In an increasingly polarized world, with shifting and extreme politics, Social Forms illustrates artists at the forefront of political and social resistance. Highlighting different moments of crisis and how these are reflected and preserved through crucial artworks, it also asks how to make art in the age of Brexit, Trump, and the refugee and climate crises. In Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art, renowned critic, curator, and writer Christian Viveros-Fauné has picked fifty representative artworks—from Francisco de Goya’s The Disasters of War (1810–1820) to David Hammons’s In the Hood (1993)—that give voice to some of modern art’s strongest calls to political action. In accessible and witty entries on each piece, Viveros-Fauné paints a picture of the context in which each work was created, the artist’s background, and the historical impact of each contribution. At times artists create projects that subvert existing power structures; at other moments they make artwork so powerful it challenges the very fabric of society. Whether it is Picasso’s Guernica and its place at the 1937 Worlds Fair, or Jenny Holzer’s Truisms (1977–1979), which still stop us in our tracks, this book tells the story behind some of the most important and unexpected encounters between artworks and the real worlds they engage with. Never professing to be a definitive history of political art, Social Forms delivers a unique and compelling portrait of how artists during the last 150 years have dealt with changing political systems, the violence of modern warfare, the rise of consumer culture worldwide, the prevalence of inequality and racism, and the challenges of technology. Artists illustrated include Ai Weiwei, Art Workers' Coalition, Francis Alÿs, Banksy, Max Beckmann, Joseph Beuys, Tania Bruguera, Paul Chan, Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Eugène Delacroix, Walker Evans, Shepard Fairey, Theaster Gates, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, George Grosz, Grupo de Artistas de Vanguardia, Guerilla Girls, Philip Guston, Hans Haacke, David Hammons, Charlie Hebdo, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, Käthe Kollwitz, Barbara Kruger, Jacob Lawrence, Rick Lowe, Édouard Manet, Robert Mapplethorpe, Kerry James Marshall, Cildo Meireles, Robert Motherwell, Shirin Neshat, Chris Ofili, José Clemente Orozco, Pablo Picasso, Adrian Piper, Pussy Riot, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, The Silence=Death Project, SUPERFLEX, Vladimir Tatlin, J.M.W. Turner, Kara Walker, and Andy Warhol.

Social Forms: A Short History of Political Art

Arts & Photography

Viveros-Fauné, Christian

History & Criticism

David Zwirner Books

In her work, New York-based British artist Ellen Harvey makes use of a traditional painterly vocabulary for her strategy of appropriation, whereby she methodically juxtaposes mapping, pasticcio, and institutional critique. For her first solo presentation in Austria and the publication at hand, The Disappointed Tourist, she has chosen the cosmoramas by Hubert Sattler at the Panoramamuseum in Salzburg as inspiration for her question as formulated online: "Is there a place that you have always wanted to visit or revisit that no longer exists?" The locations suggested by the users meanwhile form a cycle of two hundred paintings; they show, for instance, postcard views of the Buddha statues of Bamiyan, which were blown up by the Taliban in 2001 at the outset of the war in Afghanistan, and of Coney Island amusement park in 1943, which burned down the following year. This is how Ellen Harvey enters into dialogue with her audience; topics such as war, racism, ecological catastrophes, and technological change arise quite naturally, even if it is just about one' s personal favorite place.

Ellen Harvey: The Disapointed Tourist: Cat. Museum der Moderne Salzburg

Teufel, Tina

Individual Artists

Snoeck Publishing Company

Following upon Neo Rauch's 2007 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, this exquisite catalogue presents new work by the artist, as seen in his fourth solo exhibition at David Zwirner gallery in the spring of 2008. (The New York Times' Karen Rosenberg deemed the new work "more of a Fellini film than a costume drama," by comparison.) One of his generation's most influential painters, Rauch continues the rich tradition of Leipzig figurative painting. Transforming typical industrious scenes into veritable dreamscapes, he transports viewers to a deeply personal and enigmatically symbolic universe. Rauch does not rely on existing imagery or models for his paintings, and while some begin as tiny sketches, he works his imagined scenes directly onto the canvas. He likens his process to reading a novel, with the paintings unfolding as surprisingly for their maker as for any viewer. Springing from dreams and shaped by experience both past and present, Rauch's instinctive imagery and automatic approach exceed straightforward Surrealist concerns and restrictive artistic practice. Neo Rauch was born in 1960 in Leipzig, East Germany, where he continues to live and work.

Neo Rauch

Reference

Steidl/David Zwirner

ANGEL OTERO: PINTURA ASCENDENTE. PAINTING FROM THE BUTTOM UP (Spanish and English Edition)

CASTILLO, OMAR-PASCUAL

SCHUM, MATTHEW

Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno - CAAM

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