Bruce Hainley Bücher

"The first book dedicated to these pivotal early works on paper, David Hammons: Body Prints, 1968-1979 brings together the monoprints and collages in which the artist used the body as both a drawing tool and printing plate to explore performative, unconventional forms of image-making. Hammons created the body prints by greasing his own body--or that of another person--with substances including margarine and baby oil, pressing or rolling body parts against paper, and sprinkling the surface with charcoal and powdered pigment. The resulting impressions are intimately direct indexes of faces, skin and hair that exist somewhere between spectral portraits and physical traces. Hammons' body prints represent the origin of his artistic language, one that has developed over a long and continuing career and that emphasizes both the artifacts and subjects of contemporary Black life in the United States. More than a half century after they were made, these early works on paper exemplify Hammons' celebration of the sacredness of objects touched or made by the Black body, and his biting critique of racial oppression. The body prints highlighted in this volume introduce the major themes of a 50-year career that has become central to the history of postwar American art. The book features a conversation between curator and activist Linda Goode Bryant and artist Senga Nengudi, as well as a photo essay by photographer Bruce W. Talamon, who documented Hammons at work in his Los Angeles studio in 1974."

"The americans. newart. is the first book to survey the most recent wave of American contemporary art. The book features thirty of the most important artists to have emerged from the USA in the last five years, including some young artists who are just starting to establish their international reputations. The last time the American art scene was so active was in the eighties, which saw the emergence of a brat pack of celebrated artists. This phenomenon died along with the economic boom and international attention turned to other countries - including Britain. However, the wave of American artists that began to emerge in the later nineties is carving out a distinct identity for itself."--Jacket