Michael Govan

Bridging Chinese ink painting and Western installation art in dynamic works that engage with the agency of nature Over the past four decades, Shanghai-born, California-based Chinese American artist Zheng Chongbin (born 1961) has cultivated a practice that engages with the concepts and aesthetics of the Light and Space movement and East Asian traditions of ink painting. Educated in both traditional Chinese figurative painting and installation and performance art, Zheng synthesizes these seemingly disparate practices. Published to accompany his largest US solo show to date, this book archives and probes the artist's deeply philosophical engagements with ink, light and the agency of nature, focusing on two video installation pieces coupled with painted and printed works. Through abstract forms and distorted views of California's natural landscape, Zheng explores water, light and movement. Featuring exhibition photography as well as shots from the artist's personal archive, this volume weaves together Zheng's artistic practice with his daily life in California. This book was published in conjunction with Los Angeles County Museum of Art; INK Institute.

A remarkable selection of pan-Asian Buddhist art, showcasing the history and diversity of Buddhist schools with examples across sculptures, textiles, reliquaries, manuscripts and more Published with Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This gloriously illustrated celebration of Buddhist art addresses the development of Buddhism and its visual language over a period of nearly 2,000 years, as the faith traveled across Asia and was embraced by diverse cultures. Realms of the Dharma brings together more than 200 works of Buddhist art from India, mainland and island Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, Central Asia and East Asia. The book is divided into seven chapters, beginning with an introduction to Buddhism and Buddhist art, followed by chapters on South Asia, Southeast Asia, Nepal and Tibet, China, Korea and Japan. The artworks, all from the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), offer a broad perspective on the birth of Buddhism in South Asia and its spread throughout the continent over centuries. The artworks include a stunning and diverse range of Buddhas, stupas and reliquaries, religious manuscripts, paintings and sculptures depicting various Buddhist deities, portraits of Buddhist masters and other ritual objects. The remarkably successful expansion of Buddhism was in part due to the ability of its principles to be adapted to and assimilated within a range of preexisting belief systems. Gorgeously illustrated with over 250 color reproductions of these exemplary artworks and religious objects, this book celebrates that achievement.

Exquisite works of contemporary Asian calligraphy and the written word Featuring more than 30 artists, Line, Form, Qi highlights contemporary works that range from the traditional to the deeply experimental. The publication features predominantly Chinese artists, along with Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Korean artists working mainly with Chinese characters. The themes reflect significant trends and innovations in contemporary calligraphic art, including abstraction of the character, performance and phenomenological practice, and the exploration of alternative or nontraditional materials and calligraphy methods such as incense burn drawing and lithography. This publication also addresses different through lines from premodern calligraphy to contemporary practice, reflecting the evolution of the Chinese language from pictograph to ideograph and beyond. This book was published in conjunction with Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Examining aesthetic connections between the works of more than 50 Black artists from throughout the global diaspora This book was born out of frustration with art histories that emphasize Black artists’ resilience over the aesthetic impact of their work. The experiences of oppression Black people endure are inconceivable, yet this focus on resilience often overwhelms critical attention to Black artists’ ideas, innovations or use of materials. Imagining Black Diasporas defines “diaspora’’ more broadly, understanding it as a dynamic term that evolves with Black experience. Through four themes, the book illuminates aesthetic connections among established and emerging US–based artists in dialogue with artists working in Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. Artists include: Mark Bradford, Lorna Simpson, Calida Rawles, El Anatsui, Josué Azor, Isaac Julien, Frida Orupabo, Theaster Gates, Yinka Shonibare, Wangechi Mutu.

An essential primer on the history of Photoshop and other tools of digital image manipulation, from the 1970s through to the current day This timely volume, Digital Witness, examines the impact of Photoshop and other tools of digital manipulation, tracing simultaneous developments in photography, graphic design and visual effects over roughly five decades. Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, advances in computer science and engineering made it possible to design, build and run raster graphics programs, while developments in graphical user interfaces allowed artists and designers to directly create and edit images. At the same time, these nascent technologies led to concerns about authorship, automation and the viability of the businesses that supported various creative industries. During the 1990s, following the release of Photoshop, image-editing software rose to widespread use in multiple fields. As digitally altered imagery has permeated popular culture, aesthetic and ethical debates have played out in mass media, politics, advertising and even the judicial system. Examining the relationship between software development and artistic practice, Digital Witness explores how artists and engineers responded to each others’ innovations. Each new version of Photoshop allowed for increasingly sophisticated edits, from tracing intricate paths to layers to editable type. Some artists found creative potential in these advances, taking analog art forms such as collage to digitally enabled extremes. Others resisted the growing dependence on mainstream commercial software, developing open-source alternatives. Published in conjunction with the landmark PST ART exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this substantial, image-packed volume includes Q&As with noted visual artists, filmmakers and designers such as Copper Frances Giloth, Raqi Syed and April Greiman.

