Rock country : the sounds, bands, fans, fun & other stuff that happened: edited by Christian Ryan

Hardie Grant, 2013

Hardie Grant, 2013

“Sex lessons from Bon Scott. Scary encounter with Chrissy Amphlett. On the trail of Keith Richards’s Melbourne wife. The whirlwind genius years of Molly Meldrum. Normie Rowe’s ten months in London. Cold Chisel in LA. The Triffids in Berlin, Camden, Leederville. How Nick Cave got me through my Soviet adolescence. Around Australia in eighty days with Sherbet and the Ted Mulry Gang. The happy-sad genius of Barry Gibb. Doc Neeson smashed unconscious by traffic sign. Grant McLennan in the record racks. Francois Tetaz and the making of Gotye. My three days stalking The Police. Nights at the Sebel Town House. Who are the Five Greatest Australian Rock & Pop Stars? Where is Lanny K? Was Michael Hutchence happy?

And that’s just the back cover! What are you waiting for……..

American modern : Hopper to O’Keeffe: curated by Kathy Curry and Esther Adler

Museum of Modern Art, 2013

Museum of Modern Art, 2013

New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is perhaps most famous for its astonishing collection of great European masterpieces of the 20th century but, as this lovely book shows, it has also been assiduous in collecting American art of the period as well. The beautifully chosen and reproduced images here cover just about all visual art genres, and the delight of seeing old favourites such as the boxing lithographs of George Bellows is matched by the discovery of works new to me such as Elie Nadelman’s charming wooden figure, Woman at the Piano. 

Dennis Hopper, on the road: edited by José Lebrero Stals

Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga, 2013

Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga, 2013

Actor, activist, firebrand, artist, photographer, connoisseur, Dennis Hopper is beginning to look like one of the more intriguing characters to emerge from the belligerent 1950s/60s independent Hollywood scene. This volume of photographs, a very real road-trip across America in the sixties, has the immediacy and rawness of the best documentary photography, and Hopper’s eye is at once probing and compassionate.

Art since 1980 : charting the contemporary by Peter R. Kalb

Laurence King Publishing, 2013

Laurence King Publishing, 2013

To some of us 1980 probably doesn’t seem that far back, but these have of course been tumultuous and transformative decades politically, socially, technologically and artistically. This remarkably ambitious study seeks to chart the major movements and individuals on the global art scene over a period that has arguably witnessed more rapid and fundamental change (Internet anyone….) than any other time in human history.

 

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*