Product Description
Seventy-five of Peter Schjeldahl's engaging pieces on art from The New Yorker, published together for the first time.Distinguished critic at The New Yorker since 1998, Peter Schjeldahl has been described as America's most influential writer on art. Blessed with an unerring eye, he tackles a myriad of subjects with wit, poetry, and perspicacity, examining and questioning the art before him while reveling in the power and beauty of language. His writing springs from a desire to be understood by all readers, and a determination to help them engage with art of every kind.

Covering subjects drawn from a broad canvas of the history of art—from ancient Greece, Mexico, and Byzantium, through Raphael, Rubens, and Rembrandt, to Bruce Nauman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and John Currin—the writings collected here seek out with precision and economy the essence of the individual artist or work under discussion, but they never lose sight of the bigger picture: What is beauty? What does it mean to be an American artist? What can the art we produce and admire tell us about ourselves?

With an imaginative introduction—twenty questions, each one posed to Schjeldahl by a different artist or writer—this collection will appeal to anyone who considers the experience of art, and of writing on art, an invitation to a voyage.

Coverage includes:
     • large-scale exhibitions at leading institutions around the world
     • shows at private galleries
     • profiles of prominent members of the art world
     • personal accounts of time spent with artists
     • the influences of museum spaces on our experience of art ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

An Artist's Writer
I have not always agreed with his opinions vis a vis certain artists, but I have always enjoyed an respected the argument.He does so most eloquently and proficiently; I always learn something about seeing.

Very good!
I haven't even finished reading this yet, but I really like it. He is funny, articulate, and knows what he's talking about. Like the other reviews mention, we don't always agree but he has made me want to look or look again at the paintings he describes. I'll keep it short since so much has already been said. It's worth the price.

An unexpected treat
I am not a reader of The New Yorker so I was pleased to discover Mr. Schjeldahl's book. His reviews are part art history lesson, part criticism, and his writing is a joy in this age of dumbing down the vocabulary. I kept the dictionary handy.I didn't necessarily agree with his assessment of some of my favorite artists, but that's what makes things interesting.And I enjoyed learning about newer artists who are not yet household names.

I would have loved to have seen an example of the artist's work shown with the criticism.For unfamiliar artists it was difficult to fully appreciate the commentary without it. Was it absent in The New Yorker too?

Definitely worth a look.

Simply the Best
Peter Schjeldahl is simply the best. Not only is he extremely knowledgeable on art from A to Z but he is an inventive, creative thinker and writer with the gifts to make his essays works of art in themselves.

This is to say that his readers come away inspired, educated and entertained, much like seeing art but with the best of all docents.

As brilliant as Schjeldahl's essays are, they do not compete for attention with the subject at hand. They illuminate and provoke and add to one's understanding of particular artists and their works.

Own this book. See art through a different and clear lens. Enjoy the inspiring journey essay to essay. Bravo Maestro.

Schjeldahl's Let's See
Peter Schjeldahl was just awarded the 2008 Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, which recognizes one writer each year who promotes the public appreciation of the visual arts in a way that "is grounded in scholarship yet appeals to a wide audience."

'Let's See,' Schjeldahl's new collection of his essays from the New Yorker, shows why he won this prestigious award and also shows how far he has come as an art critic.

Years ago, when I used to live in Manhattan (in a studio big enough for me, my cat, and a hot-plate), I used to read Schjeldahl, who then wrote for the Village Voice, which even at that time was a pretty second-rate rag. I never really liked Schjeldahl's writing back then. He was really snarky, a kind of a hipster-poser smartypants type. But in reading 'Let's See,' or his New Yorker essays in general, you'll notice immediately that he has matured both in his attitude towards his job and in his writing style, which is consistently straightforward, to the point, and memorable. (Schjeldahl is also an award-winning poet, and his love of language shows in his criticism as well.)

I can't say that I always agree with Schjeldahl's taste in art. John Currin seems to be one of his favorites (the cover image is a Currin painting) and despite Schjeldahl's frequent praise, I just can't see why this guy is good, much less great. But you don't need to agree with all of Schjeldahl's opinions to see that they are carefully reasoned and based on a deep love and understanding of art built up over a lifetime.

