Lea Vergine

When The Body as Language ("Body-art" and Performance) appeared in 1974, it was immediately a huge publishing hit, reviewed by some of the most influential art historians and writers (Giulio C. Argan, Edoardo Sanguineti, Max Kozloff, Lucy Lippard, François Pluchart, Peter Gorsen, Evelyn Weiss and many others). A direct testimony of the birth and development of one of the most controversial art trends, Lea Vergine's book avails of a series of texts by the artists themselves, whom the author had asked to contribute with a statement about the illustrations of their work. Featuring a thorough documentation of original photographs and film photograms, videotapes, happenings, actions and performances, the book analyses the evolution of this phenomenon through the works of sixty artists, including Gina Pane, Gilbert & George, Urs Lüthi and Katharina Sieverding, Rebecca Horn, Trisha Brown, Günter Brus and many others who have worked with and on the body. In an absolutely unusual publishing event, nearly thirty years after the first edition, the text--by now a classic--is republished with all the original photographic material. The volume is enhanced and brought up-to-date by an afterword by Lea Vergine, who observes the changes of Body Art throughout the nineties: Orlan, Stelarc, Ron Athey, Franko B., Yasumasa Morimura, Jana Sterbak, Matthew Barney are "virtuosos of disorder and hungry for afflictions of any and every kind, mystics--like persons who display the subjection of their bodies to cruel and invasive devices, or who revel in virtual fantasies of such self-inflicted pains--destroy themselves in order newly to find themselves. . . . They finally pay a visit to the world of the saints and victims, exploring and prolonging its seductions." When The Body as Language ("Body-art" and Performance) appeared in 1974, it was immediately a huge publishing hit, reviewed by some of the most influential art historians and writers (Giulio C. Argan, Edoardo Sanguineti, Max Kozloff, Lucy Lippard, François Pluchart, Peter Gorsen, Evelyn Weiss and many others). A direct testimony of the birth and development of one of the most controversial art trends, Lea Vergine's book avails of a series of texts by the artists themselves, whom the author had asked to contribute with a statement about the illustrations of their work. Featuring a thorough documentation of original photographs and film photograms, videotapes, happenings, actions and performances, the book analyses the evolution of this phenomenon through the works of sixty artists, including Gina Pane, Gilbert & George, Urs Lüthi and Katharina Sieverding, Rebecca Horn, Trisha Brown, Günter Brus and many others who have worked with and on the body. In an absolutely unusual publishing event, nearly thirty years after the first edition, the text--by now a classic--is republished with all the original photographic material. The volume is enhanced and brought up-to-date by an afterword by Lea Vergine, who observes the changes of Body Art throughout the nineties: Orlan, Stelarc, Ron Athey, Franko B., Yasumasa Morimura, Jana Sterbak, Matthew Barney are "virtuosos of disorder and hungry for afflictions of any and every kind, mystics--like persons who display the subjection of their bodies to cruel and invasive devices, or who revel in virtual fantasies of such self-inflicted pains--destroy themselves in order newly to find themselves. . . . They finally pay a visit to the world of the saints and victims, exploring and prolonging its seductions."

The Body as Language

Body Art and Performance

"The concept of the beautiful has undergone profound changes during the last half of the twentieth century, as has our way of considering everything that is called art. We need a new key to help us "know how to see" so that we can stay attuned to what is going on in the contemporary world of art where new aesthetic styles are appearing and being challenged one after the other." "This book by Lea Vergine, which discusses seventeen different art movements in separate chapters, offers, within the panorama of contemporary art criticism books, a blend between a handy art-history manual and an assessment of a cultural adventure that has passed through and overturned the parameters of taste of the last forty years. The clear and incisive writing style guides the reader, student or specialist, whatever his or her specific interests and curiosities, like an essential travel kit for understanding today's reality, grasping its raison d'etre, and above all, plunging into its multiple mutations."

A Guide to Contemporary Movements

Art on the Cutting Edge

"The concept of the beautiful has undergone profound changes during the last half of the twentieth century, as has our way of considering everything that is called art. We need a new key to help us "know how to see" so that we can stay attuned to what is going on in the contemporary world of art where new aesthetic styles are appearing and being challenged one after the other." "This book by Lea Vergine, which discusses seventeen different art movements in separate chapters, offers, within the panorama of contemporary art criticism books, a blend between a handy art-history manual and an assessment of a cultural adventure that has passed through and overturned the parameters of taste of the last forty years. The clear and incisive writing style guides the reader, student or specialist, whatever his or her specific interests and curiosities, like an essential travel kit for understanding today's reality, grasping its raison d'etre, and above all, plunging into its multiple mutations." From the Trade Paperback edition.

The result of painstaking research by Lea Vergine, this volume explores the meaning of the "trash" phenomenon in contemporary art from the early 20th century (Boccioni, Carrà, Depero, Picabia, Schwitters), through the Sixties and Seventies (Burri, Kounellis, Fontana, Vautier, Rotella, César, Arman, Manzoni, Pistoletto, Beuys, Spoerri), and up to the present (Cragg, Parmiggiani, Boltanski, Sherman, Bourgeois, Serrano, Cattelan). It examines the challenge launched by these artists, who use waste as a material for creating art. In an era marked by great concern about the environment, the artistic use of the discarded object expresses the alienation and distress that appear to be eroding the wantonly consumeristic social model represented by the West. Recovering and preserving refuse is a means of trying to hold on to it, of making it survive by saving it from a void, from being nothing, from the dissolution to which it is destined; it is about the desire to leave a mark, a trace, a clue for those who remain, hence touching a dimension that is psychological as well as political.

TRASH Rubbish Mongo

When Trash Becomes Art

Giorgio Verzotti

metamorfosi, artifici e ibridi dal mito all'immaginario scientifico

Il Bello e le bestie

femmes peintres et femmes sculpteurs dans les mouvements d'avant-garde historiques

L'autre moitié de l'avant-garde, 1910-1940

D'Ombra presents a selection of artworks which are devoted to this age-old theme where the shadow remains the premise and most significant element of representation. SPECIALIST

Lea Vergine

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