This publication presents a selection of wood-based works from the collection of Robert Bohlen, one of the finest and most thorough collectors of wood art. The artistic progress of the medium is analyzed by a wide array of essays.

A beautifully illustrated, concise critical analysis of the art, careers, and reception of the husband-wife team of artists known as Les Lalanne François-Xavier (1927-2008) and Claude (1925-2019) Lalanne were a husband-wife team of artists who created inventive and often surprising works that have been widely admired and collected since the 1960s. This book presents a carefully selected group of sculptures that focus on a shared preoccupation of the artists: the transformation of natural forms to serve new purposes, such as François-Xavier's giant grasshopper sculpture that opens into a bar and Claude's bench made of galvanized metal branches and vines such that it remains as much a forest as a place to sit. Critical analysis explores the full breadth of the artists' careers; considers the complex issues of reception and categorization of their work; and prompts a reevaluation of the place their art occupies in the context of art museums, all while encouraging readers to consider relationships among nature, art, and their own encounters with both. Distributed for the Clark Art Institute Exhibition Schedule: Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (May 8-October 31, 2021)

The scientific consensus is that our ability to understand human speech has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. After all, there are whole portions of the brain devoted to human speech. We learn to understand speech before we can even walk, and can seamlessly absorb enormous amounts of information simply by hearing it. Surely we evolved this capability over thousands of generations. Or did we? Portions of the human brain are also devoted to reading. Children learn to read at a very young age and can seamlessly absorb information even more quickly through reading than through hearing. We know that we didn't evolve to read because reading is only a few thousand years old. In Harnessed, cognitive scientist Mark Changizi demonstrates that human speech has been very specifically “designed" to harness the sounds of nature, sounds we've evolved over millions of years to readily understand. Long before humans evolved, mammals have learned to interpret the sounds of nature to understand both threats and opportunities. Our speech—regardless of language—is very clearly based on the sounds of nature. Even more fascinating, Changizi shows that music itself is based on natural sounds. Music—seemingly one of the most human of inventions—is literally built on sounds and patterns of sound that have existed since the beginning of time. From Library Journal: "Many scientists believe that the human brain's capacity for language is innate, that the brain is actually "hard-wired" for this higher-level functionality. But theoretical neurobiologist Changizi (director of human cognition, 2AI Labs; The Vision Revolution) brilliantly challenges this view, claiming that language (and music) are neither innate nor instinctual to the brain but evolved culturally to take advantage of what the most ancient aspect of our brain does best: process the sounds of nature ... it will certainly intrigue evolutionary biologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists and is strongly recommended for libraries that have Changizi's previous book." From Forbes: “In his latest book, Harnessed, neuroscientist Mark Changizi manages to accomplish the extraordinary: he says something compellingly new about evolution.… Instead of tackling evolution from the usual position and become mired in the usual arguments, he focuses on one aspect of the larger story so central to who we are, it may very well overshadow all others except the origin of life itself: communication."

In homage to the actists and philanthropists whose individual visions helped to shape and preserve Oregon's natural treasures for future generations, A Generous Nature presents 21 biographical profiles of twentieth-century conservation leaders.

An interdisciplinary study framing Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's quarry images

Publisher Description

Macklowe Gallery has published a lavishly illustrated catalog book, entitled Nature Transformed, as documentation of its groundbreaking exhibition of Art Nouveau horn jewellery.