Of course, some of the artists that Schjeldahl praises here are basically no-brainers: Velazquez, Vermeer, El Greco. Who doesn't like those painters? But Scheldahl brings a level of depth and insight to his discussion of their works that makes you see them in new and interesting ways.

I also really like the fact that Schjeldahl, the former hipster-dude, had the courage to put in a good word (actually a really strong defense) of Norman Rockwell, an artist he probably would have dissed big time back in the Village Voice days.

This is a really good book for people interested in art in all of its complexity. Schjeldahl makes you use all of your brain cells, but if you can follow his arguments, they're very rewarding. I enjoyed this book a lot. ... Read more

Product Description
Schjeldahl provides a sharp perspective on individual artists, their work, art-world events and ethics, and new, creative directions. Above all, he challenges established views, infecting readers with his passion for art. "To read Schjeldahl is not to agree or disagree, but rather to enter the enchanting flow of a fertile imagination."--Art in America. (HC:1991) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Writing At Full Tilt Boogie
In his introduction, Rob. Storr describes Schjeldahl as fashion's 'watchful scribe'. It's a fine tribute and sets out what distinguishes Schjeldahl as a particular type of poet/ critic in the romantic tradition of Baudelaire and Whitman. So don't pick him up anticipating reams of jargon and esoteric art analysis, or structuralst theorizing. He speaks smart, 'for the fan in the stands'. I never knew Schjeldahl until he came to visit and travel to Uluru with me in 1986. It was a totally engaging 3 or 4 days and I became a fan of his enthusiasms as they then appeared, mostly in Art in America. I scrambled in our library for back issues to catch up on this infectious and radiating intelligence. At the time, he was very big on Kiefer, and in fact, suggested I fly south to Adelaide and catch the German show with its crop of current maestros, then current atthe gellery of S. Australia, curated by the indefatigable, Ron Radford. Fortunately, most of his best writing til 1990 is packed between these covers, and his piece on Kiefer is among them. It's his gift and passion that even people I neither know much about, or do not care for, can be resurrected under Peter's gaze. I don't share his enthusiasms for Schnabel, Warhol, Nauman, Salle, Polke or Koons for instance. But Schjeldahl is generous with his praise and perspicacious with his more cautiousnotes, never dismissive or superior. This last quality is demonstrated in his defence of Rothko from the bullying Bobby Hughes. His caning of Wyeth's 'Helga' series pops the balloon on Helga hype and delivers uncharacteristically cool truths about his art being completed by reproduction and of Wyeth's place as'mass reassurer and avatar of the Art myth'. To read Schjeldahl is to be refreshed. He's still at it and enjoying writing for the New York Times. A recent review of Hillary Spurling's great volumes on Matisse will surely make it into his next collection.

Buy this book
This is a collection of reviews and essays written by the Oscar Wilde of art critics.Known for his witty and engaging column at the Village Voice, and his more recent post at the New Yorker, Schjeldahl has also contributedpieces to the New York Times, and most of the major art magazines. Fromthe abstract expressionists to the simulationists, this book focuses mainlyon the artists and movements of the last half of the 20th century.

Iloved this book.It was informative, intelligently written, and highlyentertaining. I found Schjeldahl to be a rare critic who is genuinelyexcited by the work he sees and admiring of the many artists he writesabout.He may not always like the work, but he always gives it a fair andhonest review. In turn, he opened up my mind to the possibilities of whatart is and can be. ... Read more

Product Description
Edvard Munch is famous for his prints, particularly "The Scream" and "Madonna". This work considers Munch's graphic work through the lens of a private collection, which includes impressions of virtually all of his major prints, along with alternative versions and early states.Amazon.com Review
The artwork in The Symbolist Prints of Edvard Munch is so beautifully reproduced that one might be tempted to tear out pages, frame them and hang them on the wall. Munch's work, which constitutes some of the 20th century's greatest printmaking, is presented through the lens of an extraordinary private collection that includes almost every one of his prints along with alternate versions and early sketches. Elizabeth Prelinger's essays provide background on Munch's life, printmaking techniques, and the development of his symbolist aesthetic. An exciting element of the book is an evocative essay by renowned critic, Peter Schjeldahl, who, in inimitable style, likens Munch's effect on the viewer to that of listening to the early work of a favorite rock-star. Published on the occasion of an exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario in early 1997, this book provides excellent documentation of an artist whose work remains vital more than fifty years after his death. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Art Books are not created equal
Reinhold Heller has called this book "A unique and visually handsome contribution to the literature on the graphic images of one of the greatest pintmakers of this century"(20th). For people interested in the artist and high quality production and content, this book is a step above most all other art books, especially other Yale catalog publications, such as After The Scream - The Late Paintings of Edvard Munch and Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth (Art Institute of Chicago), inexpensive art catalog memorabilia for attendees of the shows they represent.

