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From head to hand : art and the manual / David Levi Strauss.

By: Publication details: Oxford : Oxford University Press, c2010.Description: x, 211 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmISBN:
  • 9780195391220
  • 0195391225
Subject(s):
Contents:
I From Hand to Head and Back Again: Some Lines for Martin Puryear; Sculpture & Sanctuary: Ursula Von Rydingsvard; Laborare est Orare; Reanimating Matter: Raoul Hague & Robert Frank
II Beuys in Ireland; Between Two Worlds: The Haida Project; Relational, in the Sense of Operative: Community in the Holy Forest; The Memory of the Fingers
III In Praise of Darkness; Why Move on from Illuminations that Haven't Yet Been Understood?; Her Plumbing & Her Bridges, in Sweet Assemblage; The Dissemination of Painting
IV The Fighting Is a Dance, Too; Fallen Figures & Heads; Remembering Golub; Spero's Heart
V Hosephat & the Wooden Shoes: Duncan & Delire; Radial Asymmetries: On Guy Davenport; The Bias of the World: Curating After Szeemann & Hopps; It Has to Be Danced to Be Known: Leo Steinberg
Summary: In his third book, David Levi Strauss delves into the mysterious process whereby an image or idea is born in the mind and materialized through the hand in the expression of an artwork. How exactly does this exchange take place? It's a question so basic, an act so fundamental to art-making, that it has rarely received attention. It makes an ideal topic for Strauss, one of our best art critics, who has an exceptional ability to animate art's philosophical dimensions in clear, persuasive manner. Featuring over 25 illustrations, the book explores the works of sculptors including Martin Puryear, painters like Ron Gorchov, the work of contemporary Haida carvers, and many recent writers. He takes up Cecilia Vicuña's "memory of the fingers;" reframes the legacy of Leon Golub and Nancy Spero; and grapples with the handiwork of curators in staging exhibitions. Known primarily for his writings on photography and politics, Strauss focuses here on the least mediated arts—painting, sculpture, and writing—to recover art's most raw resource: the immediacy of the hand and the language it makes possible.

Includes bibliographical references and index

I From Hand to Head and Back Again: Some Lines for Martin Puryear; Sculpture & Sanctuary: Ursula Von Rydingsvard; Laborare est Orare; Reanimating Matter: Raoul Hague & Robert Frank

II Beuys in Ireland; Between Two Worlds: The Haida Project; Relational, in the Sense of Operative: Community in the Holy Forest; The Memory of the Fingers

III In Praise of Darkness; Why Move on from Illuminations that Haven't Yet Been Understood?; Her Plumbing & Her Bridges, in Sweet Assemblage; The Dissemination of Painting

IV The Fighting Is a Dance, Too; Fallen Figures & Heads; Remembering Golub; Spero's Heart

V Hosephat & the Wooden Shoes: Duncan & Delire; Radial Asymmetries: On Guy Davenport; The Bias of the World: Curating After Szeemann & Hopps; It Has to Be Danced to Be Known: Leo Steinberg

In his third book, David Levi Strauss delves into the mysterious process whereby an image or idea is born in the mind and materialized through the hand in the expression of an artwork. How exactly does this exchange take place? It's a question so basic, an act so fundamental to art-making, that it has rarely received attention. It makes an ideal topic for Strauss, one of our best art critics, who has an exceptional ability to animate art's philosophical dimensions in clear, persuasive manner. Featuring over 25 illustrations, the book explores the works of sculptors including Martin Puryear, painters like Ron Gorchov, the work of contemporary Haida carvers, and many recent writers. He takes up Cecilia Vicuña's "memory of the fingers;" reframes the legacy of Leon Golub and Nancy Spero; and grapples with the handiwork of curators in staging exhibitions. Known primarily for his writings on photography and politics, Strauss focuses here on the least mediated arts—painting, sculpture, and writing—to recover art's most raw resource: the immediacy of the hand and the language it makes possible.