THE ROSE BOOK Featuring Shinique Smith + others

From a couture Dior gown and a rose-adorned Barbie to ancient mosaics and Victorian Valentine’s cards, this curated collection of more than 200 stunning images celebrates the world’s most iconic flower. Discover the extraordinary ways the universally beloved bloom has been depicted through time and across cultures, both within and beyond the garden.

Featuring 220 exquisite images, The Rose Book reveals depictions as diverse as the plant’s own endless varieties – from wild ramblers to cultivated Hybrid Teas, botanical illustrations to fashion design, fragrance to film, fine art to photography. Works by figures such as Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Christian Dior, Georgia O’Keeffe, Irving Penn, Tiffany & Co., Alexander McQueen, Vincent van Gogh, and more are artfully paired to reveal intriguing juxtapositions.

Captivating essays explore the horticultural history of the rose, the flower’s abundant presence in fashion, and the storied use of its scent in fragrance and perfume. The book also includes a rose glossary by Michael Marriott, and an epilogue by Shane Connolly.

Whether as a symbol of beauty and love, a political and religious icon, or a beloved ornamental plant with countless cultivars, the rose has been an undeniable force in popular culture for millennia, from Ancient Greece to today.

Joan Mitchell: Paintings: 1979–1985

Discover Joan Mitchell’s powerful and dynamic work—spotlighted in this book as never before

“An entry for one of the best shows of 2022. . . . Mitchell, then in her 50s, reaches peak form in gathering brushstrokes that flicker and burn like auras on fire.” —Jerry Saltz, New York magazine

This highly anticipated publication focuses on the years 1979 to 1985—a significant and deeply generative period within Joan Mitchell’s decades-long career. As Mitchell became even more fully immersed in daily life at her property in Vétheuil, France—surrounded by lush gardens, and challenged and inspired by new creative relationships—her studio practice flourished and her work became even more ambitious and expansive. Executed in an increasingly bold palette, the works from this period exemplify Mitchell’s nuanced mastery of composition, scale, and color. In addition to her large-scale abstract works, this publication features numerous smaller paintings and a selection of archival materials.

Included in the book are several texts that complement the illustrated works. A new essay by the bestselling author Julie Otsuka recollects her encounters with Mitchell’s paintings over the years. A fascinating conversation between Mitchell and the French philosopher Yves Michaud from 1986 is featured. Reflections by the artists Shinique Smith and Lily Stockman each explore a unique component of Mitchell’s oeuvre or practice, underscoring Mitchell’s continued influence on artists today.

Shinique Smith: PARADE at The Ringling Museum of Art

Shinique Smith: PARADE, The Ringling Museum's latest publication Magnificently illustrated with dozens of installation images in full color, this hardcover volume accompanies the exhibition of the same title, which was on view from December 16, 2023, through January 5, 2025, beautifully capturing the conversation between acclaimed artist Shinique Smith’s sculptural works and Master works of European art from the Ringling Collection. Produced by Goosepen Studio & Press, this impressive book contains essays by Shinique Smith and Sarah Cartwright, The Ringling’s Chief Curator and Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections.

Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection

A celebration of groundbreaking works by generations of women artists from Joan Mitchell to Julie Mehretu and beyond

This book explores the bold vision and vast range of achievements of women artists working predominantly across North America from the late 1960s into the present moment. The paintings, sculpture and mixed-media works featured are drawn from the Shah Garg Collection, which is dedicated to illuminating the critical role that women have played in shaping the development of abstraction and the narratives of art more broadly. Making Their Mark includes two sweeping essays by editors Mark Godfrey and Katy Siegel, writings by six scholars on topics relevant to the depth of the collection, such as the importance of craft traditions, artistic experimentation with new technologies and the impact of personal and communal identity on artmaking, as well as lively texts by 15 artists about the artists who inspire them. Richly illustrated with works by 136 artists, this volume offers new insights that make it a resource for students of art and general readers alike.
Artists include: Pacita Abad, Candida Alvarez, Olga de Amaral, Emma Amos, Firelei Báez, Jennifer Bartlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Trude Guermonprez, Jacqueline Humphries, Suzanne Jackson, Maria Lassnig, Simone Leigh, Julie Mehretu, Joan Mitchell, Senga Nengudi, Toyin Ojih Odutula, Calida Rawles, Ilana Savdie, Tschabalala Self, Lorna Simpson, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Shinique Smith, Pat Steir, Lenore Tawney, Toshiko Takaezu, Charline von Heyl, Kay WalkingStick and Mary Weatherford.

