New Books: Fine Arts (Art, Music, Theater)

Born in Beijing in 1957, Ai Weiwei is celebrated worldwide as an artist, architect, curator, film director, and photographer. His working method critically examines cultural history and global social developments. With texts and images, this catalog demonstrates the close interweaving of political commitment and artistic work in the œuvre of this important, controversial artist who lends form to the contradictions of our present times.

From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the colossal statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the nudes of classical Greece, Beard explores the power, hierarchy, and gender politics of the art of the ancient world, and explains how it came to define the so-called civilized world. In Part II, Beard chronicles some of the most breathtaking religious imagery ever made to show how all religions, ancient and modern, have faced irreconcilable problems in trying to picture the divine.

A complete account of the triumphs and difficulties of Nina Simone, whose distinctive voice and music occupy a singular place in the canon of American song. Central factors of her life and career include her unique and provocative relationship with her audiences, her involvement in the civil rights movement, her two marriages, and the alienation from the United States that drove her to live abroad. Alongside these threads runs a darker one: Nina's increasing and sometimes baffling outbursts of rage and pain and her lifelong struggle to overcome a deep sense of personal injustice, which persisted even as she won international renown.

Leonard Bernstein was one of twentieth-century music's most successful and recognizable figures. Drawing on over thirty years of study, Paul R. Laird describes Bernstein's work as a conductor, composer, music educator and commentator, evaluating all his major compositions. Laird explores the impact of his complicated personal life on his professional work, including his homosexuality and many affairs with men, and his strong yet difficult marriage. The author also describes Bernstein's iron self-belief, which enabled him to negotiate risky and challenging musical situations that resulted in passionate, if sometimes mixed, reviews.

Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this biography, Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky's complex world. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus.

Sergei Rachmaninoff left Petrograd in 1917 in the throes of the Russian Revolution. He was 44 years old, at the peak of his powers as composer-conductor-performer. He had already written the music which, today, has made him one of the most popular composers of all time: the second and third Piano Concertos and two symphonies. Yet the melancholy of leaving his homeland never lifted. In 1940 Rachmaninoff, living in exile in America, broke his creative silence and composed a swan song to his Russian homeland. What happened in those final haunted years and how did he come to write his farewell masterpiece, the Symphonic Dances?

From James Rosenquist, one of our most iconic pop artists, comes this candid and fascinating memoir. His vast canvases full of brilliant, surreally juxtaposed images would influence both many of his contemporaries and younger generations, as well as revolutionize twentieth-century painting. With his distinct voice, Rosenquist writes about the ideas behind some of his major paintings, from the startling revelation that led to his first pop painting, Zone, to his masterpiece, F-III, a stunning critique of war and consumerism, to the cosmic reverie of Star Thief.

While unappreciated and controversial during most of his life, Anton Bruckner is today regarded as the greatest symphonist between Beethoven and Gustav Mahler - in terms of originality, boldness and monumentality of his music. The image of Bruckner the man, however, is still an extreme instance of the tenacious power of prejudice. The author is out to correct that misperception. His thesis in this study is that contrary to what has hitherto been asserted, there is an intimate relation between Bruckner's sacred music and his symphonies from multiple perspectives.

When the art world has paid attention to makers from outside the cultural establishment, including so-called outsider and self-taught artists, it has generally been within limiting categories. Yet these artists, including many women, people with disabilities, and people of color, have had a transformative influence on the history of modern art. Responding to growing interest in these artists, this book offers a nuanced history of their work and how it has been understood from the early twentieth century to the present day.

This book will position Warhol at the vanguard of artistic experimentation. Looking at his background as an immigrant, ideas of death and religion, and his queer perspective, it will explore his limitless ambition to push the traditional boundaries of painting, sculpture, film and music, and reveal Warhol as an artist who both succeeded and failed in equal measure; an artist who embraced the establishment while cavorting with the underground.