John Currin's paintings sit at the crossroads where Old Master painting technique and 20th-century kitsch collide. His figurative paintings mix humour with traditional painterly skills and have earned him comparisons with artists ranging from Breugel to Rockwell. This monograph is a major survey of Currin's career, featuring his work since 1989.
| ||||||||||||
 Sell Back Your Copy for $51.76
Whether you buy it used on Amazon for $100.94 or somewhere else, you can sell it back through our Book Trade-In Program at the current price of $51.76.
Used Price$100.94
Trade-in Price$51.76
Price after
Trade-in$49.18 |
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Currin is currently generating the kind of buzz that purchased publicity alone can't account for, and it's easy to see why: his paintings' smoothly executed combination of droll social commentary, offhand reference to old masters and va-va-va-voom sexuality is hard to look away from-and easy to argue about. Unlike his colleague in pneumatic inspiration, Lisa Yuskavage, Currin can't hide behind presumptive feminist theory. Are the anatomically impossible figures Currin so lovingly depicts pitiable projections of an arrested sexuality or a brave exploration of (in the words of essayist Rosenblum) "the crumbling myths and icons of twentieth-century America, revealing, as in a warped looking glass, their bizarre surface and their dark underside"? Given that America's "dark underside" has been exposed almost as often as its "innocence" has been violated, such critical formulations could easily be mistaken for intellectual window dressing. But a combination of confident execution and the often subtle referencing of everyone from Vargas to Lucas Cranach means that although there may not be more to Currin's paintings than meets the eye, what meets the eye holds interest beyond the immediate moment of shock or titillation. Currin is his own best advocate here; his long interview with Rochelle Steiner-bluntly plainspoken, knowledgeable and entirely pleased with the fuss his work has caused-candidly reveals an engaging and unashamed artist on the make. The essays, as the quote from Rosenblum would indicate, are competent in a manner endemic to books like this. But neither interview nor essays can begin to compete with the 79 lush color reproductions, whose accumulation of craftily mixed signals is disturbing and compulsive.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Robert Rosenblum is the Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the Guggenheim Museum and Professor of Fine Arts at New York University, as well as a contributing editor to Artforum. He is also the author of a number of books. He lives in New York City.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent monograph on an excellent painter.,
This review is from: John Currin (Hardcover)
I had the pleasure of picking up this volume at the opening of Mr. Currin's American retrospective in Chicago a few years back, and subsequently meeting Mr. Currin. He's a very quiet and gentle man but you can honestly sense his vast knowledge of painting and the psyche lying just underneath his guy next door-ness. Painting and the psyche is exactly what his work is about. He paints mainly women, in the lushest and most traditional manner you can think of. He paints them in his own twisted version of neo-mannerism using extremely traditional oil painting techniques. Indeed, he's probably the only painter on the contemporary art scene who's capable of painting in the manner that he paints, which recalls Raphael, Cranach, and Chardin to name a few. He has a sense of style and color that challenges the greatest masters, but he never runs too far with his talent, he has always maintained an effortless and subtle outrageousness. Imagine if Russ Meyer had let Martha Stewart helm his pictures and you have a John Currin painting. This book is a sublime example of what an artists monograph should be. A terrific and long interview with the artist, a landmark and rare essay by Rosenblum on his favourite topic of figurative painting, and the best colored plates you can imagine, fully recreating the color and freshness of Currin's paintings. I hate to touch this book because it's value will undoubtedly increase as the monograph becomes rarer, but I find this impossible because it's just so terrific and filled with Currin's imagery and information. This is the definitive John Currin book, and a MUST for any fan of his work.
14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Little Disappointed,
By
This review is from: John Currin (Hardcover)
Was disappointed to find that my favorite picture - Stanford After-Brunch 2000, was split between two pages so that you were unable to get a look at it and really apprecaite it. May want to let other buyers know that the cover that is shown is not the cover that is actually on the book - Wish a viewer could peak inside and actually see if it is what they are looking for. Other than that it is what one would expect to find in any other art book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All Aspects of John Currin,
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: John Currin (Hardcover)
John Currin's name is one that is frequently mentioned when conversations about figurative art today arise. He made his name with his well crafted paintings of buxom women - near distortions of chesty gals that made many viewers think about Pop Art. Some critics considered these quasi-comic book images as illustration for the voyeur and that idea about Currin's art is difficult to shed. Until books such as this magnificent volume produced by Rizzoli!
In this volume that spans John Currin's career we are introduced to his early works of still lifes and head portraits and then the book proceeds into the realm of his famous semi-nude female tropes and the question arises: are these women a subtle mockery of the female form or are they a celebration of sensual, at times shallow, beauties delivered to the hungry eye of the male viewer? The authors of the essays provide fine insights as to the 'Rake's Progress' and lead the viewer through the very sensitive domestic views of both male couples and male/female couples while continuing to offer the facial portraits of women and men that make the viewer alter perception of just how fine a painter Currin is. John Currin may jolt the eye now and then but he also proves to be one of the more sensitive examiners of our current lifestyle. This book is a well designed, generous compendium of the work of the at times misunderstood painter John Currin. It will set the art history dialogue straight. Grady Harp, September 11
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