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage

Building on a technique that has roots in European and American traditions, Black artists have turned to collage as a way to convey how the intersecting facets of their lives combine to make whole individuals. Artists have assembled pieces of paper, fabrics, and other, often salvaged, materials to create unified compositions that express the endless possibilities of Black-constructed narratives despite the fragmentation of our times.
 
As artist Deborah Roberts asserts, “With collage, I can create a more expansive and inclusive view of the Black cultural experience.”
 
More than 50 artists are represented in the book’s 140 color images, with some creating original artworks for this project. Featured artists include such well-known figures as Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Howardena Pindell, Tschabalala Self, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Mickalene Thomas, and Kara Walker. In addition to scholarly essays, the publication contains short biographies of each artist written by Fisk University students.
 
Distributed for the Frist Art Museum
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN
(September 15–December 31, 2023)
 
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
(February 18–May 12, 2024)
 
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
(July 6–September 22, 2024)

The Culture: Hip Hop & Contemporary Art in the 21st Century

A sweeping survey of hip hop’s resounding impact on contemporary art and culture across the past 20-plus years

Accompanying a groundbreaking exhibition originating at the Baltimore Museum of Art, this book captures the extraordinary influence of hip hop, which has driven innovations in music, visual and performing arts, fashion, and technology and grown into a global phenomenon since its emergence in the 1970s. It features approximately 70 objects by both established and emerging artists, design houses, streetwear icons and musicians working in a wide range of mediums to demonstrate hip hop’s proliferation from the street to the runway, the studio to the museum gallery, and countless sites in between. The exhibition also explores how hip hop has and continues to challenge structures of power, dominant cultural narratives, and political and social systems of oppression.
This fully illustrated monograph documents the exhibition and contains texts and interviews from more than 30 artists and scholars.
Artists include: Nina Chanel Abney, Dionne Alexander, Maxwell Alexandre, Devin Allen, Alvaro Barrington, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Grace Wales Bonner, Mark Bradford, Jordan Casteel, Willy Chavarria, Caitlin Cherry, Troy Chew II, William Cordova, Carl Jones, Stan Douglas, John Edmonds, Gajin Fujita, Monica Ikegwu, Shabez Jamal, Kahlil Joseph, Nia June, LA II, Deana Lawson, Eric N. Mack, Emmanuel Massillon, Julie Mehretu, Murjoni Merriweather, Jayson Musson, Rashaad Newsome, Yvonne Osei, Zéh Palito, Gordon Parks, Adam Pendleton, Robert Pruitt, Rammellzee, Sheila Rashid, Rozeal, Joyce J. Scott, Tschabalala Self, Tariku Shiferaw, Devan Shimoyama, Shinique Smith, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, Abbey Williams, Pharrell Williams and Wilmer Wilson IV.
Authors include: Ebony Haynes, Todd Boyd, Lester Spence, Jordana Moore Saggese, Greg Tate, Misa Hylton, Elena Romero, Ekow Eshun, Devin Allen, Michael Holman, Simone White, Salome Asega, Alphonse Pierre, David A.M. Goldberg and Tahir Hemphill, Jacolby Satterwhite, Wendel Patrick, Simon Reynolds, Seph Rodney, Jesse McCarthy, Danez Smith, Noriko Manabe, Lindsay Knight and Charity Marsh, Shaheem Sanchez, Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr., Sekou Cooke, Jessica N. Pabón-Colón, Martha Cooper, Skeme, Alex de Mora and Lawrence Burney.

