From the 1970s to the present, Chilean artist, poet and filmmaker Cecilia Vicuas (b. 1948) work has used red thread to visually and poetically engage with rituals from Aboriginal Australia, South Africa, Paleolithic Europe and pre-Columbian America. Vicuas performances, site-specific installations, paintings and drawings relate to the symbolic function of textile and language in terms of femininity, maternity and the support and continuation of life. Published on the occasion of Vicuas installation in Athens for dOCUMENTA (14), Read Thread tells the story of the sanguine thread in Vicuas worka kind of weaving-as-writingand conveys the tension of ecological disaster and reparation as well as a bodily sense of the cosmic scale of landscape, history and time. Alongside historical and recent documentation of Vicuas large-scale installations, the softcover publication extensively illustrates her drawings, poetic texts and narratives relating the works to their political and historical context. Essays by dOCUMENTA (14) curator Dieter Roelstraete and art historian Jos de Nordenflycht Concha complete the book.

"This artist's book is the second in a collaborative series between the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans and Siglio in which artists are invited to intervene in the history and space of the book in conuunction with a solo exhibition at the CAC." -- Page 152

Focusing on art practices that advocate, raise consciousness, and educate about the human right to reproductive health, this book analyses and compares forms of feminist artivism to interrogate bodily rights while closely examining the lived experiences of women and their right of free choice. The transnational framing engages with resurgent imperialist and colonial ambitions across global politics and with the attempts at disrupting these positionings by prioritising feminist care as instrumental for democracy and social justice. Key foci of this book include the ways in which arts activism operates, and its strategies and methods related to, for example, the types of artistic practice employed, approaches to dissemination and reach, and engaging the public. The analysis of these topics interrogates the potential of arts activism to work while other forms of activism may stumble, leading social change in thinking, practice and, finally, legislation. Countries covered include Finland, Poland, Portugal, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil, the United States, and Australia. The book will be of interest to students and scholars studying art history, art theory and practice, gender studies, and women’s studies.

2.2 Procedural Rules and Issues

Mark Rothko’s classic book on artistic practice, ideals, and philosophy, now with an expanded introduction and an afterword by Makoto Fujimura Stored in a New York City warehouse for many years after the artist’s death, this extraordinary manuscript by Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was published to great acclaim in 2004. Probably written in 1940 or 1941, it contains Rothko’s ideas on the modern art world, art history, myth, beauty, the challenges of being an artist in society, the true nature of “American art,” and much more. In his introduction, illustrated with examples of Rothko’s work and pages from the manuscript, the artist’s son, Christopher Rothko, describes the discovery of the manuscript and the fascinating process of its initial publication. This edition includes discussion of Rothko’s “Scribble Book” (1932), his notes on teaching art to children, which has received renewed scholarly attention in recent years and provides clues to the genesis of Rothko’s thinking on pedagogy. In an afterword written for this edition, artist and author Makoto Fujimura reflects on how Rothko’s writings offer a “lifeboat” for “art world refugees” and a model for upholding artistic ideals. He considers the transcendent capacity of Rothko’s paintings to express pure ideas and the significance of the decade-long gap between The Artist’s Reality and Rothko’s mature paintings, during which the horrors of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb were unleashed upon the world.

Two works in one. this is an exquisite art book offering the first comprehensive treatment of Vicuna's work in English.