Culture Type | Bookshelf

The titles collected here reflect the artists and issues featured on culturetype.com, an exploration of black art through books, magazines and catalogs. Constantly growing, it's a bountiful resource for books on art by and about people of African descent.

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Making a Museum in the 21st Century

Melissa Chiu

"Making a Museum in the 21st Century" addresses some of the most pressing issues for museums in a new era of popularity and audience engagement. Over the past decade, spectacular buildings and increased attendance have been accompanied by increased expectations for museums to create new ways for visitors to interact with art. Against a backdrop of large demographic shifts and geopolitical shuffles resulting in rapid museum growth in Asia and the Middle East, museums around the world face new opportunities and challenges. This book brings together the perspectives of prominent museum leaders, directors, curators, architects and artists such as David Adjaye, Melissa Chiu (the Hirshhorn), Adam Lerner (MCA Denver), Glenn Lowry (MoMA), Walid Raad (Cooper Union), Hiroshi Sugimoto and others.

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# David Adjaye: Form, Heft, Material ## Zoe Ryan, Okwui Enwezor, Peter Allison

Born in Tanzania, David Adjaye (b. 1966) is rapidly emerging as a major international figure in architecture and design—and this stunning catalogue serves only to cement his role as one of the most important architects of our time. His expanding portfolio of important civic architecture, public buildings, and urban planning commissions spans Europe, the United States, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This volume coincides with an exhibition of the same name. Following an introduction by Zoë Ryan, Adjaye writes on his current and future work, with subsequent essays by an extraordinary cadre of architectural scholars on Adjaye’s master plans and urban planning, transnational architecture, monuments and memorials, and, finally, the forthcoming museum in D.C. Portfolios of Adjaye’s work thread throughout this comprehensive volume.

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David Adjaye: Houses

Peter Allison

Architect David Adjaye concentrates on materials and issues of place and identity. A combination of sheer inventiveness, creative clients, and modest budgets has produced a refined and comprehensive body of design unusual in such a young practitioner. Four essential components make up this, Adjaye's first monograph: an introduction by Stuart Hall; a documentation of thirteen of Adjaye's most important projects, over half of which are published here in full for the first time, presented through descriptions, detailed plans, and photographs; a series of visual essays that highlight the tactile, luminous, and luxurious nature of Adjaye's work; and essays from cultural critics who have been inspired by his buildings.

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David Adjaye: A House for an Art Collector

David Adjaye, Adam Lindemann, Peter Allison

An in-depth presentation of an important contribution to New York residential architecture designed by David Adjaye, who is onsidered one of the most important architects of his generation. Designed and built over five years for the contemporary art collector Adam Lindemann, 77E77 was conceived as a sophisticated response to the specific site and the culturally rich neighborhood. The result is a spatially complex series of interlocking spaces, providing suitable rooms for both the challenging art collection it houses and a young and growing family. With 77E77 Adjaye has made a fresh and successful contribution to the history of the modern home in New York: a house for our new generation.

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David Adjaye: Making Public Buildings

Peter Allison

David Adjaye's designs emphasize the experience as much as the function of architecture. Known for domestic projects that explore the unfolding of interior space, Making Public Buildings focuses for the first time on Adjaye's engagement with public spaces. This book brings together a distinguished list of authors to reflect on Adjaye's practice, significance, and influences. Okwui Enwezor and Saskia Sassen discuss the increasing need for a politicized definition of public space, while Nikolaus Hirsch and Peter Allisson consider Adjaye's attention to materials. Two interviews with David Adjaye guide us through his approach to making public buildings within a global context. They are accompanied by drawings, documents, and photographs relating to 10 of Adjaye's most important projects, all published here for the first time.

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African Metropolitan Architecture

David Adjaye

David Adjaye is renowned for his highly acclaimed buildings in Europe and the United States. Of Tanzanian descent but raised and educated in London, he has found endless inspiration for his modern buildings in Africa. This seven-volume, slipcased edition is the culmination of a personal quest—a decade-long project to document the built environment of every major African city. Fifty-three cities are featured, arranged by terrain and region, including: the Maghreb, the Sahel, Savannah and Grassland, Mountain and Highveld, Desert, and Forest. Each is presented with a concise urban history, fact file, maps, and satellite imagery along with the photographs and essays by leading scholars and critics.

