Andres Serrano (born 1950) has photographed the homeless, Ku Klux Klansmen, corpses and feces, but he is most famous--or infamous, in some circles--for his "Piss Christ" (1987), showing a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine. Serrano returns again and again to scandalous or uncomfortable themes like religion, death, sex and violence, and his work prompts debate or even violent reaction, making vandalism and censorship inexorably part of the story of Serrano's art as well. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Andres Serrano: Uncensored Photographs presents the many faces of Serrano and his work, tracing the trajectory of his career in more than 100 photographs.

Witty, terrifying, and utterly cool, Yablonsky’s roman à clef is a searing, hyperreal account of the heroin underground in 1980s Manhattan Told with dark humor and unremitting honesty, Linda Yablonsky’s riveting first novel explores the New York art and postpunk music world of the early 1980s from deep within. Set in motion by the appearance of a federal agent, the tale follows two women on a dangerous and seductive journey through a bohemia where hard drugs, extreme behavior, intense friendships, and the emergence of AIDS profoundly alter their lives.

" ... an American photographer and artist who has become famous through his photos of corpses and his use of feces and bodily fluids in his work ..."--Wikipedia.

A National Book Critics Circle finalist • One of Vogue's Best Books of the Year A dazzling biography of one of the twentieth century's most respected painters, Helen Frankenthaler, as she came of age as an artist in postwar New York “The magic of Alexander Nemerov's portrait of Helen Frankenthaler in Fierce Poise is that it reads like one of Helen's paintings. His poetic descriptions of her work and his rich insights into the years when Helen made her first artistic breakthroughs are both light and lush, seemingly easy and yet profound. His book is an ode to a truly great artist who, some seventy years after this story begins, we are only now beginning to understand.” ―Mary Gabriel, author of Ninth Street Women At the dawn of the 1950s, a promising and dedicated young painter named Helen Frankenthaler, fresh out of college, moved back home to New York City to make her name. By the decade's end, she had succeeded in establishing herself as an important American artist of the postwar period. In the years in between, she made some of the most daring, head-turning paintings of her day and also came into her own as a woman: traveling the world, falling in and out of love, and engaging in an ongoing artistic education. She also experienced anew―and left her mark on―the city in which she had been raised in privilege as the daughter of a judge, even as she left the security of that world to pursue her artistic ambitions. Brought to vivid life by acclaimed art historian Alexander Nemerov, these defining moments--from her first awed encounter with Jackson Pollock's drip paintings to her first solo gallery show to her tumultuous breakup with eminent art critic Clement Greenberg―comprise a portrait as bold and distinctive as the painter herself. Inspired by Pollock and the other male titans of abstract expressionism but committed to charting her own course, Frankenthaler was an artist whose talent was matched only by her unapologetic determination to distinguish herself in a man's world. Fierce Poise is an exhilarating ride through New York's 1950s art scene and a brilliant portrait of a young artist through the moments that shaped her.

In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this book, Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying cutting-edge web sites, along with the latest research on the brain's role in perceiving art. This clear, provocative book engages with the big debates surrounding our responses to art and is an invaluable introduction to anyone interested in thinking about art.