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The Photographer's Playbook

307 Assignments and Ideas

Published by Aperture.
Edited by Jason Fulford, Gregory Halpern.

The best way to learn is by doing. The Photographer's Playbook features photography assignments, as well as ideas, stories and anecdotes from many of the world's most talented photographers and photography professionals. Whether you're looking for exercises to improve your craft--alone or in a group--or you're interested in learning more about the medium, this playful collection will inspire fresh ways of engaging with photographic process. Inside you will find advice for better shooting and editing, creative ways to start new projects, games and activities and insight into the practices of those responsible for our most iconic photographs--John Baldessari, Tina Barney, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Jim Goldberg, Miranda July, Susan Meiselas, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth, Tim Walker and many more. The book also features a Polaroid alphabet by Mike Slack, which divides each chapter, and a handy subject guide. Edited by acclaimed photographers Jason Fulford and Gregory Halpern, the assignments and project ideas in this book are indispensable for teachers and students, and great fun for everyone fascinated by taking pictures.
Jason Fulford is a photographer and cofounder of the non-profit publisher J&L Books. He has lectured at more than a dozen art schools and universities and is a contributing editor to Blind Spot magazine. Fulford's photographs have been featured in Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, Time, Blind Spot, Aperture, and on book jackets for Don DeLillo, John Updike, Bertrand Russell, Jorge Luis Borges, Terry Eagleton, Ernest Hemingway and Richard Ford. His published books include Sunbird (2000), Crushed (2003), Raising Frogs for $$$ (2006), The Mushroom Collector (2010) and Hotel Oracle (2013).
Gregory Halpern received a BA in history and literature from Harvard University and an MFA from California College of the Arts. His third book of photographs, entitled A, is a photographic ramble through the streets of the American Rust Belt. His other books include Omaha Sketchbook and Harvard Works Because We Do. He currently teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

PUBLISHER
Aperture

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 9 in. / 288 pgs / 26 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 6/30/2014
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ISBN 9781597112475 TRADE
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Revisions Of Space: An Architectural Manual

Published by nai010 publishers.
Essays by Dick van Gameren and Hans Ibelings.

More felt than seen, space is a key quality of architecture that has eluded definition for centuries. People speak of how they feel in certain spaces, or how they move through them, yet those spaces are only truly defined by their functions, or the architecture that encapsulates them. In Revisions of Space, architect Dick van Gameren shows how the spatial quality of architecture is connected with densification and programmatic diversity: in buildings, around buildings, and in the larger urban context. Through a selection of unusual historic examples and his own work, van Gameren creates this manual for architectural design, which places particular emphasis on how designers can address the evasive issue of space. With its highly original roster of historic examples, this book also reads as an unconventional and fascinating cross-section of the history of architecture.

PUBLISHER
nai010 publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 168 pgs / 120 color / 164 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 8/15/2005
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Catalog: FALL 2005 p. 74   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789056624217 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

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In stock

We Go to the Gallery

Published by Dung Beetle Ltd.

“Whether interpreted as a scathing criticism of modern art, a primordial expression of the futility of life, or a hilarious twist on sanitized children's literature, We Go to the Gallery is unforgettable.” –Midwest Book Review

PUBLISHER
Dung Beetle Ltd

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 4.75 x 7 in. / 46 pages / 20 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/24/2015
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Catalog: FALL 2015 p. 181   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780992834913 TRADE
List Price: $14.95 CDN $19.95

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In stock

Rethinking the Contemporary Art School

The Artist, the PhD, and the Academy

Published by The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
Edited by Brad Buckley, John Conomos.

With great timeliness, Rethinking the Contemporary Art School examines the very basis of the art school and its role in society. The book considers various art-school models—innovative graduate programs, independent stand-alone schools and art schools that are departments or schools of major research universities—and the problems that art schools face as academically marginalized institutions. Rethinking the Contemporary Art School concludes with essays on new media, inquiring whether the contemporary art school offers the right context for this discipline. The anthology includes contributions by Su Baker, Bruce Barber, Mikkel Bogh, Juli Carson and Bruce Yonemoto, Edward Colless, Jay Coogan, Luc Courchesne, Sara Diamond, Lauren Ewing, Gary Pearson, Bill Seaman and Jeremy Welsh.

