Willem de Kooning, one of the great pioneers of Abstract Expressionism, experimented with the human form throughout his career. An artist deeply skeptical about Western ideals of beauty, he focused on anatomical fragmentation and spatial ambiguity to express the fleeting nature of the individual. This strikingly designed book, published in conjunction with an exhibition originating at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, explores de Kooning's drawings of the female form between 1940 and 1955. It reveals an artist who struggled to eliminate traditional barriers between drawing and painting as he explored ambiguities between the figure and its background.
 De Kooning relied on early-twentieth-century abstraction in his initial attempts to redefine the figure, drawing and re-drawing the same line until he resolved the image. Beginning in 1947-49, he synthesized abstraction and figuration, dismembering figures and rearranging them with seeming randomness. As his figural compositions developed, geometric configurations transformed into architectural elements (suggesting windows, doors, mirrors, paintings, and furniture) to create ambiguous space. In 1951, de Kooning abruptly returned to depictions of women. Using turbulent brushwork, he turned female figures into monumental, intentionally vulgar, wildly distorted images whose parts read alternately as flat pattern and fully rounded forms. The effect is an almost violent sensuality.
 The artist's later style differed dramatically from that of earlier decades. Familiar shapes and hues suggest that women remain in his works, yet they are distorted beyond recognition as if seen from underwater. As put by Thomas Hess, the artist's friend and critic, "Woman, for de Kooning, is the human equivalent of water; more than a vessel, she embodies it in planes of rippling flesh."
 EXHIBITION SCHEDULE
 http://www.artcommotion.com/Issue2/moca/home.html The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
February 10, 2002-May 5, 2002
 http://www.nga.gov/home.htm The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. September 29, 2002-January 5, 2003
 http://www.sfmoma.org/ The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
June 15 - September 8, 2002

Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure

Arts & Photography

Cornelia H. Butler

Paul Schimmel

Anne M. Wagner

Individual Artists

Princeton University Press

A photograph can serve as as both witness and catalyst, art object and call to action. In this catalog of a pivotal exhibition of works from the Ralph R. Parsons Photography Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, photographs capture the heartbeat and mindset of America. Works by French photographer Brassai set the stage; the bulk of the exhibition features photographs by Robert Frank, Helen Levitt , Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, among others. When many of these works were first shown, they were met with criticism and outrage, but today, we've accepted them as profound documents of our nation and era. Includes essays by exhibition curator Cornelia H. Butler, as well as Max Kozloff, A.D. Coleman, Liz Kotz and Emily Aer. Dimension: 9 ¼ x 11 ½ inches, 125 duotone &amp; 11 color reproductions, Exhibition Catalog.

The Social Scene, The Ralph R. Parsons Foundation, Photography Collection

Liz Kotz

A.D. Coleman

Calif.) Museum of Contemporary Art (Los

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Museum of Contemporary Art

Published on the occasion of The Drawing Center's exhibition, Ree Morton: At The Still Point of the Turning World highlights Morton s influential body of work, remarkably all produced in a single decade between her decision to turn to art full-time in the late 1960s and her tragic death in an automobile accident in 1977, shortly before her 41st birthday. While reflecting many of the currents of Postminimal art of the 1970s, Morton's work also looked to a pioneering use of personal narrative, intimacy, humor, and poetic imagination. Yet the scope of her artistic production remains largely unrecognized, as does her vital contribution to feminist art practice and the importance of drawing to her development as an artist. This publication, number 87 in the Drawing Papers series, features 58 color plates, a conversation between Cornelia H. Butler, Joao Ribas, and Allan Schwartzman, as well as Lucy Lippard's new introduction to her 1973 essay At the Still Point of the Turning World.

Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World

Allan Schwartzman

Joao Ribas

Lucy Lippard

The Drawing Center

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Books by Cornelia H. Butler