The distinguished curator, critic, collector, art historian, and teacher William Rubin was a forceful presence for over two decades at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from the late 1960s through the 1980s.

From CTzanne, van Gogh, Picasso, Mitisse, Mir=, Mondrian, Pollock, de Kooning, and Rothko to Lichtenstein and Warhol, the range and depth of the works acquired made an undeniable impact on the Museum and the world of modern art. Rubin's considerable expansion of MoMA's collection of Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism was enhanced by important works by the next generation of artists, such as Rauschenberg, Johns, Serra, and Stella. The book concludes with Rubin's series of art history lectures, "The Pioneers of Modernism," presented at Sotheby's in 1997 and 1998. --Book Jacket.

"Now that we ‘curate’ even lunch, what happens to the role of the connoisseur in contemporary culture? ‘Curate’ is now a buzzword applied to everything from music festivals to artisanal cheese. Inside the art world, the curator reigns supreme, acting as the face of high-profile group shows and biennials in a way that can eclipse and assimilate the contributions of individual artists. At the same time, curatorial studies programs continue to grow in popularity, and businesses are increasingly adopting curation as a means of adding value to content and courting demographics. Everyone, it seems, is a now a curator. But what is a curator, exactly? And what does the explosive popularity of curating say about our culture’s relationship with taste, labour and the avant-garde? In this incisive and original study, critic David Balzer travels through art history and around the globe to explore the cult of curation – where it began, how it came to dominate museums and galleries, and how it was co-opted at the turn of the millennium as the dominant mode of organizing and giving value to content. At the centre of the book is a paradox: curation is institutionalized and expertise-driven like never before, yet the first independent curators were not formally trained, and any act of choosing has become ‘curating.’ Is the professional curator an oxymoron? Has curation reached a sort of endgame, where its widespread fetishization has led to its own demise? David Balzer has contributed to publications including the Believer, Modern Painters, Artforum.com, and The Globe and Mail, and is the author of Contrivances, a short-fiction collection. He is currently Associate Editor at Canadian Art magazine. Balzer was born in Winnipeg and currently resides in Toronto, where he makes a living as a critic, editor and teacher.

Mark Byford's 'The Annunciation: A Pilgrim's Quest' explores through conversations with clerics, theologians, historians and laypersons the encounter between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary, a meeting that may be a pivotal point in Christianity. Has the status and significance of the Annunciation been lost in today's world?

A critical history of the study of Buddhism in the West, incorporating insights of colonial and post-colonial cultural studies. Social, political and cultural conditions that have shaped the course of Buddhist studies are discussed.

A twenty-five-frames-per-second look at the kinetic, cinematic self by a master poet.