This book does not pander to the audience about its material or purpose, which is to permanently catalog this private collection of prints. It was created by the collectors and benefactors of the exhibition, David and Vivian Campbell, unimpeded by copyright costs, book production and marketing costs, possible bad writing, design and reproduction, to insure that the art has been transmitted in its fullest measure in a vehicle that can be purcased by anyone- buy a hardcover and keep it for posterity!

Elizabeth Prelinger writes the key essay on the Symbolist Art generation.She follows several writers in articulating this, including Aurier writing on Gauguin (1891), Emmanuel Goldstein, poet and friend of the artist, writing in 1891 and Natasia Staller writing in 1994.

Staller:"The idea of a separate parallel language that was coherent in itself, composed of a fictive manipulated alphabet of lines and colors, was shared, with variations, by the entire Symbolist generation.The complex play between the two languages and multiple meanings, coupled with the extreme visual complexity of such works, demands that we decipher them, like a puzzle, over time."

Goldstein to Munch:"All I have to do is think of Naturalism and Realism and all that other sham-filled art, and I am nauseated...Salvation will come from Symbolism, that is to say, a artistic tendency in which the artist imposes his domination onto reality, so that it is his servant, not visa versa.Symbolism is the art that values moods and thoughts above all else, and uses reality only as a symbol... No longer should a visual presentation of conventional reality be given, but rather a visual presentation of what lives in the mind...The reality thus dipicted will be solely symbols of thoughts and feelings."

Prelinger:"Symbolist Art, often hermetic, and even elitest, sometimes teeters uncomfortably between an intensely personal and universal vision.The stongest examples, as in Munch's art, succeed at being both."

Two other essayists are included: Michael Parke-Taylor for the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto staff, documenting the exhibition history of Edvard Munch in North America during the 20th century; and Peter Scheldahl who gives another succinct and thoughtful piece on the artist.

La douleur, la couleur et le criard
Il montrait sa soeur Sophie qui mourait jeune, entouree de toute la famille. Mais il montrait chacun a l'age qu'il avait a l'epoque de la peinture, et non pas a la mort de la jeune fille. Car la douleur durait a jamais et unifiait toute la famille pour toujours. Puis avec des tetes d'une femme et d'un homme, gravees et multicolorees, il cessait de suivre le style repandu des japonais de faire une seule couleur d'un seul troncon de bois. Son prefere de tout son oeuvre etait Sick Child II, en tant que sa premiere lithographie en couleur. Mais son Scream est le plus reconnu, en tant que l'image la plus frappante du 20eme siecle.

The Print and the Darkness
He was bound determined not to paint people reading and women knitting, but instead to show people who breathed emotions into his darkly suggestive prints. "Death in the sickroom" showed family members at the ages when they were painted, not when his sister Sophie died; it expressed unity in grief as one of death's longlasting effects by seemingly overlapping planes flowing together across bleakly empty areas, starkly B&W contrasts, and stiffly posed mourners frozen in misery. "The mirror" heads of a disembodied man and woman was his first woodcut to give up the Japanese method of printing each color with a separate woodblock; instead, he jigsawed blocks into pieces according to compositional design, linked each piece with a different color, and put everything back together into a multicolored print. He considered his "Sick child II" his most important print: his first color lithograph, it focused on the diseased upper chest and the head in profile facing right against a large pillow in order to gaze with tragically meditative resignation into the flatly patterned looming void on the far right. However, his "Scream" became the most compelling image for the late twentieth century: it expressed terror before the universe by powerfully decorative lines reverberating through the starkly opposed black lines and bleakly white voids of pulsing land and sky. Elizabeth Prelinger and Michael Parke-Taylor have applied reader-friendly illustrations and text to their catalog of the Vivian and David Campbell exhibition. Their SYMBOLIST PRINTS OF EDVARD MUNCH goes down good with PROGRESSIVE PRINTMAKERS by Warrington Colescott and Arthur Hove, PRINTS AND PRINTMAKING by Antony Griffiths, EDVARD MUNCH by Josef Paul Hodin, and THE PRINT IN THE WESTERN WORLD by Linda C Hults. ... Read more

