2 comments about Sports Illustrated: Exposure (Sports Illustrated).

1. "Exposure" presents an expanded compilation of what Sports Illustrated called the "All-Star SI Cover Model Beach Party" in its 2006 Swimsuit Issue. The photo shoot by Raphael Mazzucco took place in the Bahamas, and featured eight past SI swimsuit cover models, the most famous being Elle MacPherson, Rachel Hunter, Rebecca Romijn and Daniela Pestova. Overall it's good photographic work, and every collector of these swimsuit issues will no doubt have favorites among the eight models.
   
   There are over 100 photos, color and b&w, that range from cleverly artistic to "eh, whatever." Many of the photos are taken right from the Swimsuit Issue, but are enlarged to fit the book's not-quite-double the magazine's size. The girls look great and are dressed in various forms of white bikinis (fashion credits listed in the back of the book).
   
   The one glaring problem I found with this compilation (hence the 3 stars) is that what was supposed to look like a fun-filled frolic (au naturel, sort of) on the beach too many times comes across as a bunch of really self-conscious models unsubtly covering themselves up. Perhaps the girls had a contractual agreement not to be photographed bare-chested, or maybe it was SI's unwillingness to be Playboy-ish, but I think there are better ways to limit such exposure without being so pronounced. I could almost hear the photographer: "Okay everybody, hands over your breasts please!" To me, the artistic direction made these photos restrained at best, and just plain goofy at worst. Believe it or not, I would have rated this book a star or two higher had these pictures been left out(!) since the swimsuits are made to bring out the best in a model's figure (right?). Fortunately, many of the remaining images are awesome in terms of the artistry of capturing beauty(ies) and the beach. It's a good book, just not a great one.



2. A gift for my GF - she loved it. Some of her fav models - like Marissa Miller arent here, but the photos are stunning.

No comments about Jorge Pardo.

2 comments about Bodycount.

1. I can't tell if the other "pop-up" review is an excellent joke, or a stupid mistake. In either case, do a little googling on Kevin Eastman's Bodycount and you'll find that the only things "popping out" in this book are bad guys' eyeballs and babe's bazungas... aka NOT for kids 3 - 6.
   
   The book is a completely different take on the turtles, presented in a hyper-violent, hyper-sexualized style. The art is impressive and is certainly worth the read for a turtle vet who wants to appreciate the full spectrum of the TMNT, from goof to gore (this being of the gore variety). It will certainly wash the candy-coated-cowabunga-cartoon-turtle-taste out of your mouth if anything... plus it's turtle founding father Kevin Eastman's swan-song (or rather swan-rampage) to the TMNT - his last main turtle work before he signed over all the rights to collaborator Peter Laird.



2. Book is best suited for kids 3 1/2-6 yrs old (old enough to know who TMNT are, young enough to get a kick out of pulling the tabs on the pop up pages). A little confusing as it obviously is summarizing a longer more complex story --heavy on action/movement, because it is a pop up book.

1 comments about Bound to Please - A Gallery Girl Book (Gallery Girls Collection).

1. Bound to Please is the latest Gallery Girls collection from the good folks over at Sal Quartuccio Productions and this time the subject is a modern take on classic good girl art with the seductive practice of bondage. You have to start things off with the absolute dynamite David Dunstan front cover of the kind of office setting that a guy can only dream about! The lineup of artists for this volume includes many of the names were used to seeing in the Gallery Girls collections such as Danilo Guida, Marcelo Sosa, Diego Florio, and Anibal Maraschi, as well as a number of new names.
   
   The styles and genre range from the erotic, to the playful, and to the haunting. Pablo Kousovittis gives us a piece with a unique angle perspective showing two women in skin-tight leather outfits, one bound to a chair with the other standing over her and diminishing her. Marcelo Sosa has one of those playful pieces I was mentioning, as a nurse has her stethoscope out, not on her patient's heart, but instead on her very cute behind.
   