PUBLISHER
The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 9 in. / 237 pgs.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 5/31/2010
Out of print

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Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 74   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780919616493 TRADE
List Price: $25.00 CDN $30.00

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Self Publish, Be Happy

A DIY Photobook Manual and Manifesto

Published by Aperture/self publish, be happy.
By Bruno Ceschel.

An economic and cultural revolution has shaken the photobook world in the last five years: self-publishing. Operating as their own publishers, a generation of photographers have had an instrumental role in today's photobook renaissance. Self Publish, Be Happy offers a do-it-yourself manual and a survey of key examples of self-published success stories, as well as a self-publishing manifesto and bookmaking tips from the photobook community.
The manual portion of this volume offers insight, advice and rudimentary how-tos for the photographer interested in self-publishing. The survey offers an overview of the contemporary self-publishing landscape; each case study illustrates a particular theme and genre of self-publishing (such as diary, documentary or conceptual object), and is accompanied by a personal testimony from the artist.
Author Bruno Ceschel issues a rallying cry for all those involved in the contemporary photobook revolution, urging photographers to take control of a moment in which the photobook, in all its manifestations, has never before been so omnipresent in our cultural landscape, nor so critical to the photographer's practice.
Bruno Ceschel is the founder of Self Publish, Be Happy, an organization and website that has been promoting, studying and collecting self-published photobooks since its founding in 2010. Self Publish, Be Happy runs workshops and live events as well as online projects, and its collection, based in London, contains more than 2,000 publications.

PUBLISHER
Aperture/self publish, be happy

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.25 x 11 in. / 512 pgs / 280 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/24/2015
No longer our product

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ISBN 9781597113441 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $35.00

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Conditional Design: Workbook

Published by Valiz.
Text by Andrew Blauvelt, Koert van Mensvoort.

Beautifully simple ideas for open, collaborative processes in art and design presented in a workbook format

PUBLISHER
Valiz

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 9.5 x 13 in. / 176 pgs / 80 color / 50 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/31/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

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Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 160   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789078088585 TRADE
List Price: $24.95 CDN $33.95

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Making Design

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Collections

Published by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
Text by Cara McCarty, Matilda McQuaid, Susan Brown, Kimberly Randall, Lucy Commoner, Sarah D. Coffin, Cynthia Trope, Gail S. Davidson, Caitlin Condell, Gregory Herringshaw, Stephen Van Dyk, Elizabeth Broman, Jennifer Cohlman Bracchi, Sarah Lawrence, Mary McWilliams.

Designed by the legendary Irma Boom, Making Design is a handsome glossary of design excellence

PUBLISHER
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8.25 in. / 912 pgs / 1100 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/24/2015
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Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 16   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780910503747 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

The Schools of Herman Hertzberger

Published by nai010 publishers.
Text by Abram de Swaan.

Herman Hertzberger designs schools to function like cities. Schools and cities, he contends, can be read in many ways and are challenging, inspirational and inviting. School is where you can withdraw and adopt a position with respect to others, where you learn to take a place in society. Besides a presentation of Hertzberger's 30-plus built schools and a number of unbuilt ones, the sociologist Abram de Swaan addresses Hertzberger’s work in an essay, discussing how school architecture impacts the social development of children. De Swaan pays tribute to Hertzberger as a pre-eminently ‘sociological’ architect.