Product Description
Painter Among Poets: The Collaborative Art of George Schneeman is the first full presentation of the wide range of projects that Schneeman has co-created over the past 35 years. Painter Among Poets not only investigates Schneeman's signature enthusiasm for free-wheeling artistic collaboration, it also considers his work as part of the remarkable tradition of poet/painter collaboration that grew out of 19th- and 20th-century modernism. Always open to spontaneity and engagement, Schneeman encouraged poets to cross over into his dominion and contribute visual elements to the projects in order to create a surprising work of art that neither artist nor poet could have done alone. Painter Among Poets offers the reader a behind-the-scenes look at the high-wire process of collaboration as an outgrowth of Schneeman's friendships with poets Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Michael Brownstein, Tom Clark, Edwin Denby, Larry Fagin, Dick Gallup, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Greenwald, Steve Katz, Lewis MacAdams, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, Harris Schiff, Peter Schjeldahl, Tom Veitch, Anne Waldman, Lewis Warsh, and many others. Twelve of Schneeman's collaborators contribute essays and remembrances to this volume, which also features an essay by Carter Ratcliff, an extensive conversation between Schneeman and Padgett, a detailed checklist of the artist's collaborations, and a bibliography.

Edited by Ron Padgett.~Essays by Bill Berkson, Tom Clark,Dick Gallup, Ted Greenwald, Steve Katz, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, Peter Schjeldahl, Carter Ratcliff, et al.

Paperback, 7.5 x 10 in./128 pgs / 67 color and 23 b & w. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an updated survey of the work of British sculptor, Richard Deacon, including sculptures, installations, drawings and models. The book presents Deacon's works photographed in his studio, in galleries around the world, and in public sites in Europe, Japan and America. Pier Luigi Tazzi explores key themes in contemporary sculpture from a European perspective; Jon Thompson provides a survey of the artist's key works, tracing the genealogy of Deacon's work in relation to language; Peter Schjeldahl focuses on a work called "Keeping the Faith"; and Deacon selects a text by Mary Douglas on the meaning of dirt. Richard Deacon is one of a generation of sculptors who emerged in Britain in the 1980s. His sculptures are abstracts, primarily made of wood or steel. He uses the construction techniques of boat-building or aviation to make room-sized sculptures which are like drawings in space. They trace outlines, expose frameworks, form curvilinear skins, and create volumes, reminiscent of pots, vessels, vehicles and body parts. His work has been commissioned for sites in Plymouth, Newcastle, Tokyo, Montreal, Munster, Antwerp and Maastricht.This text charts all Deacon's important work from his earliest "performance" work through his exploration of form and space using wood, metal, plastic and linoleum. His works are photogenic and multidimensional lending themselves to a variety of visual explorations. They are also constructed "space invaders", with the artist employing techniques of engineering, boat building or aviation. They also relate to the body with clear anatomical references which can be overtly erotic. Deacon is also very involved in language and poetry, the work of Rilke being particularly influential on him. The book is part of a series of studies of important artists of the late-20th century. Each title offers a comprehensive survey of the artist's work, providing analyses and multiple perspectives on contemporary art and its inspiration. ... Read more

Product Description
Taking its title and cue from the Wordsworth poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," The Inward Eye assembles together a visceral and enigmatic array of contemporary work that involves looking and seeing on different, and often quite meaningful and personal, levels. From James Lee Byars' perfect "Slit Moon" and Vija Clemins engraving of the ocean surface, to Katharina Fritsch's vanitas and Howard Hodgkins' painterly memory of a dinner in Italy, the paintings, collages, drawings, sculptures, and installations included herein provide the viewer the opportunity to take pleasure in their beauty and meaning from their profundity.