   Maraschi gives us a fantastic illustration of a sumptuous nude female bound in knotted ropes from head to toe, as her commanding dominatrix mistress orders her down upon the bed. Juan Lencina's piece of a woman bound and blindfolded, apparently in a wine cellar of some kind, is one of the most exquisitely detailed illustrations in the book. You can practically feel the grain on the barrels that sit nearby. Florio's Egyptian-themed piece is one of my favorites. Here a woman is bound to a pillar inscribed with hieroglyphics as a rotting mummy draws ever nearer to her. Bruce Colero, one of the best digital artists around today, closes the book out with a chain-bound blonde with the most mesmerizing eyes that you have ever seen!
   
   In all the book is 64 pages with black and white interior art and full color covers. Cardstock covers and glossy pages. A gorgeous book!

1 comments about Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology.

1. I'm surprised that this rich volume hasn't been reviewed by anyone else so far, but I'll try to do it justice. Mary Ann Caws, who has written extensively about the Surrealists, has compiled a treasure trove of Surrealist art & writing in these pages, including work from many creators not immediately thought of as Surrealists. But as she demonstrates, the glowing thread of the marvellous runs through their creations as well.
   
   "Surreal" has become an all-purpose word for "strange, different" these days, and many famous Surrealist images have become all too familiar, drained of their mystery & power, through commercial over-exposure. Caws makes us experience Surrealism anew, in all of its boundary-breaking freshness & startling beauty. She reminds us that it's not just one more useful form of graphic design, but a means of seeing through the mundane shell of the world, of discovering new & intricate connections between seemingly unrelated objects & ideas, and of burning away the dulling drabness of the everyday to experience a blazing, transforming new reality.
   
   There's such a wide range of work collected here that you're sure to find something that speaks especially to you. And you'll find countless points of departure for further exploration of the Surreal. This isn't just an excellent introduction to Surrealism (although it's certainly all of that), but a work of art in itself. If the Surrealist mode of experience appeals to you, and you want to learn more about it, then this is the place to start. Most highly recommended!

1 comments about Luminist Horizons: The Art and Collection of James A. Suydam.

1. LUMINIST HORIZONS: THE ART AND COLLECTION OF JAMES A. SUYDAM offers a catalog and history of the works of an American landscapist known for his luminist paintings. Even though his name has been long linked with the movement, his works have, surprisingly, not received extensive scholarly attention until now: LUMINIST HORIZONS not only packs in 200 reproductions, but contrasts his works with contemporaries and surveys American landscape painting of the times. A top pick.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch

1 comments about The Arts and the Creation of Mind.

1. Mr. Eisner explain the applications of the skills fostered by the fine arts educational experience. Giving especific examples, the author illuminates the dark side of the fine arts usefullness. On chapter four (soul of the book) deals with what can be expected from the fine arts experience and the real application of the acquired skills. More important, Eisner highlight the fact that the student has a self motivated and intrinsic satisfaction experience when learning thru the arts, something quite difficult to achieve with academics matters.

3 comments about Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings.

1. Help! Someone please refund my money on this book! Better yet...the time I wasted reading it.
   
   Elkins is a fine educator and writer, but this book does not fall into either category. This is 250+words of over-intellectualizing on "why" certain paintings move people to tears.
   
   As a professional painter for over two decades, a former Arts Ambassador for the USIA, as well as a world traveler with a love for art, allow me to save potential readers from wasting $19.95, and to give Prof. Elkins' brain a rest.
   
   "I have seen fabulously created art that does not sell or hold its viewers, and poorly created art that does both. Whether a painting brings you to tears or to purchase, it is because the energy the artist held while creating that work stays in that work forever. If the artist was angry at the world, no matter how perfectly that work may be to the trained eye, its energy will be angry and repel its viewers. Joy, loss, and deep spirituality, when held in the heart during creation, is what will bring a viewer to tears." Uriel Dana



2. This book is beautifully illustrated with paintings by Caravaggio, Greuze, Bellini (Giovanni), Bouts, and Friedrich along with a picture of a chapel designed by Mark Rothko.

