Berger, Maurice 1956-

Modigliani : beyond the myth ( Book )
5 editions published in 2004 in English and held by 867 libraries worldwide
"Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) is one of the best known - and most misunderstood - artists of the twentieth century. His incisive portraits, erotically charged nudes, elegant drawings of caryatids, and primitivistic sculpture have been admired for decades. Modigliani's work, however, has typically been examined in the limited context of his so-called bohemian, anti-intellectual lifestyle. This book revises this approach toward Modigliani's art, presenting a revisionist examination of the unique historical, social, religious, and cultural significance of his oeuvre." "Modigliani: Beyond the Myth looks at the artist and his art from a variety of important perspectives: his proud heritage as a Sephardic Jew, whose spirituality embraced non-Western, classical, and Christian iconography while retaining its own ethnic identity; his critical engagement and melding of tribal and ethnographic art with Judaism in his portraiture; the representation of the female nude in his works from a feminist cultural perspective; the remarkable reception of his work in Italy after his death, and the failure of traditional art history to account for or analyze these important aspects of his life and work."--Jacket.

Eva Hesse : a retrospective ( Book )
2 editions published in 1992 in English and held by 731 libraries worldwide
Eva Hesse (1936-1970) has long been recognized by artists and critics as a sculptor of exceptional talent and prodigious influence. The public has rarely seen her work, however, because its fragility has made it difficult to exhibit. This richly illustrated and critically interpretive book enables a wide audience to appreciate the magnitude of her achievement and the legacy of her art. Hesse was an expressionist in an age of minimalism. Against the predominantly impersonal visual modes of the sixties, she insisted on the subjective qualities of her art. She opened up new frontiers in sculpture--in form, content, and material--and helped to change the way artists, critics, and viewers look at art. Hesse's career also coincided with the incubation period of modern feminism, and her art stands as a courageous and complex effort to articulate a female identity. The book includes essays by five noted authorities: Linda Norden discusses Hesse's early career in New York following her years as a student of Josef Albers; Maria Kreutzer writes on Hesse's work in Germany in the mid-sixties, when she moved from two to three dimensions; Robert Storr places Hesse in relation to the central American artistic concerns of the 1960s, focusing on her links to such artists as Jasper Johns, Sol LeWitt, and Claes Oldenburg; Anna Chave analyzes Hesse's mature work in light of contemporary feminist theory on authorship and subjectivity; and Maurice Berger examines Hesse's radical and personal approach to the sculptural object following her rejection of painting. In addition, Helen Cooper draws on the artist's extensive diaries, notebooks, and correspondence for a chronology detailed as much as possible in Hesse's own words. This beautiful book, which brings together Hesse's most important sculptures, reliefs, and her rarely seen drawings and early paintings, is the catalogue for an exhibition of Hesse's work that opens at the Yale University Art Gallery in April 1992 and travels to the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

Action/abstraction : Pollock, de Kooning, and American art, 1940-1976 ( Book )
4 editions published between 2008 and 2009 in English and held by 711 libraries worldwide
"The abstract paintings of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Lee Krasner, Clyfford Still, Helen Frankenthaler, and others revolutionized the art world in the 1940s and 1950s and continue to inspire passionate arguments to this day. What were these artists trying to achieve? Who were the critical voices of the time that rallied public interest in Abstract Expressionism and sparked rancorous debate?" "Drawing on recent critical, historical, and biographical work, this lavishly illustrated book offers a sharp new focus on a pivotal art movement. It also presents an extensive commentary on the two most influential critics of postwar American art - Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg - whose powerful views shaped perceptions of Abstract Expressionism and other contemporary art movements. In one essay, Norman L. Kleeblatt traces the influence of Abstract Expressionism into the mid-1970s and examines its connection to subsequent art styles. Other essays range from the literary and intellectual culture of New York during that period and an analysis of sculpture and representation to a discussion of Jewish issues in relation to postwar American Art. In addition, the book features a magisterial essay by eminent critic Irving Sandler and a copiously illustrated cultural timeline by Maurice Berger."--BOOK JACKET.