Black Aliveness of A Poetics of Being by Kevin Quashie

In Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being, Kevin Quashie imagines a Black world in which one encounters Black being as it is rather than only as it exists in the shadow of anti-Black violence. As such, he makes a case for Black aliveness even in the face of the persistence of death in Black life and Black study. Centrally, Quashie theorizes aliveness through the aesthetics of poetry, reading poetic inhabitance in Black feminist literary texts by Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Toni Morrison, and Evie Shockley, among others, showing how their philosophical and creative thinking constitutes worldmaking. This worldmaking conceptualizes Blackness as capacious, relational beyond the normative terms of recognition—Blackness as a condition of oneness. Reading for poetic aliveness, then, becomes a means of exploring Black being rather than nonbeing and animates the ethical question “how to be.” In this way, Quashie offers a Black feminist philosophy of being, which is nothing less than a philosophy of the becoming of the Black world.

The New Politics of the Handmade: Craft, Art and Design

Contemporary craft, art and design are inseparable from the flows of production and consumption under global capitalism. The New Politics of the Handmade features twenty-three voices who critically rethink the handmade in this dramatically shifting economy.

The authors examine craft within the conditions of extreme material and economic disparity; a renewed focus on labour and materiality in contemporary art and museums; the political dimensions of craftivism, neoliberalism, and state power; efforts toward urban renewal and sustainability; the use of digital technologies; and craft's connections to race, cultural identity and sovereignty in texts that criss-cross five continents. They claim contemporary craft as a dynamic critical position for understanding the most immediate political and aesthetic issues of our time.

Four Generations: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art

The acclaimed overview of Black abstract art, now in an expanded edition with nearly 100 additional color plates

The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art is widely recognized as one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary work by artists of the African diaspora and from the continent of Africa itself. Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art draws upon the collection's unparalleled holdings to explore the critical contributions made by Black artists to the evolution of visual art in the 20th and 21st centuries.

This revised and expanded edition updates Four Generations with several new texts and nearly 100 images of works that have been added to the collection since the initial publication of this influential and widely praised book. Lavishly illustrated and featuring important contributions by leading art historians, critics, and curators, Four Generations gives an essential overview of some of the most notable Black artists and movements of the past century, and their approaches to abstraction in its various forms. Filled with countless insights and visual treasures, Four Generations is a journey through the momentous legacy of postwar art of the African diaspora.

Artists include: Firelei Báez, Romare Bearden, Kevin Beasley, Zander Blom, Mark Bradford, Leonardo Drew, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Isaac Julien, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Oscar Murillo, Christina Quarles, Robin Rhode, Lorna Simpson, Shinique Smith, Alma Thomas, Kara Walker, Jack Whitten, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and many others.

Rarely is a monograph on a private collection as revelatory as this―what an extraordinary, rich body of work is packed into these pages. The achievements of the artists, as well as their conceptual and formal daring, leave no doubt that a new page on American art is about to be opened." –Okwui Enwezor

30 AMERICANS: RUBELL FAMILY COLLECTION

Showcasing an influential group of African American artists who have emerged as leading contributors to the contemporary art scene in the US and beyond

Nationally celebrated as one of the most important exhibitions of contemporary art in the United States within the last decade, 30 Americans showcases an influential group of prominent African American artists who have emerged as leading contributors to the contemporary art scene in the US and beyond. The exhibition and accompanying catalog explores the evolving roles of black subjects in art since the 1970s and highlights some of the most pressing social and political issues facing our country today, including ongoing narratives of racial inequality; the construction of racial, gender and sexual identity; and the pernicious underpinnings and effects of stereotyping.

Many of the artists in this exhibition interrogate how African Americans are represented, politicized and contested in the arts, media and popular culture. Several are driven by the exclusion of black subjects in art throughout much of history and celebrate and glorify black subjects through pictorial traditions including genre painting and portraiture.