   As the blurb states, it is a "strange and wonderful investigation into paintings and the emotions they conjure."

   The book is eloquently written by the author James Elkins who is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has also authored "How To Use Your Eyes" and "What Painting Is".

   This is a highly affecting book and will give hours of pleasure to those discerning readers who have the privilege to read the author's opus.

   Timothy Wingate from OTTAWA CANADA




3. Jame Elkins has written a book that should be in the librairies of schools, art historians, incipient and experienced art lovers. In a winning conversational style of writing Elkins makes the case for subjective response to paintings, both past and present. And in doing so he gives a brief course in at history (he is an art historian, actively teaching) that is less a chronological evaluation of politics and sociology and techniques of painting than it is a survey of how people have responded to paintings through time. His precis: we are in this century prevented from "experiencing" paintings, so immersed are we in swallowing the opinions of scholars and critics and our own spiritual aridity. He examines why certain people are able to cry in their encounter with paintings, others are moved to physiologic reactions, while others speedily walk past image after image in their need to huury past another obligatory check point in claiming cultural awareness. In many ways this is a sad treatise on the fact that we have arrived at a time when we don't embrace our vulnerability, don't admit that something so apparently inanimate as an old master painting - if given the quantity and quality of time to absorb it - can touch inner secret caves and cause us to light up our souls and our existence by responding with unfettered eyes and heart.

   Elkins investigates the various responses (including his own) to the Rothko Chapel, to Giotto, to Renaissance paintings, to the Romantics, to Friedrich, and to Picasso's "Guernica". These are in the form of summation of letters written to him in response to his question "Have you ever cried at paintings?" sent to previous students, art historians, and friends. His findings show that art historians in general have encouraged us to examine paintings as examples of technique, of historical settings, of schools of thought in the past: such academic dissection has replaced the individual response to the visual image. And fortunately for us the author concludes that the visceral response to paintings is more important than the cell of academic cold shelter.

   For those of us who have committed our lives to bridging the gap between the painter and the public, encouraging everyone to go to the museums, galleries, schools, and churches to experience the indefinable majesty of emotional response to art, this little book is a godsend. Buy it, read it slowly, break down your own barriers, open your mind, and you will find validation of your inner artist. This is a "beautiful presence" of an artistic expression and we are indebted to Elkins for his courage in writing it.

3 comments about Sisley.

1. I bought this book because I needed some color works of Sisley for my art project. I have to admit that some of the pictures were rather small, while others were 2 pages in detail. This book didn't have some of the pictures I wanted to use, but I managed.
   
   For those of you who want to know, this book mainly has landscape.



2. This book was incredible! It had all the information my daughter needed for her art project on him. I loved looking through it too. The pictures were outstanding! I HIGHLY reccomend it to any art lover



3. I had to do a report on sisley, and while the book was informative, it was quite lengthly. It did, however, have many good quality pictures. Iwouldn't recommend buying this book unless you really enjoy Sisley, because it took a lot of words to say the little information available on the illusive impressionist.

1 comments about Art Attack: A Brief Cultural History of the Avant-Garde.

1. As mentioned by the reviewers above, this book is intended forteens. However, non-enthusiasts adult readers that want to know moreabout the history of modern art will enjoy it as well.

   Basically, the author has attempted to show how modern artists have affected modern society and vice versa. Unlike many art history books, this book talks about music, theater, dance and subcultures in society, such as the beats and the hippies. Accordingly, you end up with a fuller picture of the scene.

   The author has also attempted to make the impact of these works understandable to teens by using examples from the world as teens know it today, such as rap music, Internet, etc.

   All in all, teens interested in the art scene will find this book interesting and engrossing.

   Why 4 stars, rather than 5? I would prefer 4.5 stars, but that's not an option. My main objection to this book is the author's tendency to mythologize the avant garde artist and to whitewash some of their problems. But I would still recommend this book.