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The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The Twentieth Century, Part 2: The Rise of Black Artists

David Bindman, Henry Lous Gates Jr., Karen C.C. Dalton

An ambitious project initiated by Harvard University in 2010, “The Image of the Black in Western Art” assiduously documents artistic depictions of African-descended people, from the earliest known examples to the present. The Rise of Black Artists, the second of two books on the twentieth century and the final volume in the 10-volume series, marks an essential shift in the project and focuses on representation of blacks by black artists in the West. This volume takes on important topics ranging from urban migration within the United States to globalization, to Négritude and cultural hybridity, to the modern black artist’s relationship with European aesthetic traditions and experimentation with new technologies and media. Concentrating on the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean, essays in this volume shed light on topics such as photography, jazz, the importance of political activism to the shaping of black identities, as well as the post-black art world.

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The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume V: The Twentieth Century, Part 1: The Impact of Africa

David Bindman, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Karen C.C. Dalton

An ambitious project initiated by Harvard University in 2010, “The Image of the Black in Western Art” assiduously documents artistic depictions of African-descended people, from the earliest known examples to the present. Part of a 10-volume series, The Impact of Africa, is the first of two books on the 20th century. It looks at changes in the Western perspective on African art and the representation of Africans, and the paradox of their interpretation as simultaneously "primitive" and "modern." The essays include topics such as the new medium of photography, African influences on Picasso and on Josephine Baker's impression of 1920s Paris, and the influential contribution of artists from the Caribbean and Latin American diasporas.

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Bob Marley: Spirit Dancer

Bruce W. Talamon

This volume is a photographic tribute that provides insight into the career, life and personality of Bob Marley, who is still the best-selling reggae artist in the world. The photographs were taken by Bruce Talamon, a renowned photographer who had regular contact with Marley through the singer's last years and with whom Marley felt comfortable enough to grant unrestricted and exclusive access both on and off the stage. The text traces Marley's life from his youth in Jamaica and the birth of the Wailers to his worldwide acceptance and tragic death at the age of 36. The foreword is by Timothy White, author of Marley's biography "To Catch A Fire".

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David Hammons/Yves Klein Yves Klein/David Hammons

Michelle Piranio and David Hammons

This exhibition catalog examination of the surprising conceptual and visual correspondences between the works of Yves Klein (1928-1962), a major figure in postwar art who opened up new possibilities for material, conceptual and performative expression, and David Hammons (born 1943), a conceptual artist whose works in performance, installation, sculpture, printmaking and other media confront contemporary realities with an often hard-hitting wit. Rather than drawing out any notion of influence or direct correlation between these bodies of work, this volumer elucidates a resonance between two artists who both engage transformative processes to invest the humblest of everyday materials with deep aesthetic significance.

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David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble

David Hammons

*Rousing the Rubble *celebrates two decades of work by artist David Hammons, who has risen to prominence while at the same time consciously ducking the attention of critics, galleries, and museums, preferring to "do things in the street." While placing himself as an artist between *Arte Povera" and Marcel Duchamp, Hammons makes his art from refuse and the detritus of African-American life: chicken wings, Thunderbird and Night Train bottles, clippings from dreadlocks, basketball hoops. His deeply felt political views on race and cultural stereotypes give his witty and elegant sculptures, installations, and body prints an integrity that promises to keep the focus on his art rather than on his career. Includes essays by Steve Cannon, Tom Finkelpearl, and Kellie Jones, with photographs by Dawoud Bey and Bruce Talamon.

