Ai Weiwei - Humanity by Ai Weiwei Ai

$8.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Series: ISMs Ser. | Reading Level: near fine

Writings on human life and the refugee crisis by the most important political artist of our time Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is widely known as an artist across media: sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and architecture. He is also one of the world's most important artist-activists and a powerf ul documentary filmmaker. His work and art call attention to attacks on democracy and free speech, abuses of human rights, and human displacement--often on an epic, international scale. This collection of quotations demonstrates the range of Ai Weiwei's thinking on humanity and mass migration, issues that have occupied him for decades. Selected from articles, interviews, and conversations, Ai Weiwei's words speak to the profound urgency of the global refugee crisis, the resilience and vulnerability of the human condition, and the role of art in providing a voice for the voiceless. Select quotations from the book: "This problem has such a long history, a human history. We are all refugees somehow, somewhere, and at some moment." "Allowing borders to determine your thinking is incompatible with the modern era." "Art is about aesthetics, about morals, about our beliefs in humanity. Without that there is simply no art." "I don't care what all people think. My work belongs to the people who have no voice." ...Show more

Ai Weiwei - Weiwei-Isms by Ai Weiwei; Larry Warsh (Editor)

$8.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Series: ISMs Ser. | Reading Level: near fine

This collection of quotes demonstrates the elegant simplicity of Ai Weiwei's thoughts on key aspects of his art, politics, and life. A master at communicating powerful ideas in astonishingly few words, Ai Weiwei is known for his innovative use of social media to disseminate his views. The short quotatio ns presented here have been carefully selected from articles, tweets, and interviews given by this acclaimed Chinese artist and activist. The book is organized into six categories: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections.   Together, these quotes span some of the most revealing moments of Ai Weiwei's eventful career--from his risky investigation into student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to his arbitrary arrest in 2011--providing a window into the mind of one of the world's most electrifying and courageous contemporary artists.   Select Quotes from the Book:   On Freedom of Expression "Say what you need to say plainly, and then take responsibility for it."   "A small act is worth a million thoughts."   "Liberty is about our rights to question everything."   On Art and Activism "Everything is art. Everything is politics."   "The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay."   "Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don't feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy."   On Government, Power, and Making Moral Choice "Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country."   "I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won't cost me much."   "Tips on surviving the regime: Respect yourself and speak for others. Do one small thing every day to prove the existence of justice."   On the Digital World "Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true."   "The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that."   "The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China."   On History, the Historical Moment, and the Future "If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future."   "We need to get out of the old language."   "The world is a sphere, there is no East or West."   Personal Reflection   "I've never planned any part of my career-- except being an artist. And I was pushed into that corner because I thought being an artist was the only way to have a little freedom."   "Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom."   "Expressing oneself is like a drug. I'm so addicted to it."   ...Show more

The Blue Guitar - Etchings by David Hockney who was inspired by Wallace Stevens who was inspired by Pablo Picasso by Wallace Stevens; David Hockney (Illustrator)

$55.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Reading Level: good-very good

An American Artist in the South Seas by John La Farge

$16.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Series: Pacific Basin Books | Reading Level: good-very good

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Juan Davila by Guy Brett and Roger Benjamin

$35.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Reading Level: very good

Juan Davila is a painter who believes in using art to facilitate social change. Davila was born in Santiago, Chile, and moved to Australia in the 1970s to escape the violent totalitarian regime of Pinochet. His work addresses international issues, especially with reference to Latin American and Australi an themes. ...Show more

Modest Gifts - Poems and Drawings by Norman Mailer

$20.00 NZD

Category: Poetry | Reading Level: very good

An unexpected collection from Norman Mailer--a book of his selected poems and more than one hundred of his drawings, most of them never before published. Modest Gifts is full of what the author calls "casual pleasures"--witty, naughty, and surprisingly tender verse and art. Lust, seduction, betrayal, je alousy, and even the banality of cocktail party chatter are depicted with humor, affection, and, above all, honesty. Here is an aspect of Norman Mailer unknown to many: lighthearted, prankish, whimsical, and often gentle, playfully sketching the intimate urban world that surrounds us. Modest, funny, and true, each poem and drawing shows a new side of one of the greatest writers of our time. ...Show more

A Treasury of American Book Illustration by Henry C Pitz

$20.00 NZD

Category: Books About Books | Reading Level: good-very good

Amphigorey by Edward Gorey

$15.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: good

Francis Bacon 24 May-1 July 1962 by John Rothenstein

$15.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Reading Level: good

Elmgreen & Dragset - Biography by Elmgreen & Dragset

$14.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Reading Level: very good

Turner (Brief Lives) by Peter Ackroyd

$8.00 NZD

Category: Artists | Series: Brief Lives S. | Reading Level: good

James Mallord William Turner was a Londoner through and through. His father had a barber's shop in Covent Garden, his mother came from a line of London butchers. He was brought up in Maiden Lane (the family moving at some point from the south side of the street to the north side). He was short and pugna cious, and as Peter Ackroyd writes: 'His speech was recognizably that of a Cockney, and his language was the language of the streets.'His language was also the language of light, as exemplified in his most innovative paintings, which caused the critics of the day to come to blows. . His dying words were: 'The Sun is God.' He entered the Royal Academy at 14 and a year later was exhibiting. His first loves were architecture, engraving and watercolours, and the country houses, cathedrals and landscape of England; he came to oils through his new passion for Italy. He was mean with money, never married, and spent a lot of his life living in taverns. When he died (within sight of his beloved Thames) he was living under the name of Booth in the Chelsea lodgings of one of his mistresses, a Mrs Booth. First published 2005. ...Show more

The Flowers by Lisa Cooper; Harold David (Photographer)

$25.00 NZD

Category: Gardening | Reading Level: near fine

Dr. Lisa Cooper's The Flowers gives us the opportunity to peer into the practices and vistas of someone who works with flowers daily as a leading floral designer and artist. Through anecdote, gentle instruction, and photographic essays, the reader will be taken from Cooper's studio workspace, to the gr owers' farms -- the pictorial documentation of the flower growers captures the subjects portraited within their natural working environment, surrounded by a landscape of roses, knee-deep in camellias -- and then on to The Flowers displayed and arranged in the vase. For Cooper, there is no higher medium for the expression of human emotion than flowers, and her presentation of 17 floral designs also constitutes a collection of stories from her own personal "garden of live flowers": the people -- family, friends, growers, artists, gardeners and florists -- who have influenced and inspired her. ...Show more