Art/Work

Why modern and contemporary art-and art conservation-can't be understood without taking account of the revolutionary impact of plastics Modern and contemporary art wouldn't exist without the invention of plastics. From sculpture to paint, and photography to film, plastics have shaped every major medium of art. In turn, plastics have revolutionized art conservation, transforming the possibilities of preservation but also producing new challenges for conservators struggling to preserve toxic and degrading material. Hailed as utopian in the twentieth century, plastics today are often understood as pollution and waste-a central cause of ecological crisis. Plastics is the first book to address the multifaceted history of plastics from the perspective of artists, art historians, conservators, and environmental scientists. Plastics demonstrates that this material cannot easily be summarized as toxic or utopian, catastrophic or necessary. Instead, plastics define the modern world in both its possibility and failures. The book also reveals how artists have been a critical overlooked voice in debates about plastics, and how they have offered theories of the material through works that explore its potential and harmfulness. Presenting a variety of perspectives on the world of plastics through the lens of art, artmaking, art history, and art conservation, Plastics shows why and how coming to terms with this material is critical to understanding not only modern and contemporary art and art conservation but also the crises of the twenty-first century. Anne Gunnison is the Alan J. Dworsky Senior Associate Conservator of Objects at the Yale University Art Gallery. David Joselit is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University and the author of, among other books, Art's Properties and After Art (both Princeton).

A concise illustrated history of one of art's most important and elusive elements Over the millennia, humans have used pigments to decorate, narrate, and instruct. Charred bone, ground earth, stones, bugs, and blood were the first pigments. New pigments were manufactured by simple processes such as corrosion and calcination until the Industrial Revolution introduced colors outside the spectrum of the natural world. Pigments brings together leading art historians and conservators to trace the history of the materials used to create color and their invention across diverse cultures and time periods. This richly illustrated book features incisive historical essays and case studies that shed light on the many forms of pigments-the organic and inorganic; the edible and the toxic; and those that are more precious than gold. It shows how pigments were as central to the earliest art forms and global trade networks as they are to commerce, ornamentation, and artistic expression today. The book reveals the innate instability and mutability of most pigments and discusses how few artworks or objects look as they did when they were first created. From cave paintings to contemporary art, Pigments demonstrates how a material understanding of color opens new perspectives on visual culture and the history of art. Barbara H. Berrie is senior conservation scientist and head of the Department of Scientific Research at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Caroline Fowler is Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts. Karin Leonhard is professor of art history at the University of Konstanz in Germany. Ittai Weinryb is associate professor of art history at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. "A fascinating read. This engaging book will reach an interdisciplinary audience of scientists, art historians, and artists-all those interested in historic artistic practice related to pigments."-Narayan Khandekar, author of Collecting Colour "While research on pigments is widespread in technical art history and conservation studies, it has remained understudied in art history. Pigments demonstrates how much there is to gain from a dialogue between these practices. The volume is original in the way it approaches 'pigment' as a concept. This is the kind of imaginative and daring interdisciplinary work that pushes the discipline of art history forward."-Hanneke Grootenboer, author of The Pensive Image: Art as a Form of Thinking

Margaret S. Graves is associate professor of art history at Indiana University. Sequoia Miller is a historian, curator, and studio potter. He is chief curator at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto. Magdalene Odundo is a ceramist whose work is in the collections of the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Frankfurt Museum for Applied Arts, among many others. She is chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA). Vicki Parry is conservator of objects in the Department of Objects Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A new examination of the history of ceramic art, spanning ancient to modern times, emphasizing its traditions, materials, and methods of making Concise but comprehensive, Ceramic Art brings together the voices of art historians, conservators, and artists to tell the history of making art from fired clay. The story spans history and continents, examining the global traditions of ceramists that range from pre-Columbian Peruvian artisans to contemporary African studio potters. The volume shows how human need gave rise to multiple traditions in earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, glaze, and surface decoration from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Essays describe the core materials and practice of ceramics, followed by consideration of its production, consumption, and use. Throughout, the focus is on the power of materials and the role conservation plays in the afterlife of a ceramic object. An accessible introduction to an ancient practice, Ceramic Art offers new ways of thinking about the broader forces that have shaped the traditions of the medium. "Ceramic Art seeks to center a material history of art by exploring the significance of ceramics to human history and culture, illuminating what the role of ceramics in a globalized history of art might look like. The book offers a critical instruction to the material of ceramics."-Michael Yonan, author of Messerschmidt's Character Heads: Maddening Sculpture and the Writing of Art History "Ceramic Art stresses the importance and centrality of ceramics through most of human art and culture from prehistoric times and into the future, providing a variety of perspectives from art historians, curators, conservators, a potter, and an archeologist. This engaging and well-written book offers an excellent introduction to the study of ceramics."-Jane Gillies, Senior Conservator of Objects and Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston