Being an Artist: Artist Interviews with Art21
Published on the occasion of the nonprofit organization's 21st anniversary, this compendium of artist interviews captures the engaging and seminal conversations that have taken place over the organization's history, serving as an essential primer on a generation of contemporary artists for those interested in the artistic process as a tool for curriculum building. In some cases, these interviews are previously unpublished.
Organized across four sections—Becoming an Artist, The Power of the Public, The Role of the Artist, and On Process—this collection brings the voices of artists to the fore, tracing themes and challenges confronted by artists and enthusiasts alike. Select images of the artists and their artwork, pulled from Art21's expansive media library, illustrate the interviews.
Publisher: Art21
Artists: Jeff Koons, Raymond Pettibon, Kerry James Marshall
Designer: Adam Squires, CHIPS
Publication Date: 2018
Binding: Softcover
Dimensions: 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 in | 13.3 x 21 cm
Pages: 288
Reproductions: illustrated throughout
ISBN: 9780692096734
Retail: $27.95
Status: Available
Jeff Koons
One of the most prominent artists working today, Jeff Koons is well known for his bold paintings and sculptures. Typically working in series, his art holds up a mirror to contemporary consumer culture, using the photorealistic, commercial aesthetic familiar from an earlier generation of Pop artists to generate his own unique and universally recognizable style. His subjects range from toys to inflatables to household items to luxury goods and sexualized imagery. His references to popular media are evidenced not merely in his choice of subject matter but also in his visual techniques: his sculptures often involve smooth, glistening surfaces while his paintings employ bright and saturated colors.
Raymond Pettibon
Raymond Pettibon (b. 1957, Tucson) is known for his work that embraces a wide spectrum of American high and low culture, from the deviations of marginal youth to art history, literature, sports, religion, politics, and sexuality. Taking their points of departure in the Southern California punk-rock culture of the late 1970s and 1980s and the do-it-yourself aesthetic of album covers, comics, concert flyers, and fanzines that characterized the movement, his drawings have come to occupy their own genre of potent and dynamic artistic commentary, ranging from punchy and political to high literary and extremely poetic.
All Raymond Pettibon books
Kerry James Marshall
With a career spanning almost three decades, Kerry James Marshall is well known for his paintings depicting actual and imagined events from African-American history. His complex and multilayered portrayals of youths, interiors, nudes, housing estate gardens, land- and seascapes synthesize different traditions and genres, while seeking to counter stereotypical representations of black people in society. Marshall also produces drawings in the style of comic books, sculptural installations, photography, and video. As with his paintings, these works accumulate various stylistic influences to address the historiography of black art, while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that they are not inherently partisan because their subjects are black.
