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ÉDITIONS XAVIER BARRAL
Shunk-Kender: Art Through the Eye of the Camera
1957–1983
Edited with text by Chloé Goualc'h, Julie Jones, Stéphanie Rivoire. Foreword by Bernard Blistène. Text by Jack Cowart, Glenn R. Phillips, Didier Schulmann, Florian Ebner, Marcella Lista.
The photographic duo Shunk and Kender created the defining images of the international avant-garde of the 1960s and ‘70s. In late 1950s/early 1960s Paris, Shunk and Kender were close to the New Realist artists, and as a result produced what remains probably their most famous photograph: Leap into the Void, the portrait of Yves Klein jumping from a wall. They also photographed Niki de Saint Phalle's famous gun performances and the performance dinners of Daniel Spoerri. Established in New York from 1967, Shunk and Kender photographed Andy Warhol and his Factory entourage, recorded the performances of Yayoi Kusama, Trisha Brown and many others, and participated in the avant-garde exhibitions of their time, such as Pier 18 at the Museum of Modern Art (1971).
Much more than mere documentation, Shunk and Kender’s photographs were truly collaborative and participatory in spirit, and in many cases now provide the sole evidence of the performances, happenings and other unique events of that time.
This gorgeously produced, nearly 500-page volume from Xavier Barral accompanies the first Shunk-Kender retrospective, held at the Centre Pompidou, and is based on a selection of more than 10,000 vintage prints from the Kandinsky Library, which entered into the Pompidou’s collection in 2008 through a donation from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Shunk-Kender: Art through the Eye of the Camera is the ultimate account of the heady days of American and European postwar art, and a defining example of that fascinating but rarely acknowledged photographic genre: photography-of-art as art.
The German photographer Harry Shunk (1924–2006) and his Hungarian partner János Kender (1938–2009) produced some of the most iconic images of postwar European and American art. In 2013, the Museum of Modern Art acquired over 600 works from the Shunk-Kender Photography Collection as a gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. This donation established a consortium across five institutions—the Getty Research Institute, the National Gallery of Art, Centre Pompidou, Tate and MoMA—that together received the full Shunk-Kender archive.
Featured image, of Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick and Chuck Wein, Hotel Royale Bison, Paris, May 1965, is reproduced from 'Shunk-Kender: Art Through the Eye of the Camera.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Feature Shoot
Miss Rosen
[Shunk-Kender's] images ensured that that what could not be bought or sold was forever available to those who understood art was more than a commodity to be consumed by capitalists — it was a profoundly primal, ritualistic experience that empowers us to seek deeper knowledge, understanding, and wisdom about the human condition and the universe.
New York Times: Book Review
...the photos appear definitive, both historically and as records of artistic process, and they also carry an anthropological allure: documents of the strange and intricate rituals of a tribe whose habitat is gone forever and whose works often lasted only a day or a week.
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Featured photograph, of Niki de Saint-Phalle in her studio on Impasse Ronsin, Paris, in 1961, is reproduced from Shunk-Kender: Art Through the Eye of the Camera, the glorious new 484-page catalog published to accompany the late artistic collaborators' current exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. Featuring a shocking 848 (out of more than 10,000) black-and-white photographs of virtually everybody who was anybody in the international avant-garde between 1957 and 1983—ranging from Josef Albers to Merce Cunningham, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol—this volume is an absolute must for any serious contemporary art library. "Can we call photographers who are ready to play the subversive games of the avant-garde documentary photographers?" Florian Ebner asks. "Or are they, like the muscle-bound judokas, more companions, and benevolent chroniclers of the artist? If we look from this angle at the joint and prolific production of the two photographers… we discover that they were genuine partners of the artists." continue to blog
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FORMAT: Hbk, 7.5 x 10 in. / 484 pgs / 840 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $90 ISBN: 9782365112369 PUBLISHER: Éditions Xavier Barral AVAILABLE: 5/21/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ASIA AU/NZ
Shunk-Kender: Art Through the Eye of the Camera 1957–1983
Published by Éditions Xavier Barral. Edited with text by Chloé Goualc'h, Julie Jones, Stéphanie Rivoire. Foreword by Bernard Blistène. Text by Jack Cowart, Glenn R. Phillips, Didier Schulmann, Florian Ebner, Marcella Lista.
The photographic duo Shunk and Kender created the defining images of the international avant-garde of the 1960s and ‘70s. In late 1950s/early 1960s Paris, Shunk and Kender were close to the New Realist artists, and as a result produced what remains probably their most famous photograph: Leap into the Void, the portrait of Yves Klein jumping from a wall. They also photographed Niki de Saint Phalle's famous gun performances and the performance dinners of Daniel Spoerri. Established in New York from 1967, Shunk and Kender photographed Andy Warhol and his Factory entourage, recorded the performances of Yayoi Kusama, Trisha Brown and many others, and participated in the avant-garde exhibitions of their time, such as Pier 18 at the Museum of Modern Art (1971).
Much more than mere documentation, Shunk and Kender’s photographs were truly collaborative and participatory in spirit, and in many cases now provide the sole evidence of the performances, happenings and other unique events of that time.
This gorgeously produced, nearly 500-page volume from Xavier Barral accompanies the first Shunk-Kender retrospective, held at the Centre Pompidou, and is based on a selection of more than 10,000 vintage prints from the Kandinsky Library, which entered into the Pompidou’s collection in 2008 through a donation from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. Shunk-Kender: Art through the Eye of the Camera is the ultimate account of the heady days of American and European postwar art, and a defining example of that fascinating but rarely acknowledged photographic genre: photography-of-art as art.
The German photographer Harry Shunk (1924–2006) and his Hungarian partner János Kender (1938–2009) produced some of the most iconic images of postwar European and American art. In 2013, the Museum of Modern Art acquired over 600 works from the Shunk-Kender Photography Collection as a gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. This donation established a consortium across five institutions—the Getty Research Institute, the National Gallery of Art, Centre Pompidou, Tate and MoMA—that together received the full Shunk-Kender archive.