PUBLISHER
nai010 publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8.25 x 10.5 in. / 176 pgs / 150 color / 100 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/30/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

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Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 173   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789064506468 FLAT40
List Price: $45.00 CDN $60.00

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How to Do Things with Art

The Meaning of Art's Performativity

Published by JRP|Ringier.
By Dorothea von Hantlemann. Edited by Karen Marta. Foreword by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Art has never been as culturally and economically prominent as it is today. How can artists themselves shape the social relevance and impact of their work? In How to Do Things with Art, German art historian Dorothea von Hantelmann uses four case study artists--Daniel Buren, James Coleman, Jeff Koons and Tino Sehgal--to examine how an artwork acts upon and within social conventions, particularly through the "performing" of exhibitions. The book's title is a play on J.L. Austin's seminal text, How to Do Things with Words, which describes language's reality-producing properties and demonstrates that in "saying" there is always a "doing"--a linguistic counterpart to the dynamics envisioned by Von Hantelmann for art, in which "showing" is a kind of "doing." Von Hantelmann's close analysis of works by Buren, Coleman, Koons and Sehgal explores how each of these artists has taken control of how their work conducts itself in the world.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8.25 in. / 208 pgs / 19 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 11/30/2010
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: FALL 2010 p. 110   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783037641040 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $39.95

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In the Making

Creative Options for Contemporary Art

Published by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers.
By Linda Weintraub.

From the first page to the last, from Thomas Kinkaid (really!) to Matthew Barney, this book serves as a launching pad. Conclusions are perpetually delayed. Resolutions are continually postponed. The text is written for takeoff, not arrival. It is a first step for readers' explorations of current modes of art making and for their own future artistic achievements. The much-anticipated follow-up to Art on the Edge... and Over, Linda Weintraub's highly accessible introduction to contemporary art since the 1970s, In the Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art explores essential but sometimes elusive facets of art making today. In her trademark writing style--straightforward and jargon-free--Weintraub sets out to itemize the conceptual and practical concerns that go into making contemporary art in all its endless permutations. In six clearly defined thematic sections--”Scoping an Audience,” “Sourcing Inspiration,” “Crafting an Artistic 'Self',” “Expressing an Artistic Attitude,” “Choosing a Mission,” and “Measuring Success”--Weintraub moves artist by artist, in 40 individual chapters, using each to explain a different aspect of art making. Isaac Julien makes work for a highly specific audience; Michal Rovner communicates through metaphor and symbol; Charles Ray disrupts the viewer's assumptions; Pipilotti Rist is inspired by female emotions; William Kentridge is moved by apartheid and redemption; Vanessa Beecroft epitomizes the biography of a smart, attractive, Caucasian woman; and Matthew Barney achieves success through resistance. Through a compelling combination of renowned and up-and-coming artists, Weintraub creates a complex understanding of how to make and look at contemporary art--but in a simple, easily digestible format and language.

In addition to being a fine read for anyone who simply wants to understand how to look at contemporary art, In the Making is also an exceptional pedagogical tool, one that addresses what is fast becoming a huge gap in art education. Teaching artistic techniques no longer provides young artists with a sufficient education--a full range of conceptual issues needs to be considered in any well-rounded studio practice. Yet these very same conceptual issues are often those that are dealt with textually in art history and criticism classes. Weintraub persuasively offers a series of texts that fit squarely into this gap, addressing issues that concern anyone who is learning how to make art or how to understand it.

In addition, In the Making includes a series of interviews in which many of the artists discuss the practical issues of their life's work. Conducted by Weintraub's students at Oberlin College, the interviews pose questions about the artists' schooling, their studio space, and how they support themselves if their main income doesn't come from their art--the kind of questions every art student has always wanted to ask the artists whose work they see on gallery walls.

PUBLISHER
D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8 x 10 in. / 415 pgs / 120 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/2/2003
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DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2003 p. 57   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781891024597 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CDN $47.50

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In stock

Teaching Art in the Neoliberal Realm

Realism versus Cynicism

Published by Valiz/Antennae Series.
Edited by Pascal Gielen, Paul De Bruyne. Text by Tessa Overbeek, Jeroen Boomgaard, Paul De Bruyne, Pascal Gielen, Stefan Hertmans, Barend van Heusden, et al.