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L.A. Object & David Hammons Body Prints

Yael Lipschutz

A historical overview of the Los Angeles assemblage movement of the 1960s and 70s. It focuses on works by primarily African-American artists often omitted from mainstream gallery and museum historical exhibitions who were working during the civil rights movement, the 1965 Watts riots and the era's general social and cultural upheaval: Ed Bereal, Wallace Berman, Nathaniel Bustion, Alonzo Davis, Dale Brockman Davis, Charles Dickson, Mel Edwards, David Hammons, Daniel La Rue Johnson, Ed Kienholz, Ron Miyashiro, Senga Nengudi, John Outterbridge, Noah Purifoy, Joe Ray, Betye Saar, Kenzi Shiokava and Timothy Washington. Central to this book are the unique body prints of David Hammons.

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Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey

by Trevor Schoonmaker

This richly illustrated full-color catalog accompanies Wangechi Mutu's first major solo museum exhibition organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (March 21, 2013, through July 21, 2013). Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Brooklyn=based Mutu "combines found materials and magazine cutouts with sculpture and painted imagery… to explore issues of gender, race, war, colonialism, and, particularly, the exoticization of the black female body. …The many images included in "Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey," the most comprehensive survey of her work to date, highlight the most important and iconic works that Mutu has created since the mid-1990s, as well as portray new collages, drawings, videos, and site-specific installations. The catalog also offers an intimate look into her sketchbooks and includes an interview with the artist conducted by the exhibition's curator, Trevor Schoonmaker."

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Rising Up: Hale Woodruff's Murals at Talladega College

By Stephanie Heydt

"In 1938 Hale Woodruff (1900-1980) accepted a commission to paint a series of murals for Talladega College, one of the nation's first colleges established for blacks after the Civil War. Installed in the institution's newly constructed library, the six murals portray noteworthy events in the rise of blacks in America from slavery to freedom. [After having undergone an extensive conservation process], today they stand out as provocative and relevant symbols of the centuries-long struggle for civil and human rights. Essays consider the development of the murals, their presence and significance at Talladega College, and Woodruff's impact on American mural painting in the years surrounding the Talladega project."

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Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation

Edited by Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson

"Bringing together contributors from a wide-range of critical perspectives, 'Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation' is an analytic history of the diverse contributions of Black artists to the medium of comics. Covering comic books, superhero comics, graphic novels and cartoon strips from the early 20th century to the present, the book explores the ways in which Black comic artists have grappled with such themes as the Black experience, gender identity, politics and social media." The volume features the work of Jackie Ormes, Black women superheroes from Vixen to Black Panther, and Aaron McGruder's strip The Boondocks.

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Chris Ofili

Edited by Massimiliano Gioni, with Gary Carrion-Murayar and Margot Norton

This catalog was published to coincide with “Night and Day,” British-born Chris Ofili’s first solo American museum exhibition, organized by the New Museum in New York (Oct. 29, 2014 - Feb. 1, 2015). The show is emblematic of his practice—ironic, dramatic, folkloric and culturally attuned. Like the exhibition, the catalog documents Ofili’s most important bodies of work over the past two decades, including his Afromuse watercolor portraits, Afro Margin drawings and layered glittery 1990s paintings with cheeky cultural references. Newer canvases produced since he relocated to Trinidad in 2005 are featured too, his blue paintings and “Metamorphoses” series inspired by Ovid’s poem, among them. An impressive line up pens essays: artist Glenn Ligon, Minna Moore Ede, Matthew Ryder and Yale’s Robert Storr; Fellow British artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye contributes a poem; and Alicia Ritson offers a thorough date-stamped recounting of the 1999 fall out surrounding Ofili’s elephant dung-embellished “Holy Virgin Mary” painting at the Brooklyn Museum.

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The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition, Part 3: The Eighteenth Century

Edited by David Bindman, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Karen C.C. Dalton, etal

An ambitious project initiated by Harvard University in 2010, “The Image of the Black in Western Art” assiduously documents artistic depictions of African-descended people, from the earliest known examples to the present. Part of the third installment in the 10-volume series, "'The Eighteenth Century' features a particularly rich collection of images of Africans representing slavery’s apogee and the beginnings of abolition. Old visual tropes of a master with adoring black slave gave way to depictions of Africans as victims and individuals, while at the same time the intellectual foundations of scientific racism were established."