Essays by Lynn M. Herbert, Klaus Ottmann and Peter Schjeldahl. ... Read more

Product Description
One of Sherman’s most popular series - the Centerfolds were created in 1981 as a special project for Artforum at the invitation of Ingrid Sischy who was then the Editor. Composed by Sherman to utilize the "centerfold" format of the magazine, the 12 images feature self-portraits, which fill the frame. In the end Artforum chose not to run them, but they have since become both an integral point in the oeuvre of Sherman and a part of our contemporary visual iconography.The 12 images are featured in this handsome hardcover catalogue. Lisa Phillips, Director of The New Museum of Contemporary Art contributes the text. Issued in a relatively small print run this book should only increase in value over time.

Texts by Sylvia Wolf and Deirdre English.Clothbound, 12 x 6 in. / 44 pages / 12 color ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Later Regular Edition More Informative & Better Suited To Photos Than Earlier Limited Edition
Caveat emptor: Two books dated 2003 have the title "Cindy Sherman Centerfolds." Both contain 12 landscape-orientation self-portraits of the photographer made up and dressed up as adolescent girls that were originally shot in 1981.But the books' designs and contents are different.

The first one was produced as a limited edition of 1850 which was apparently recalled. It has an incorrect ISBN of 0970909039*, is 29.5cm wide and 15cm high, has a light blue cloth cover, is 44 pages in length, was designed by "Honest, NYC," and was printed in Iceland.The photos are presented full-bleed on the right-hand pages, with blank pages facing them. An essay by Lisa Phillips in a rather large font is interspersed among the photographs.The captions (untitled #92, #87, #85, #88, #86, #89, #95, #93, #94, #90, #96, and #91a) are at the end.The dust jacket features orangish Untitled #93 with Sherman as a "blond with red rimmed eyes and matted hair tucked under rumpled black sheets" (per the essay).

The later regular edition (ISBN 0970909020) is 22cm wide by 25cm high, has a black cloth cover, is 50 pages in length, was designed by "Stella Bugbee, Giampietro + Smith," and was printed in Germany.In this book the Phillips essay is found in normal-size font on pages 5-7.The twelve photographs (untitled #92, #87, #91, #85, #88, #95, #89, #86, #93, #94, #90, and #96) follow on two-page spreads with white around them.Pages 32-47 have 1981-1982 essays by Peter Schjeldahl, Roberta Smith, and Andy Grundberg. The dust jacket has a detail of bluish Untitled #92 with Sherman in a tartan skirt and white blouse.

Which is better? If you are a book collector, you'll want the wide-format limited edition due to its rarity and "artistic" presentation. But those interested in Sherman's art are better served by the regular edition for several reasons.For one, it has more text than the limited edition.For another, the presence of the book's gutter in each photo in the regular edition gives a more "centerfold-like" feeling (although I suppose fold-out photos would have been even more effective).Finally, when I compared the photos in the two editions, the ones in the limited edition were slightly cropped, the worst example being Untitled #86 on page 17 in which you cannot see Sherman's eyes at the far right.

If you're unsure which edition a bookseller has for sale, use the "Contact This Seller" feature in the "Used & New" section of Amazon.com!

* That ISBN belongs to "Laurie Simmons Photographs 1978/79."

A Long Wait, But Well Worth It
Although the "Centerfolds" were shot back in the 1980's it took until now for them to be all collected in a book collection. They are some of Cindy Sherman's best work and they are presented beautifully in this very wide shaped book. The book was hard to get a hold of as it was specially produced by an art gallery, but as a fan it is a great addition to the "Complete Film Stills" book. Highly recommended.

An Early Look at Cindy Sherman's Art
Cindy Sherman is now an established household art figure, a photographer who spends her life costuming herself and arranging her settings to recreate or reinterpret other people both famous in art history and in other arenas.These works are no longer shocking or startling, but the twelve 'Centerfolds' in this fine little book show her at an early stage in a career that has since burgeoned.

As far as the Centerfolds themselves, each is a self portrait in different but drab dress and moods. While the concept of viewing the standard plain woman in the guise of what is usually associated as a Playboy etc venture of sizzling sensuality is a solid idea, the photographs themselves tend toward a sameness that makes them less interesting than her current work.

Still, this was a pioneering commission by Artforum magazine that never made it to print and we are fortunate to see the images that found no home until the museums sought them out due to her growing fame.It is another moment in history that bears observing.Grady Harp, May 05 ... Read more