Groundbreaking exploration of ancient techniques and cosmologies of color in Mesoamerica Ancient Mesoamerican artists held a cosmic responsibility. As they used color to adorn buildings, clay vessels, textiles, bark-paper pages, sculptures, textiles, wall murals, mosaics and other items, they quite literally made the world. The power of color emerged from the materiality of its pigments and the communities whose knowledge of the natural world imbued it with meaning. Histories of colonialism and industrialization in the “color-averse” West have minimized the profound significance of color in the Indigenous Americas. We Live in Painting provides an in-depth exploration of the science and art of color in Mesoamerica. This lavishly illustrated catalog, published as part of the PST ART series, follows two interconnected lines of inquiry—technical and material analyses, and Indigenous conceptions of art and image—to reach the full richness of color at the core of historical and contemporary Mesoamerican worldviews.

Frimkess’ sculptural ceramics draw from an eclectic repertoire of cartoons and masterworks This book presents the work of Venezuelan artist Magdalena Suarez Frimkess (born 1929) and features a selection of her works from the ’70s to the present, including utilitarian objects, decorative figures and tiles. Her pieces are imbued with an equal sense of humor and dread. Their fragility and precarity increase the expressive power of these funny, outrageous, grotesque objects, which often seem as though they might collapse before our eyes at any moment. In her studio, one is likely to encounter figurines inspired by Japanese horses or vintage American cartoons; vases ornamented with patterns from the ancient Americas; and tiles, plates and cups decorated with flowers or scenes from her life in Venice. A trio of characters recur throughout her oeuvre: a distressed Olive Oyl, an oblivious Minnie Mouse and the savvy Condorito—a Chilean cartoon from the ’50s that is still very popular in Latin America. Frimkess affirms the wisdom of these cartoons; in her eyes, they are philosophers.

The spirit of feasting in Islamic lands as seen in art and material culture This catalog represents the first occasion that the burgeoning knowledge of food culture in this period has been employed to inform our understanding of Islamic art. Dining with the Sultan offers a pan-Islamic reach, spanning the 8th through 19th centuries and including some 200 works of art representing a rich variety of mediums. Across its 400 pages, and through an abundance of color plates and new scholarship, the publication introduces audiences to Islamic art and culture with objects of undisputed quality and appeal. Viewed through the universal lens of fine dining, this transformative selection of materials emphasizes our shared humanity rather than our singular histories.

How the first global media war impacted art, graphic design and cinema, from Otto Dix to Kathe Kollwitz The media spectacle in which we live today has origins in the Great War (1914–18) and the burgeoning mediascape of newspapers, ephemera, photography and the new medium of cinema that made it the first global media war. The war’s battlefields and contingent spaces became perhaps the most international human endeavor hitherto undertaken, with most Eastern and Western European countries and the Ottoman Empire involved, as well as forces from Australia, Canada, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and Indigenous peoples including Maori, First Peoples and Choctaw "code talkers." This book examines the war through paintings, sculpture, posters, photographs, film stills and the graphic arts, showing how it affected the arts between 1914 and 1930, and the role of media in constructing a global "imagined community" that could be accepted as part of the war effort. Artists include: Johannes Baader, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, George Bellows, Edith Collier, Raymond Desvarreux, Otto Dix, Raoul Dufy, Lyonel Feininger, Natalia Goncharova, George Grosz, Mary Riter Hamilton, Hannah Höch, Willy Jaeckel, Kathe Kollwitz, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Moriz Melzer, et al.

