Michael Auping

Robin Lee Clark

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

“The Light and Space movement—of great importance to my development as a young artist—is far more than a valid art historical reference. It translates matters of psychology, phenomenology, criticality, emotional investment, and now-ness into an immaterial language that is both subversive and compelling. Light and Space is as contemporary as ever.” —Olafur Eliasson

California Light, Space, Surface

Phenomenal

Francis Bacon

Hugh Marlais Davies

British artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992), one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century, is known for his expressive figurative paintings. Perhaps Bacon's most famous image - the so-called 'screaming pope' in Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) - became the touchstone for the longest series of paintings in his career, the Papal Portraits of 1953.In 1953 'haunted and obsessed by the image...by its perfection,' Bacon sought to reinvent Velázquez's seventeenth-century Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650) in the paintings that are the focus of this book. Francis Bacon replaced the grand, official state portrait with an intimate, spontaneous 'candid camera' glimpse behind the well-ordered exterior. While the Spanish master Velázquez portayed the pope ex cathedra, Bacon captured him in camera, as if behind a closed door or through a one-way mirror.This series of eight papal portraits, painted during a period of just a few weeks in the summer of 1953, was brought together for the first time by noted Bacon scholar Hugh M. Davies for a 1999 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, along with several other works from the same period, including Sphinx I and two recently found Study after Velázquez paintings from 1950. This book includes a new essay by Davies, discussing the artist's influences and sources of imagery for the series, and a previously unpublished interview that Davies conducted with Bacon in 1973.

The Papal Portraits of 1953

Pedro Alonzo

The last decade has seen the rise of artists who have rejected academia to embrace urban culture as their inspiration. The exhibition Viva la Revoluci n: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape represents the pinnacle of this progression through an epic convergence of 20 artists from around the world. The urban landscape serves as the inspiration and canvas in an exhibition comprised of four parts: work inside the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), Public Commissions and Interventions, Bombing, and a Collaborative Site. Barry McGee, Moris, Ryan McGinness, Mark Bradford, Dr. Lakra, Swoon, Os Gemoes and others contribute paintings, prints, sculpture, murals, and installations, while Invader and Shepard Fairey create large outdoor murals and Dzine embellishes the city with tricked out pedicabs. This companion catalogue to the exhibition includes essays by curator Pedro Alonzo and Alex Baker, and a preface by Hugh M. Davies.

A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape

Viva la Revolución

Pierre Schneider

Workbook to help children learn about portrait painting by observing and answering questions about portraits of Jacques and Natasha Gelman, the owners of the paintings in the exhibition.

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

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