Reading List

Ever since my the Crow workshop, maybe before, I've been asking myself, what makes art art?  What makes good art good?  How can meaning be conveyed through non-objective abstract art?
In my usual semi-obsessive way, I've gone about looking for answers in books.  Despite all the information out there on the internet, I still find sinking into a book the best way to really research something. Call me old-school - you'd be right - and proud of it.

So I bought a number of modern art books, like this one and am browsing all, digging deeper into most.  I found a couple volumes at the used bookstore (You can call me cheap, too.) that looked at the first 50 years of modern art, 1900-1950, essentially.  I really liked this approach because it allowed me to try to understand how art moved into abstraction from a generally representational basis, without trying to absorb 100 years all at once.   My formal art education ended in 1987, and what a surprise - things have changed in 25 years!

Then I stumbled on an amazing book that I am totally devouring, it is the catalog from the Color Chart Exhibit at MoMA 2008.  What an exhibit. It's okay to love paint swatches.  I guess I was not the only one hording them as "art parts."

Then I decided I needed to figure out what had been going on in those last 25 years.. and decided to start with But Is It Art? Which is a short relatively easy read on the evolution of art theory.  More than I ever wanted to know about bodily fluids as art material, but helpful nonetheless!