fun and engaging art history book recs?

Question

JaperMoon · Answer

Kingdom Under Glass: A novelized biography about Carl Akeley, the artist behind the earliest dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in NY.

Fascinating but be warned, animals get hurt. It was a different time!

Coofandy · Answer

Errol Morris: Believing Is Seeing: Amazing and really did change how I thought about photographs.

D · Answer

The Other History of Intercultural Performance: Daily, in my work and life I think about the multivalent ways that violence echos across species (and structures). Coco Fusco does this in some ways too, through the lens of decolonization. Necessary reading.

D · Answer

How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness: Darby English is one of the few art historians I’ve read who really deals with the materiality of art in a way that I appreciate. The writing is engrossing and the ideas have stayed with me for years—the chapter on William Pope L., especially.

Babuji · Answer

Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (Joseph Cornell): One of the most memorable biographies I’ve read about an extraordinary artist and true eccentric, who was in the center of the most exciting periods of American art history, abstract expressionism and pop art in NYC. Cornell was obsessed with obscure ballet dancers and lived with his mother in Queens. Beautifully written.

YooMi · Answer

Ninth Street Women: An amazing recount of five female artists who embodied that world to its fullest extent. Not necessarily the big splashy modern art names like Pollack (though, one of the women did marry him), but also not totally in the shadows. they pushed the modern art boundaries in a way that is completely inspirational at a time where there was so much imagination and creativity to buck the trend. enjoy!

Loose Links · Answer

Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art (Michael C. Fitzgerald): Picasso is so sus but his influence in making the art collection market what it is, is fascinating.

Jenn · Answer

Hilma af Klint and Wassily Kandinsky: Dreams of the Future: Hilma af Klint invented European abstractionism a handful of years before Kandinsky, instructed that her work not be shown until decades after her death, and envisioned her debut in the “temple of the great white spiral” before the Guggenheim was built.

What more can you ask for in the mysteries of art??

Jenn · Answer

Portraits: John Berger on Artists: Whew, this one is an event. An essay a day will change your life.

D · Answer

Institutional Critique (Alberro and Stimson): Excellent anthology of writing by Adrian Piper, Andrea Fraser, Hito Steyerl, Fred Wilson, and more. There is another book in this series titled “Conceptual Art,” that is a helpful companion text. I have referred students to this text when they are working on artist statements to see historical examples and think beyond conventional styles (which also have use but sometimes a different treatment is needed).