A fascinating overview of how contemporary artists incorporate text and language into work that speaks to the most pressing issues of the 21st century. In this new volume celebrated artist and curator Michael Petry, addresses media and marketplace concerns about the state of language and the value of books in the digital age. As words find new modes of transmission in contemporary society, text becomes information, and information strives to become free, Petry asks, what value can text hold in the sphere of visual art? Looking at the work of a broad range of artists including Bruce Nauman, Julien Breton, Jeremy Deller, Takashi Murakami, Tracey Emin, Christian Boltanski, and more, The Word is Art explores this and related questions and demonstrates how words remain critical, powerful, and central to art practice. Presenting major areas where the word has dominated artistic practice, this book takes us on a fascinating and richly illustrated global tour of diverse contemporary art forms.

Art and Science in Word and Image investigates the theme of ‘riddles of form’, exploring how discovery and innovation have functioned inter-dependently between art, literature and the sciences. Using the impact of evolutionary biologist D’Arcy Thompson’s On Growth and Form on Modernist practices as springboard into the theme, contributors consider engagements with mysteries of natural form in painting, photography, fiction, etc., as well as theories about cosmic forces, and other fields of knowledge and enquiry. Hence the collection also deals with topics including cultural inscriptions of gardens and landscapes, deconstructions of received history through word and image artworks and texts, experiments in poetic materiality, graphic re-mediations of classic fiction, and textual transactions with animation and photography. Contributors are: Dina Aleshina, Márcia Arbex, Donna T. Canada Smith, Calum Colvin, Francis Edeline, Philippe Enrico, Étienne Février, Madeline B. Gangnes, Eric T. Haskell, Christina Ionescu, Tim Isherwood, Matthew Jarron, Philippe Kaenel, Judy Kendall, Catherine Lanone, Kristen Nassif, Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira, Eric Robertson, Frances Robertson, Cathy Roche-Liger, David Skilton, Melanie Stengele, Barry Sullivan, Alice Tarbuck, Frederik Van Dam.

Now published in paperback, this book is the first systematic study to explore the way in which words have encroached on the visual arts from the late 19th century to the present day. From the Impressionists to contemporary practitioners, Writing on the Wall shows how artists have responded to an environment increasingly saturated with words, and how the mass media has adopted and adapted artistic devices in typography, propaganda and advertising.

"America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek) trains his satirical eye on Modern Art in this "masterpiece" (The Washington Post) Wolfe's style has never been more dazzling, his wit never more keen. He addresses the scope of Modern Art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal, and Conceptual. The Painted Word is Tom Wolfe "at his most clever, amusing, and irreverent" (San Francisco Chronicle).

"It sounds like a simple thing, to say what you see," Mark Doty begins. "But try to find words for the shades of a mottled sassafras leaf, or the reflectivity of a bay on an August morning, or the very beginnings of desire stirring in the gaze of someone looking right into your eyes . . ." Doty finds refuge in the sensory experience found in poems by Blake, Whitman, Bishop, and others. The Art of Description is an invaluable book by one of America's most revered writers and teachers.

The medieval liturgy was in many ways a performance in which the worshipper was transformed into both actor and audience--an act of intense involvement steeped in spoken words, music, and images alike. Of all these elements, art was arguably paramount: it transformed the physical setting of this ritual, shaped the medieval sense of belief, and guided the faithful toward a fuller comprehension of the word. The complex and always evolving relationship between the liturgy and the wide range of art that it influenced is the subject of the thirteen scholars who present their recent work in this richly illustrated volume. The authors' approaches are as varied as the objects they examine, which range from sumptuous codexes, altarpieces, metal shrines, ivories, and the expansive stained-glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle to more humble artifacts such as baptismal fonts, choir stalls, and drinking horns. One of the many conclusions that emerge from these essays is that "liturgical art" was far from being a rigidly controlled or formulaic genre. Throughout the Middle Ages it could--and did--respond readily and in nuanced detail to the changing expectations of the devout, the taste and demands of individuals, and even the lingering presence of secular and pagan objects. The contributors are Adelaide Bennett, Elaine C. Block, Lisa Victoria Ciresi, Michael Curschmann, William J. Diebold, Julian Gardner, Alyce A. Jordan, Peter Lasko, John Lowden, Carol Neuman de Vegvar, Harriet M. Sonne de Torrens, Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, and Beth Williamson.