Customer Reviews

Claudia DeMonte

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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This monograph is a great overview of a terrific artist's work as well as being a tribute to the many females she's used as subject matter. DeMonte's exploration of women and about women isn't a feminist statement. It's a revealing, funny, poignant look at and about women. There's so much we, women, relate to when seeing DeMonte's work. It should be required reading for all the men in our lives.

Claudia DeMonte is a deeply thoughtful and immensely well-traveled artist, who brings to her art so much of what she sees and learns during her travels. This is not your mother's art book. Claudia's life, talent and work are wide-ranging and eclectic and sometimes surprising. Enjoy this book in the warm sunlight with a wide-brimmed garden hat, an open mind and some sangria--or by the fireside with a cup of hot tea and a cozy blanket. There's something here for every mood. Regardless of where you perch, be prepared to be tickled and moved in turns. DeMonte's art is an enriching experience.

This is a wonderful and handsomely illusrated book for anyone who's interested in art and a supremely talented artist's idiosyncratic take on the parlous state of women in the world. DeMonte is by turns witty, humorous and passionate. If you're familiar with her work, you'll want this book. If you're not, it's an entertaining, page-turning and highly informative introduction to a unique voice.

The Monograph reflects Claudia DeMonte's wide range of global experience and provides a nuanced interpretation of gender and the social/cultural context within which it exists. At times playful, her work conveys not only the different facets of gender but also a sense of urgency and social responsibility to understand them. A must-read!

Claudia DeMonte is certainly one of the most gifted artists around. Not just one of the most gifted women artists -- although her subject matter is almost invariably attuned to what women are doing, thinking and desire.
In that sense, it is so refreshing to view her body of work: smart, elegant, funny and occasionally self-mocking all at once.

Claudia DeMonte is a wonderful artist and role model.
After following her work for 30 years, it is a great pleasure to have her monograph.
It is a *GEM*
I highly recommend it for you and for all of your friends !

Carol Harrison
Carol Harrison/Fine Art Photography

This book is one of the more captivating presentations of an artist's work in recent years. The simple, but elegant design allows the viewer to witness the progress of a lifetime of substantial work in an orderly fashion; a huge, significant body of work that speaks volumes for art history, woman history and contemporary global thinking. This book presents a rich documentation of a nomadic lifestyle with sophisticated thinking that gives necessary notice to those who have no voice which proves the important role of art as activism and communicator for change. Claudia DeMonte lives her work and is her work. Much is learned by the thoughtful forward by Agnes Gund and the essay written by Eleanor Heartney. Lovely publication for all.
Jacqueline Bishop
New Orleans

What a joy it is to view in this book the collected works of an artist whose sculpture I have admired in New York galleries during the last decade. Claudia DeMonte's art reflects not only her singularly adventurous life but also the themes and patterns that are repeated in the lives of women around the world. Her work is characterized by originality, wit, insight, warmth and vitality. This is a book to sit with, again and again.

Happening upon Eleanor Heartney's new book CLAUDIA DEMONTE, was pure luck...... The challenge of finding the perfect birthday gift for a savvy, world travelled college student was daunting.... closely followed by another milestone of a chic friend facing 39, for the 20th time.....This visual feast of "food for thought", will be the perfect solution for all the "artsy types" on my Christmas list.....leaving me the time to check out DeMonte's latest show.....

Claudia DeMonte

A truly attractive hard cover book tells the reader of its identity right from the start. On its cover: a wooden shoe form covered tightly with flat hammered and etched pewter cutouts of objects from a woman's life. Mystery, fetish, feminism, and luxury combined into one. The shoe is no longer a foot dressing. You want to touch it as a piece of jewelry and listen to its so many stories. Rarely does an ordinary object convey as many layers in a single application.
The enticement continues inside the book. Page by page portrays Claudia DeMonte's ability to delve into fantasy without loosing her foot in the reality of her life and in the breadth of the world of women. Although the publication of the book coincided with the show DeMonte had in June Kelly Gallery in New York, the scope of the book is a lifetime of work, and the journey is fascinating.
DeMonte is not just an artist exploring her own artistic world. She is a thinker and a world-wide wanderer. And so the book is a mirror of a woman who uses her talent and need to explore various artistic applications in order to give voice to feminine mysticism and reality and bridge far away places and ancient times with today familiar environment.
The book has two encompassing, well-written and interesting to read articles by Agnes Gund, President Emeritus of the Museum of Modern Art, who has been a friend and an admirer, and the writer and art critic Eleanor Heartney of Art in America and ArtPress. Most engaging are the plates. Either two or three dimensional - they are colorful and luxurious, strong and personal. Made of paper, wood, various metals and cast bronze - all are seductive. As the image of Caludia herself: dramatic and imposing in her pony tail moves in and out of the work and gleams at you, you feel that as wonderful as the book is - it is not enough. You have just had a taste. You want more.