Elizabeth Armstrong

Michael Boyd

Miles Davis's seminal recording, known as 'Birth of the Cool', is the starting point for this colorful, multi-disciplinary journey through 1950s West Coast America. 1950s West Coast style exuded "cool"; from the smooth, hypnotic strains of a Miles Davis riff through Richard Neutra's elegant, modernist residences to the hard-edged paintings of Helen Lundeberg and Karl Benjamin. This illustrated volume casts a fresh eye on Fifties West Coast style with illuminating commentary from a variety of perspectives. Designed to echo the period it celebrates, this catalog explores modernist innovations in art, architecture, design, film and music. Prominent cultural critics write on an array of topics - Thomas Hine about the culture of cool; Elizabeth Smith on domestic aspects of the period's architecture; Francis Colpitt on hard-edged abstract painting; Dave Hickey on jazz, and Bruce Jenkins on the crossover between animation and experimental film. The result is a multi-faceted exploration of the 1950s West Coast.

California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury

Birth of the Cool

Colin Renfrew

Marissa Marthari

The sculpture of the early bronze age Cyclades has been systematically studied since the time of Christos Tsountas at the end of the 19th century. But that study has been hampered by the circumstance that so many of the subsequent finds come from unauthorised excavations, where the archaeological context was irretrievably lost. Largely for that reason there are still many problems surrounding the chronology, the function and the meaning of Early Cycladic sculpture. This lavishly illustrated and comprehensive re-asssement sets out to rectify that situation by publishing finds which have been recovered in controlled excavations in recent years, as well as earlier finds for which better documentation can now be provided. Using the material from recent excavation projects, and drawing on the papers presented at a symposium held in Athens in 2014, it is possible now to undertake a fresh overview of the entire body of sculpture from the Cycladic islands which has been found in secure archaeological contexts. Beginning with early examples from Neolithic settlement sites and extending into a consideration of material found in later contexts, the 35 chapters are divided into sections which examine sculpture from settlements, cemeteries and the sanctuary at Kavos, concluding with a discussion of material, techniques and aspects of manufacture.

Early Cycladic Sculpture in Context

Paul Frey

Provocative and poignant, Dump the Incumbents! is a call to political action. Incumbency, the disease of democracy, has slowly smothered our system of government. By removing political incumbents, regardless of party affiliation, we can peacefully and for

Dump the Incumbents!

William Shakespeare

Romeo Og Julie

Iain Morley

The origins of religion and ritual in humans have been the focus of centuries of thought in archaeology, anthropology, theology, evolutionary psychology and more. Play and ritual have many aspects in common, and ritual is a key component of the early cult practices that underlie the religious systems of the first complex societies in all parts of the world. This book examines the formative cults and the roots of religious practice from the earliest times until the development of early religion in the Near East, in China, in Peru, in Mesoamerica and beyond. Here, leading prehistorians and other specialists bring a fresh approach to the early practices that underlie the faiths and religions of the world. They demonstrate the profound role of play ritual and belief systems and offer powerful new insights into the emergence of early civilization.

Ritual, Play, and Belief in Evolution and Early Human Societies

Interrogating the basic assumptions of realism, this study examines the postmodern phenomenon of fiction as the presentation of theories of fiction. The writers critically examined include Nabokov, Woolf, Conrad, Faulkner, Joyce, and Beckett.

Fiction as Critique

The Reflexive Novel

Paola Antonelli

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Philippe Garner

One hundred chairs, couches, other seating furniture, and objects from what is perhaps the most important and comprehensive collection of modernist furniture in priate hands have been newly photographed in color for this lavish book. Accompanying an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, this bok spans the 20th century as it showcases the work of modern masters ranging from Peter Behrens, Otto wagner, and Gerrit Rietveld, throug LeCorbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, to Wendell Castle, Donald Judd, and Marco Zanuso. Sitting on the Edge will delight and inform design professionals as well as anyone with a passion for style.

Modernist Design from the Collection of Michael & Gabrielle Boyd

Sitting on the Edge

This volume, with essays by leading archaeologists and prehistorians, considers how prehistoric humans attempted to recognise, understand and conceptualise death.

Michael Boyd

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