White lies : race and the myths of whiteness by Maurice Berger ( Book )
2 editions published in 1999 in English and held by 703 libraries worldwide

For all the world to see : visual culture and the struggle for civil rights by Maurice Berger ( Book )
2 editions published in 2010 in English and held by 605 libraries worldwide
In 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi, his grieving mother distributed to the press a gruesome photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, she explained that by witnessing with their own eyes the brutality of segregation and racism, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of racial justice. "Let the world see what I've seen," was her reply. The publication of the photograph inspired a generation of activists to join the civil rights movement. Despite this extraordinary episode, the story of visual culture's role in the modern civil rights movement is rarely included in its history. This is the first comprehensive examination of the ways images mattered in the struggle, and it investigates a broad range of media including photography, television, film, magazines, newspapers, and advertising. These images were ever present and diverse: the startling footage of southern white aggression and black suffering that appeared night after night on television news programs; the photographs of black achievers and martyrs in Negro periodicals; the humble snapshot, no less powerful in its ability to edify and motivate. In each case, the war against racism was waged through pictures, millions of points of light, millions of potent weapons that forever changed a nation. This book allows us to see and understand the crucial role that visual culture played in forever changing a nation.

Labyrinths : Robert Morris, minimalism, and the 1960s by Maurice Berger ( Book )
3 editions published in 1989 in English and held by 589 libraries worldwide

Masterworks of the Jewish Museum by N.Y.) Jewish Museum (New York ( Book )
1 edition published in 2004 in English and held by 547 libraries worldwide

Constructing masculinity ( Book )
1 edition published in 1995 in English and held by 541 libraries worldwide

Trisha Brown--dance and art in dialogue, 1961-2001 ( Book )
1 edition published in 2002 in English and held by 456 libraries worldwide
"In 1962, at the age of twenty-six, Trisha Brown became one of the original members of the experimental Judson Church Dance Theater in New York, and in 1970 she cofounded The Grand Union. The dancers of these radical groups, such as Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton, embraced improvisation and the use of everyday movements not usually associated with legitimate choreography. To bring her dance into the real world of objects and unpredictable events, Brown performed much of her early work outdoors. The book recalls the richness of those times, when poets, musicians, painters, and sculptors joined with dancers and choreographers in questioning the hierarchies and boundaries of their disciplines." "In this book, which accompanies a nationally touring exhibition co-organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, historians, critics, choreographers, dancers, and visual artists explore the dialogue between dance and the visual arts in Brown's work. The contributors include Guillaume Bernardi, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti, Marianne Goldberg, Deborah Jowitt, Klaus Kertess, Laurence Louppe, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Charles Stainback, Hendel Teicher, and Adam D. Weinberg."--BOOK JACKET.

How art becomes history : essays on art, society, and culture in post-New Deal America by Maurice Berger ( Book )
3 editions published in 1992 in English and held by 430 libraries worldwide
These essays on American art and culture explore overlapping social, political, cultural and aesthetic issues of post-New Deal America. The book discusses some of the pioneering developments in art history and cultural studies, from the dissolution of formalism in the late 1960s to the reemergence of Marxism in the 1970s and the infusion of semiotic, feminist, psychoanalytical and racial issues in the 1980s. Also covered is the expanding range of interest of art history into examinations of the social, aesthetic and political implications of popular culture. The subjects include the FSA photography project; the racial and cultural politics of the museum; the 1964 World's Fair; artists' representations of the Vietnam War; sexual liberation and avant-garde film of the 1960s; and the political function of artists' writings in the 1980s. Maurice Berger explains the very special nature of American culture from the 1930s to the present, centering on the way in which the 1960s witnessed both a culmination of the New Deal vision and a rejection of these older values in the form of a radical counterculture.