Gavin Parkinson

Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968) was, without doubt, one of the most controversial artists of the twentieth century. Associated with cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, his invention of the ?readymade” led him to produce some of the most iconic works of his era. While he is often cited as the most influential artist of his generation and is seen by many to be the progenitor of much of the conceptual and postmodern art of today, the writing published to date on Duchamp is often obscure and mired in theory. Extensively illustrated and featuring Duchamp's own writings, The Duchamp Book provides a much needed, accessible introduction to the artist.

Tate Essential Artists Series

The Duchamp Book

Carlo Rovelli

Philip Ball

Ariane Koek

Black holes, dark matter, gravity, time, motion--these phenomena fascinate physicists and artists alike. Both strive to discover how they shape our world. The connection between art and science is gaining increasing significance in contemporary art.Now, the influence of physics on today's art, design, and architecture is being more closely examined. Curated by Ariane Koek, the founder of the arts program Arts at CERN, the exhibition Entangle - Physics and the Artistic Imagination and its companion catalog present the works of thirteen contemporary artists who are inspired by physics and its investigation of natural phenomena. Besides their works, this ground-breaking publication also contains interviews with the artists and physicists who share their different ways of seeing.Featuring interviews with and works of art by Sarah Sze, Julius von Bismarck, Julian Charrière, Sou Fujumoto, Iris van Herpen, Ryoji Ikeda, William Kentridge, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Goshka Macuga, Davide Quayola, Solveig Settemsda, Keith Tyson, Jorinde Voigt, and Carey Young. Exhibition:16.11.2018--14.04.2019, BIldmuseet Umeå

Physics and the Artistic Imagination

Entangle

Although the self-definition of Surrealism and the initial defining of science fiction as a genre both took place in the 1920s and the links between the two are manifest, no full study has appeared till now on Surrealism and SF. Across ten original essays, Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics looks at how the Surrealist movement in France and the USA used, informed, contributed to, and criticised SF from that moment, whilst including discussion of the related genre of comics. Among its aims are a reassessment of Jules Verne in the light of Surrealism and an analysis of the debate in the 1950s on the 'new' Anglo-American literature arriving in France. This received, in fact, a mixed reception from the Surrealists of that decade even though writers and intellectuals close to the movement in the 1920s were directly responsible for its success. The book includes further essays on the subsequent impact of Surrealism on SF novelists J.G. Ballard and Alan Burns, and features essays that argue for Salvador Dali's closeness to SF in the 1960s and his disagreement with the earlier scientific romance defined by Verne. The chapters that bring in comics range from theoretical discussions of the relation between the original comic strips of Rodolphe Topffer and the key Surrealist technique of automatism, used in art and writing, through the cybernetic implications of the proto-SF Surrealist cine-roman 'M. Wzz...' of 1929, which has never discussed in any detail before, to the 1948 Vache paintings by Rene Magritte, inspired by Louis Forton's strip Les Pieds nickeles. This pioneering set of essays shows how Surrealism from the 1920s to the 1970s did not just receive and adapt SF but impacted the genre in its later manifestations. "

Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics

Although the self-definition of Surrealism and the initial defining of science fiction as a genre both took place in the 1920s and the links between the two are manifest, no full study has appeared till now on Surrealism and SF. Across ten original essays, Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics looks at how the Surrealist movement in France and the USA used, informed, contributed to, and criticised SF from that moment, whilst including discussion of the related genre of comics. Among its aims are a reassessment of Jules Verne in the light of Surrealism and an analysis of the debate in the 1950s on the 'new' Anglo-American literature arriving in France. This received, in fact, a mixed reception from the Surrealists of that decade even though writers and intellectuals close to the movement in the 1920s were directly responsible for its success. The book includes further essays on the subsequent impact of Surrealism on SF novelists J.G. Ballard and Alan Burns, and features essays that argue for Salvador Dalí's closeness to SF in the 1960s and his disagreement with the earlier scientific romance defined by Verne. The chapters that bring in comics range from theoretical discussions of the relation between the original comic strips of Rodolphe Töpffer and the key Surrealist technique of automatism, used in art and writing, through the cybernetic implications of the proto-SF Surrealist ciné-roman 'M. Wzz...' of 1929, which has never discussed in any detail before, to the 1948 Vache paintings by René Magritte, inspired by Louis Forton's strip Les Pieds nickelés. This pioneering set of essays shows how Surrealism from the 1920s to the 1970s did not just receive and adapt SF but impacted the genre in its later manifestations.

Gavin Parkinson

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