The art of looking: how to read modern and contemporary art

"The landscape of contemporary art has changed dramatically during the last hundred years: from Malevich's 1915 painting of a single black square and Duchamp's 1917 signed porcelain urinal to Jackson Pollock's midcentury "drip" paintings; Chris Burden's "Shoot" (1971), in which the artist was voluntarily shot in the arm with a rifle; Urs Fischer's "You" (2007), a giant hole dug in the floor of a New York gallery; and the conceptual and performance art of today's Ai Weiwei and Marina Abramovic. The shifts have left the art-viewing public (understandably) perplexed. In The Art of Looking, renowned art critic Lance Esplund demonstrates that works of modern and contemporary art are not as indecipherable as they might seem. With patience, insight, and wit, Esplund guides us through the last century of art and empowers us to approach and appreciate it with new eyes. Eager to democratize genres that can feel inaccessible, Esplund encourages viewers to trust their own taste, guts, and common sense. The Art of Looking will open the eyes of viewers who think that recent art is obtuse, nonsensical, and irrelevant, as well as the eyes of those who believe that the art of the past has nothing to say to our present." -- Publisher's description.;Section I: Fundamentals. Encountering art -- The living organism -- Hearts and minds -- Artists as storytellers -- Art is a lie -- Section II: Close encounters. Awakening: Balthus--The cat with a mirror I -- Sensing: Joan Mitchell--Two sunflowers -- Growing: Jean Arp--Growth -- Igniting: James Turrell--Perfectly clear -- Evolving: Paul Klee--Signs in yellow -- Interacting: Marina Abramović--The generator -- Journeying: Richard Serra--torqued spirals and ellipses at Dia:Beacon -- Goading: Robert Gober--Untitled leg -- Alchemizing: Richard Tuttle--White Balloon with blue light -- Submerging: Jeremy Blake--The Winchester trilogy -- Looking further.;A hand-signed porcelain urinal. An abstract drip painting. A silent 700 hour performance. Art has changed since the days of Giotto, Michelangelo, and even Picasso--and many of us are perplexed. Do modern and contemporary artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, and Marina Abramovic represent civilization's highest achievements? Or is something else afoot? In The Art of Looking, art critic Lance Esplund demonstrates that works of modern and contemporary art are not as indecipherable as they seem to be. He reveals the threads that weave the art of the past with that of the present, and shows us how to separate the genuine article from mere rags--not to mention the emperor's new clothes.