Artists, writers, musicians, choreographers and filmmakers explore the possibilities of data, digitization and algorithms at the dawn of computer technology Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952–1982 explores how the rise of computer technology, together with its emergence in popular consciousness, impacted the making of art in the age of the mainframe. International and interdisciplinary in scope, Coded examines the origins of what we now call digital art, featuring artists, writers, musicians, choreographers and filmmakers working directly with computers as well as those using algorithms and other systems to produce their work. Whether computer-generated or not, the many artworks considered here reflect the simultaneous wonder and alienation that was characteristic of the 1960s and ’70s, along with the utopian and dystopian possibilities of these new machines. Today, with digital technology having been fully integrated into our lives, Coded’s examination of the years leading up to the advent of the personal computer is relevant, even imperative, to fully appreciating art and culture in the age of the computer—both then and now. Artists include: Rebecca Allen, Siah Armajani, Richard Baily, Colette Stuebe Bangert, Charles Jeffries Bangert, Jennifer Bartlett, Jonathan Borofsky, Stanley Brouwn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Thomas Chimes, Harold Cohen, Computer Technique Group, Analivia Cordeiro, Waldemar Cordeiro, Charles Csuri, Agnes Denes, herman de vries, Juan Downey, Charles Eames, Ray Eames, Charles Gaines, Brion Gysin, Hans Haacke, Frederick Hammersley, Leon D. Harmon, June Harwood, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Desmond Paul Henry, Channa Horwitz, Hervé Huitric, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Donald Judd, Hiroshi Kawano, Edward Kienholz, Alison Knowles, Kenneth C. Knowlton, Beryl Korot, Gerald Laing, Ben F. Laposky, Sol LeWitt, Jackson Mac Low, Aaron Marcus, Jean-Claude Marquette, Hansjörg Mayer, Edward Meneeley, Manfred Mohr, Vera Molnár, François Morellet, N. E. Thing Co. Ltd (Iain and Ingrid Baxter), Monique Nahas, Frieder Nake, Lowell Nesbitt, A. Michael Noll, Nam June Paik, Eduardo Paolozzi, Peter Phillips, Sheila Pinkel, Paul Rand, Sonya Rapoport, Bridget Riley, Lillian F. Schwartz, Barbara T. Smith, John Stehura, Peter Struycken, Calvin Sumsion, Angelo Testa, Joan Truckenbrod, Stan VanDerBeek, Victor Vasarely, Gary Viskupic, Lawrence Weiner, Dennis Wheeler, John Whitney Sr, Stephen Willats and Emmett Williams.

A celebratory visual chronicle of the many ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves Spanning over two centuries from around 1800 to the present day, Black American Portraits chronicles the ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes. Remembering Two Centuries of Black American Art, curated by David C. Driskell at LACMA 45 years ago, this book is a companion to the exhibition of the same name that reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters and spaces. This selection of approximately 140 works from LACMA’s permanent collection highlights emancipation, scenes from the Harlem Renaissance, portraits from the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, multiculturalism of the 1990s and the spirit of Black Lives Matter. Countering a visual culture that often demonizes Blackness and fetishizes the spectacle of Black pain, these images center love, abundance, family, community and exuberance. Black American Portraits depicts Black figures in a range of mediums such as painting, drawing, prints, photography, sculpture, mixed media and time-based media. In addition to work by artists of African descent, Black American Portraits includes several works by artists of other backgrounds who have exemplified a thoughtfulness about, sensitivity toward and commitment to Black artists, communities, histories and subjects. Artists include: Alvin Baltrop, Edward Biberman, Bisa Butler, Jordan Casteel, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Bruce Davidson, Stan Douglas, rafa esparza, Shepard Fairey, Charles Gaines, Sargent Claude Johnson, Deana Lawson, Kerry James Marshall, Alice Neel, Lorraine O'Grady, Catherine Opie, Amy Sherald, Ming Smith, Henry Taylor, Tourmaline, Mickalene Thomas, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems, Charles White, Kehinde Wiley and Deborah Willis.

Five decades of iconic and incisive art from Barbara Kruger Since the mid-1970s, Barbara Kruger (born 1945) has been interrogating the hierarchies of power and control in works that often combine visual and written language. In her singular graphic style, Kruger probes aspects of identity, desire and consumerism that are embedded in our everyday lives. This volume traces her continuously evolving practice to reveal how she adapts her work in accordance with the moment, site and context. The book features a range of striking images—from her analogue paste-ups of the 1980s to digital productions of the last two decades, including new works produced on the occasion of the exhibition. Also featured are singular works in vinyl, her large-scale room wraps, multichannel videos, site-specific installations and commissioned works. The book also showcases how Kruger’s site-specific works have been reconceived for each venue, and includes a section of reprinted texts selected by the artist. Renowned for her use of direct address and her engagement with contemporary culture, Kruger is one of the most incisive and courageous artists working today. This volume explores how her pictures and words remain urgently resonant in a rapidly changing world.

Including and augmenting the exhibition catalogue on Dan Flavin’s art (see opposite page), this remarkable book features a complete catalogue of over 750 of the artist’s light works. Presenting all of Flavin’s lights together for the first time, this is the only publication to document the artist’s entire career. Flavin’s art has not been widely reproduced, and this definitive volume includes hundreds of images—featuring exquisite new photography—of well-known pieces as well as many rarely seen and unknown works. Each light work is illustrated by a beautiful color reproduction and/or a graphic diagram. Comprehensive information on each work, including title, date, medium, dimensions, edition, exhibition history, bibliography, and a brief discussion, reveals new insights into the artist’s working methods and provides an invaluable resource for students, scholars, dealers, and collectors. Published in association with Dia Art Foundation Exhibition Schedule: Hayward Gallery, London (January 19 – April 2, 2006) Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris (June 9 – October 8, 2006) Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (November 15, 2006 – March 4, 2007) Los Angeles County Museum of Art (May 13 – August 12, 2007)