Books published by Guggenheim Museum Publications,U.S.

A groundbreaking study of visionary artist Hilma af Klint. When Swedish artist Hilma af Klint died in 1944 at the age of 81, she left behind more than a thousand paintings and works on paper that she kept largely private during her lifetime. Believing the world was not yet ready for her art, she stipulated that it should remain unseen for another 20 years. But only in recent decades has the public had a chance to reckon with af Klint's radically abstract painting practice - one which predates the work of Vasily Kandinsky and other artists widely considered trailblazers of modernist abstraction. Accompanying the first major survey exhibition of the artist's work in the United States, Hilma af Klint represents her groundbreaking painting series while expanding recent scholarship to present the fullest picture yet of the artist's life and work. Essays explore the social, intellectual, and artistic milieu of af Klint's 1906 break with figuration and her subsequent development, placing her in the context of Swedish modernism and folk art traditions, contemporary scientific discoveries, and spiritualist and occult movements. A roundtable discussion among contemporary artists, scholars, and curators considers af Klint's sources and relevance to art in the 21st century. The volume also delves into her unrealized plans for a spiral-shaped temple in which to display her art - a wish that finds a fortuitous answer in the Guggenheim Museum's rotunda, the site of the forthcoming exhibition.

"One of the foremost artistic innovators of abstraction in the twentieth century, Vasily Kandinsky sought to liberate painting from its ties to the natural world and promote the spiritual in art. This richly illustrated publication looks at Kandinsky anew, through a critical lens, reframing our understanding of this vital figure of European modernism, who was also a prolific aesthetic theorist and writer. A series of thematic essays considers his engagement with avant-garde artistic communities including the Bauhaus, his relationship to improvisation and music, his travels in Europe and Russia, and the influences behind his self-declared anarchist mode of abstraction, among other topics. Tracing Kandinsky's life and work through his years in Moscow, several cities in Germany, and Paris, the texts offer striking new insights into an artist whose creative production and style were intimately tied to a sense of place-and displacement-and evolved amid the political and social upheavals catalyzed by the Russian Revolution and World Wars I and II. Kandinsky's history is closely linked to that of the Guggenheim Museum. Solomon R. Guggenheim began collecting the artist's work in 1929; a year later, they would meet at the Bauhaus, in Dessau. This book features more than half of the museum's deep holdings of works by Kandinsky, presenting the full arc of his artistic development and career. Included are paintings in oil and oil with sand, reverse-glass paintings, as well as woodcuts, watercolors, and drawings on paper. An illustrated chronicle of Kandinsky's life and career, including selected exhibitions and publications, rounds out the volume"--

"Based upon the research of the Panza Collection Initiative, a ten-year study project, Object Lessons focuses on four works by key figures of 1960s minimalism and conceptual art: Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Lawrence Weiner. Authors Francesca Esmay, Ted Mann, and Jeffrey Weiss present each work from several vantages: an exhaustive chronological account conveys the surprisingly complicated history of the work's realization, acquisition, ownership and display. An overview addresses the broad practical and conceptual implications of this information for the historical identity of the work and its consequences for the work's future. A conservation narrative establishes the role of fabricators and the material and technical standards for the production of the object. Together, the authors explore how a previously unaddressed history of production, ownership and display has deeply influenced the life and legacy of the radical objects of minimal art. A separate section, with contributions by Martha Buskirk and Virginia Rutledge, examines the topic of decommission, a new category of collection classification for works that are contested or compromised and are therefore no longer viable for display. Throughout, the book is illustrated with photographs of the works, the exhibitions in which they appeared and related drawings and proposals. Rounding out this volume are extensive excerpts of new interviews with artists and fabricators, key historical documents, and previously unpublished correspondence"--

This revised and redesigned edition of the Guggenheim Museum's guide to its New York collection is a concise primer on art of the late 19th to the early 21st centuries Revised, updated, and completely redesigned, the fourth edition of the Guggenheim Museum's popular guide to its New York collection is a beautifully produced volume, not only a handy overview of the museum's holdings but also a concise, engaging primer on the art of the late 19th through the early 21st centuries. Organized alphabetically, the book consists of entries on more than 170 of the most important paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, site-specific installations, and other works in the collection by artists from Marina Abramovic to Maurizio Cattelan to Julie Mehretu to Gilberto Zorio. Also included are definitions of key terms and concepts of modern art, from "Appropriation" to "Non-Objective" to "Postcolonial" and beyond. The Guggenheim Museum Collection is beloved for this wealth of masterpieces by leading modern artists, such as Marc Chagall, Vasily Kandinsky, and Pablo Picasso. Reflecting the recent growth in the collection, this edition of the guide includes new entries on Romare Bearden, Tacita Dean, Cao Fei, David Hammons, Catherine Opie and Adrian Piper, among many others. The text is by the museum's curators as well as prominent authors and scholars, including Homi Bhabha, Tom Crow, Nikki Greene and Jeffrey Schnapp.

Cha¿ia LaBouvier is a scholar and writer who has explored Basquiat¿s Defacement in great depth. Johanna F. Almiron is an interdisciplinary cultural studies scholar and Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lauren Hinkson is Associate Curator, Collections, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Nancy Spector is the former Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Hou Hanru is Consulting Curator, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Artistic Director of MAXXI, National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome. Xiaoyu Weng is The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Associate Curator of Chinese Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.