Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev - Böcker

The definitive overview and anthology of the artworks and writings associated with Arte Povera, the influential art movement that explored the relation between art and life, made manifest through natural materials and human artifacts, and experienced through the body

The first book to explore the fascinating career and fantasy-driven worlds created by the acclaimed Argentinean artistAdrián Villar Rojas's works concoct imaginary realms. Usually made from clay, his colossal installations are transitory and so cannot be collected, as they disappear or decay over time. His practice confronts the public with ideas of obsolescence and extinction, but also with the possibilities of humankind and its endless imagination. This is the first book to include all of Villar Rojas' most significant projects, featured in international biennials such as Venice, Documenta, Shanghai, and others.

Free-spirited, utterly unconventional and nondogmatic, Arte Povera radically transformed the language of contemporary artIn the mid-1960s, various Italian artists began to exhibit together under the banner “Arte Povera,” or “poor art,” a term invented in 1967 by the art critic and curator Germano Celant. The 13 principal artists associated with this movement—Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario and Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio—were mainly interested in the intersections of art and life, of nature and culture. They expanded the fields of painting, sculpture, drawing and photography, and created the first “installations” in the history of art, as well as performance works and actions. Arte Povera retraces the history of this movement, from its birth in Italy to its spread across the world, through a large selection of major works by the 13 main protagonists.

This catalogue raisonné of works by Italian artist Fabio Mauri (Rome, 1926–2009) is edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Comprising an introductory essay by the author and images of over 3,600 works accompanied by extended captions, it constitutes the most comprehensive study of the artist’s oeuvre to date.One of the leading figures of the post-war Italian avant-garde, Mauri was a multifaceted figure—visual artist, writer, educator, publisher, and overall intellectual— whose work is distinguished by his prophetic insights into the power of the screen in contemporary society and his research into ideology, memory and manipulation.

By analysing the different colour theories that gradually took shape in the turbulent socio-political context that characterised the 20th century, Emotions of Color in Art reflects on a perspective that considers light, its vibrations and the world of emotions, while challenging the standardisation of the use of colour in the modern age (synthetic colours) and the digital era (RGB colours offered by various online palettes), a levelling that considerably reduces our ability to distinguish colours in the real world.