Abstract

Andrea Madesta

Within the rubric of classical modern art, the category “abstract” is still subject to several unique and differing conceptions. This soft-cover exhibition catalog in a folio format follows a historical lineage of abstract painting in the later 20th Century, attempting to explain its significance by deciphering the work of seminal artists such as Piet Mondrian, then moving on to contemporary artists like Gerhard Richter, Günther Förg, David Reed, Gert and Uwe Tobias and Andreas Gursky. Text is minimal but meaningful, compressing each artist and his or her work into a dense paragraph. Few exhibition catalogs so closely approximate the experience of actually visiting the exhibit, especially with such true-to-life reproductions.

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ALL-INCLUSIVE

A Tourist World

This entertaining and often hilarious exhibition catalog from Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is a thought-provoking exploration of our global society through the tourist experience. The curators see tourism as something that perpetuates clichés about cultural and national identity; real landscapes blur into artificial geographies like ski resort-themed water parks, indoor beaches with synthetic sun lamps, or aircraft carriers equipped with roller coasters and volcanoes. More than 30 artists create photography, multimedia installations, sculpture and prose travelogues that veer between the authentic and the absurd, attempting to answer the question: how should tourists interact with the bogus world of tourism, and what should they learn?

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