au moyen d'un plan tripartite? discours, pratique artistiques et approches institutionnelles? et à l'appui de nombreuses sources primaires, cette enquête minutieuse vise à inscrire le dessin au cœur même des débats qui animèrent la scène américaine, à montrer la place centrale qu'il occupa en tant que ressource? technique, expressive, esthétique, conceptuelle? dans les pratiques artistiques des années 1960 et 1970, et à établir le contexte qui rendit possible sa transformation.

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Robert Mills

"During the Middle Ages in Europe, some sexual and gendered behaviors were labeled "sodomitical" or evoked the use of ambiguous phrases such as the "unmentionable vice" or the "sin against nature." How, though, did these categories enter the field of vision? How do you know a sodomite when you see one? In Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages, Robert Mills explores the relationship between sodomy and motifs of vision and visibility in medieval culture, on the one hand, and those categories we today call gender and sexuality, on the other. Challenging the view that ideas about sexual and gender dissidence were too confused to congeal into a coherent form in the Middle Ages, Mills demonstrates that sodomy had a rich, multimedia presence in the period--and that a flexible approach to questions of terminology sheds new light on the many forms this presence took. Among the topics that Mills covers are depictions of the practices of sodomites in illuminated Bibles; motifs of gender transformation and sex change as envisioned by medieval artists and commentators on Ovid; sexual relations in religious houses and other enclosed spaces; and the applicability of modern categories such as "transgender," "butch" and "femme," or "sexual orientation" to medieval culture."--Publisher's description.

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Theophilus

The work is divided into three books. The first covers the production and use of painting and drawing materials (painting techniques, paints, and ink), especially for illumination of texts and painting of walls. The second deals with the production of stained glass and techniques of glass painting, while the last deals with various techniques of goldsmithing and other metalwork. It also includes an introduction into the building of organs. Theophilus contains perhaps the earliest reference to oil paint.

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Brian O'Doherty

"When these essays first appeared in Artforum in 1976, their impact was immediate. They were discussed, annotated, cited, collected, and translated - the three issues of Artforum in which they appeared have become nearly impossible to obtain. This edition also includes "The Gallery as a Gesture," a critically important piece published ten years after the others." "O'Doherty was the first to explicitly confront a particular crisis in postwar art as he sought to examine the assumptions on which the modern commercial and museum gallery were based. Concerned with the complex and sophisticated relationship between economics, social context, and aesthetics as represented in the contested space of the art gallery, he raises the question of how artists must construe their work in relation to the gallery space and system." "These essays are essential reading for anyone interested in the history and issues of postwar art in Europe and the United States."--Jacket.