Throughout the world, the educational field is being transformed into a marketplace in which institutions must compete for students, and are called on to assess their cultural contributions in terms of finance and management. Is there any room left for art in such a system? Teaching Art in the Neoliberal Realm investigates the wide-scale reorganization of art education in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Russia and The Netherlands, and seeks to determine both the current impact and future ramifications of market education on the arts and the artist. Most importantly, it provides prescriptions for a positive direction forward, steering between the cynical big business of the art market and the threatened idealism of classic art education. The thematic chapters, interviews and essays adopt both practical and theoretical approaches, and include such contributors as Richard Sennett, Marco Scotini and Dieter Lesage.

PUBLISHER
Valiz/Antennae Series

BOOK FORMAT
Flexi, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 288 pgs / illustrated throughout.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 5/31/2012
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2012 p. 116   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9789078088578 TRADE
List Price: $28.95 CDN $39.50

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Josef Albers: Art as Experience

The Teaching Method of a Bauhaus Master

Published by Silvana Editoriale.
Edited by Nicholas Fox Weber.

Josef Albers (1888–1976) was both a pioneer of abstract art and an enormously influential teacher and theorist of art pedagogy. In the work he made at the Bauhaus and--following his emigration from Germany to the U.S.--at Black Mountain College and Yale University, Albers strived for economy of line and clarity of articulation, and he developed his pedagogy along similarly rigorous lines. At Black Mountain College, Albers encountered the educational theories of the great American philosopher John Dewey, who emphasized the importance of context and experience in education, and whose famous statement on aesthetics, Art as Experience, was published the year after Albers arrived in the U.S. In 1963, Albers published the profoundly influential book Interaction of Color. Subsequently translated into 12 languages, it continues to be used in classrooms and studios worldwide. Josef Albers: Art as Experience looks at the relationship between Albers’ pragmatic (and Pragmatist) teaching and his art, presenting previously unseen works by Albers’ students from the Bauhaus and elsewhere, along with little-known studies and other art by Albers himself, and reveals the vibrancy and extraordinary impact of Josef Albers’ groundbreaking pedagogical methods.

PUBLISHER

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9.5 x 11 in. / 96 pgs / 84 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 10/31/2013
Out of stock indefinitely

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2013 p. 117   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9788836625970 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CDN $47.50

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Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art

Published by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers.

How contemporary artists draw the human figure in an affordable, up-to-date and well-illustrated survey, covering an eclectic range of drawing styles and media

PUBLISHER
D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers

BOOK FORMAT
Flexi, 9.5 x 13.5 in. / 256 pgs / 275 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/28/2015
Active

DISTRIBUTION
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Catalog: SPRING 2015 p. 11   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781938922688 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $39.95

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In stock

Szenasy, Design Advocate

Writings and Talks by Metropolis Magazine Editor Susan S. Szenasy

Published by Metropolis Books.
Edited by Ann S. Hudner, Akiko Busch. Foreword by John Hockenberry. Preface by Ann S. Hudner. Introduction by Akiko Busch.

The first published collection of writings by writer and educator Susan S. Szenasy

PUBLISHER
Metropolis Books

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.5 x 9 in. / 353 pgs / 32 color / 4 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2014
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2014 p. 47   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781938922398 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $39.95

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Out of stock

Art Is a Problem

Selected Criticism, Essays, Interviews and Curatorial Projects (1986-2012)

Published by JRP|Ringier.
By Joshua Decter. Edited by John Miller.

In this volume of selected essays, interviews, curatorial texts and reviews, spanning 1986-2012, Joshua Decter examines contemporary art in relation to its various ideological, public, discursive, and social contexts. The book encompasses seven chapters: "Institutional Critique® and its Discontents"; "Aporia (art as politics, the politics of art)"; "Everything is Social"; "Convoluted Cities"; "The (Un)De-definition of Art"; "What Do We Want from Exhibitions?"; and "On the Curatorial Road." The author unpacks art's paradoxical condition: art problematizes, and is intrinsically a problem. From this standpoint, he analyzes art's definitions, functions, ethical entanglements, societal aspirations and cultural contradictions.

PUBLISHER
JRP|Ringier

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 8.25 in. / 446 pgs / 20 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 3/31/2014
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2013 p. 159   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783037641958 TRADE
List Price: $29.95 CDN $39.95

AVAILABILITY
In stock