Demetrio Paparoni

The Devil is a beautiful book showcasing the past and present portrayal and manifestations of the Evil One in Western and Eastern art and a richly illustrated account of the history, symbols and manifestations of the devil in the collective imagination of the past and the present.The book features artistic masterpieces, engravings, ancient documents, books, posters, postcards, tarots, album covers, comics, objects and plenty of oddities related to the world of demons, the occult, and evil. See the devil in art from artists ranging from Hieronymus Bosch and Giotto to Keith Haring and Matt Groening.

A Visual History

The Devil

Arthur C. Danto

From the 1990s until just before his death, the legendary art critic and philosopher Arthur C. Danto carried out extended conversations about contemporary art with the prominent Italian critic Demetrio Paparoni. Their discussions ranged widely over a vast range of topics, from American pop art and minimalism to abstraction and appropriationism. Yet they continually returned to the concepts at the core of Danto’s thinking—posthistory and the end of aesthetics—provocative notions that to this day shape questions about the meaning and future of contemporary art. Art and Posthistory presents these rich dialogues and correspondence, testifying to the ongoing importance of Danto’s ideas. It offers readers the opportunity to experience the intellectual excitement of Danto in person, speculating in a freewheeling yet erudite style. Danto and Paparoni discuss figures such as Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Franz Kline, Sean Scully, Clement Greenberg, Cindy Sherman, and Wang Guangyi, offering both insightful comments on individual works and sweeping observations about wider issues. On occasion, the artist Mimmo Paladino and the philosopher Mario Perniola join the conversation, enlivening the discussion and adding their own perspectives. The book also features an introductory essay by Paparoni that provides lucid analysis of Danto’s thinking, emphasizing where the two disagree as well as what they learned from each other.

Conversations on the End of Aesthetics

Art and Posthistory

Gianni Mercurio

Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan, Italy)

Comprising of sketchbook drawings, paintings, architectural models, and sculpture dating from 1974 to the present day, DIRTY CORNER focuses on the consistent concert in Anish Kapoor's work with the void: as vertiginous fall, as wound and as origin. Featuring previously unpublished material, this volume reveals the integral contiguity of these issues in Kapoor's work and offers an invaluable insight into the artist's practise.--fascia.

Dirty Corner

Anish Kapoor

Jean Wainwright

The first official monograph dedicated to Morten Viskum, one of the most controversial contemporary artists in Norway. This volume collects the controversial artist's work in which he uses unconventional tools--including medical equipment, dead animals, cancer cells, and a deceased man's hand--to challenge the relationship between science and ethics, and what art can morally embrace. He became internationally known in 1995, when he conducted his "Rat/olive project." In the course of two days, he replaced the content of 20 olive jars with newborn rats across 20 grocery stores in the five largest cities in Norway. Since then, he has been regarded as one of the most controversial contemporary artists in Norway. Through his performative works he has shed light on a fear of the ephemeral and the strange that pervades our culture.

Morten Viskum

The work of Nyoman Masriadi, one of the leading Indonesian contemporary artists from the post-Suharto era. This stunning volume comprehensively tackles Nyoman Masriadi's artistic universe, which is considered to be among those that have most strongly impacted the definition of the new art of Southeast Asia. He is Southeast Asia's most well-received contemporary artist at auctions, and the first living Southeast Asian artist whose work has topped $1 million at auction. Masriadi's paintings frequently depict superhuman figures whose narratives, while rooted in Indonesian cultural history, offer witty and often biting social commentary on contemporary life and global pop culture. Through his expert control of light, shadow, and volume, Masriadi endows the monumental characters of his works with a sculptural, almost three-dimensional presence. Sometimes these characters appear in the archetypal roles of comic-book heroes, cowboys, soldiers, and athletes; but just as frequently, they are simply powerfully built people engaged in solitary acts of strength or captured in private moments of vulnerability.

Telepathy Contact

Nyoman Masriadi

A monograph of the Filipino artist, one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation in Southeast Asia, whose signature style is made of multilayered painting. Ronald Ventura is a contemporary Filipino artist known for his intermingling of hyper-realism, cartoons, and graffiti with both historical and Pop subject matter. His work portrays scenes of chaotic disarray, incorporating traditional Western and Asian mythologies with contemporary cultural symbols like Mickey Mouse. Working in both painting and sculpture, there is often an ominous sense of expansion in Ventura's works, with objects and patterns swirling outward. Born in 1973 in Manila, the Philippines, the artist earned a BFA in painting from the University of Santo Tomas in 1993. After graduating, he worked at the university as an instructor. Ventura had his first solo exhibitions in 2000, called All Souls Day, which was held at the Drawing Room in Makati City, Philippines, and Innerscapes, which was held at the West Gallery Megamall in Mandaluyong City. Since then, Ventura has continued to refine his signature style of multi-layered paintings, which utilize a broad range of imagery and tend to focus around the human form. In addition to paintings, Ventura also makes sculptures that explore the same themes and aesthetics as his two-dimensional works.

Works 1998-2017

Ronald Ventura

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Ediz. italiana e inglese

Jean Baudrillard

Georges Bataille

Roger Caillois

Gore Vidal

Vito Mancuso

Arturo Schwarz

Julien Ries

Pierre Riches

Michel Maffesoli

Eretica: The Transcendent and the Profane in Contemporary Art

Demetrio Paparoni

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