this month vulture will publish the end of the year lists of our critics. last week’s charts included albums, art and video games. this week we’ve covered comedy (sketch, specials, and podcasts), plus a mix that includes comics, album reissues, and viral videos. Today we conclude our parade of lists with art books, TV opening sequences, lists and suggestions from culture creators.
“Art books” are a difficult thing to define. there are literary books on art, of course. but then there are the glossy coffee-table tomes made purely of images, the museum display catalogues, and the monographs on individual artists. there is also the “artist’s book”, a book created as a work of art in the same way as a painting, pushing the boundaries of what a book can or should be. these are books you don’t read as much as you experience. In recent years, art books have seen a renaissance in all of the above categories, with 2015 presenting another peak for the medium. here is a list that brings together all the different formats, high and low, in and out of the art world, to read and watch.
You are reading: Best art books 2015
1. picasso sculpture (museum of modern art) moma’s exhibition of picasso sculpture was heralded as a game changer, proving that the artist was as innovative in three dimensions as he made it it was in two. in fact, many critics considered the sculptures to be even better than the pictorial cubism for which he is known. the exhibition catalog immortalizes the group, which will hardly meet again in the same place. What better way to remember Picasso’s collection of sculptural absinthe glasses, fractured into shards and then reassembled, each with a real spoon on top?
2. the white pathby edmund de waal (fsg) edmund de waal is a ceramist and writer; what induces jealousy is that he is equally adept at both. the white path was my favorite book about art, or rather about the creative process, that came out this year. De Waal’s exploration of his chosen material of porcelain is not only charming and compelling, but the book itself is a carefully crafted object, shot through with greyscale imagery and passages of empty space in the same manner as a curator. I could organize a gallery. this is the kind of book that can seem abstruse or intimidating until you pick it up and don’t put it down for three days straight.
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3. every person in new york by jason polan (chronicle books) jason polan is our city’s resident cartoonist. In recent years, his scribbles in black pen have become representative of New York to a degree few artists do, in the same way that Keith Haring made the subway his own. This artist’s book represents the first volume of Polan’s epic, Sisyphean quest to draw every single person in town, just as the title suggests. of course, it will never succeed. but watching him try is the fun part.
4. even the magazine doesn’t change much in art media; Few challengers rise up to face artforum dominance. Fortunately, this year we were treated to the launch of journalist and art critic Jason Farago’s new magazine, even. Taking its name from the end of a Duchamp title, the magazine has so far featured two pristine issues of international reporting, interviews and reviews with a range of contributors that feel remarkably fresh and refreshingly engaged with current events. from philip tinari on the influence of russian modernism in china to a dispatch from greece, where the art market intersected with an economy in crisis, even the fall 2015 issue is an introduction to art so good as any other. Can a magazine be a book? I think this qualifies.
5. dear dog by maira kalman (penguin press) we have to have fun, right? Maira Kalman is another New York veteran whose views of the city and its surroundings are always enchanting. This book reflects on man’s best friend in both words and images, in Kalman’s trademark saturated, brushed style. celebrate the special relationships we have with our pets without falling into the cloying sweetness. the perfect artistic gift for someone who instagrams her dog too much.
6. hippie modernism: the fight for utopia (walking art center) something like the catalog of the entire earth, everything seems to exist within this book. document of an exhibition in the andador, transits through a particularly current aesthetic: “the art, architecture and design of the counterculture of the 60s and early 70s”. Is there anything we’re more interested in right now, with our plans for underground parks and microdosing on LSD at work? Rather than a dry document, this book manages to feel impressively alive and relevant. maybe it’s the quality of the newsprint it’s printed on, meant to be used, not hoarded. Or maybe it’s the radical visions on its pages, created by people who aren’t afraid to pursue otherworldly ambitions.
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7. contemporaries by roger white (bloomsbury usa) every once in a while there is a survey of the art world written in a way that is accessible even to people who don’t know christie’s from sotheby’s (they are practically the same). Based on personal interviews and his own experience as a writer and artist, Roger White’s Expedition to Contemporary Art is a must-read as an introduction to a range of artistic practitioners, from painters to conceptual artists, both famous and intentionally obscure. white makes the sometimes difficult details of recent art history enjoyable and satisfyingly voyeuristic.
8. only what is necessary: charles m. schulz and the art of peanuts by chip kidd (harry n. abrams) along with his collaborators geoff spear and jeff kinney, kidd, a famous graphic designer and writer, deconstructs peanuts and build it from scratch. is a coffee table book to end all coffee table books, not just a beautiful object, but something that anyone can flip through for an hour. thanks to archives of charles m. Schulz Museum and Research Center in California, the book contains reproductions of vintage strips, interviews with Schulz, photographs, vintage advertisements for the comic strip, and draft sketches showing the creator’s original process. it’s nostalgic, even if you never read peanuts as a kid.
9. tseng kwong chi: interpretation for the camera (chrysler museum of art) a great function of art books is that they have a way of attracting the artist’s attention and public access. history comes to life again. Nowhere is that more evident than in this catalog of the work of a 1980s New York icon who flirted with Haring and Basquiat. Best known for his series of self-portraits dressed in a Mao suit in front of landmarks like the World Trade Center, Tseng was the son of a Nationalist army soldier who fled communist rule. decades-old black-and-white images of him feel hyper-current in the age of selfies, perhaps because we haven’t been overexposed to them. we’re lucky to have him back.
10. pomeloby yoko ono (museum of modern art) before lennon, yoko ono was best known as a fluxus artist, creating enchanting objects and representations from everyday material, finding the poetic in the mundane. Grapefruit is a classic early work, first published in Tokyo in 1964. A cross between poems and instructions, the book contains short prompts for artistic thoughts and actions. this reprint is a beautiful object as well as a creative inquiry.
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