In addition to essays by Robert Hobbs, Glenn Ligon, Franklin Sirmans and Michele Wallace, this expanded fourth edition contains new artworks and 22 commissioned writings by artists in the exhibition about artworks in the catalog, including pieces by Nina Chanel Abney, John Bankston, Mark Bradford, Nick Cave, Robert Colescott, Noah Davis, Leonardo Drew, Renée Green,Barkley L. Hendricks, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Rodney McMillian, Wangechi Mutu, William Pope.L, Rozeal Shinique Smith, Jeff Sonhouse, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley.

It Speaks to Me: Art That Inspires Artists

Imagine your favorite artist leading you through a museum to the very work of art they can't stop thinking about. That's the experience at the heart of It Speaks to Me. In lively and intimate conversations, 50 acclaimed artists discuss artworks they find compelling from museums around the world. Together they bring to life a wide range of artworks, from a Rembrandt self-portrait to a 21st-century social-protest drawing, all beautifully reproduced in one volume that is itself inspiring. Highlights include: David Hockney on Edgar Degas, Shirin Neshat on Alice Neel, Marina Abramovic on Umberto Boccioni, Ai Weiwei on a Shang Dynasty jade, Nick Cave on Jasper Johns, Shinique Smith on Robert Rauschenberg, Do Ho Suh on Jeong Seon, Mark Bradford on Mark Rothko, and Gillian Wearing on Rembrandt.

Beyond Hashtags: Racial Politics and Black Digital Networks

COVER ART: Shinique Smith - Available on Amazon

How black Americans use digital networks to organize and cultivate solidarity

Unrest gripped Ferguson, Missouri, after Mike Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in August 2014. Many black Americans turned to their digital and social media networks to circulate information, cultivate solidarity, and organize during that tumultuous moment. While Ferguson and the subsequent protests made black digital networks visible to mainstream media, these networks did not coalesce overnight. They were built and maintained over years through common, everyday use.

Beyond Hashtags explores these everyday practices and their relationship to larger social issues through an in-depth analysis of a trans-platform network of black American digital and social media users and content creators. In the crucial years leading up to the emergence of the Movement for Black Lives, black Americans used digital networks not only to cope with day-to-day experiences of racism, but also as an incubator for the debates that have since exploded onto the national stage. Beyond Hashtags tells the story of an influential subsection of these networks, an assemblage of podcasting, independent media, Instagram, Vine, Facebook, and the network of Twitter users that has come to be known as “Black Twitter.” Florini looks at how black Americans use these technologies often simultaneously to create a space to reassert their racial identities, forge community, organize politically, and create alternative media representations and news sources. Beyond Hashtags demonstrates how much insight marginalized users have into technology.

Shinique Smith: Wonder & Rainbows

Like spiral galaxies composed of millions of orbiting stars, the works of New York State-based artist Shinique Smith are graceful yet forceful combinations of many different materials and ideas. The wide range of inspirations that inform her artistic practice includes dance, Eastern spiritual philosophies, fashion, graffiti, music, childhood wonder, Japanese calligraphy, and poetry.

Smith makes her sculptures, which hang from the ceiling or sit directly on the floor, by binding together an array of textiles, typically old clothing sourced from multiple locations, with knotted cords and ribbons. Tucked within the folds of fabric are seemingly unimportant items from everyday life such as artificial flowers, butterfly decals, and stuffed animals. In Smith's paintings, these elements intermingle with cloth fragments, bold calligraphic brushwork, and vivid waves of color to create energetic expressions of her personal history as well as a greater sense of cultural concern and cosmic connectivity.

In addition to an introduction to Smith's work by Kathryn Delmez, curator of an accompanying exhibition at the Frist Art Museum, the book includes a biography and bibliography of Shinique Smith, a statement by the artist ("Black Wonder and Rainbows"), and an interview with her conducted by Jen Mergel, the Robert L. Beal, Enid L. Beal, and Bruce A. Beal Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.