John Welchman Bücher

In one of his sparkling aphorisms on the end of "optical" art, Marcel Duchamp suggested that the title of an artwork was an "invisible color." John Welchman now offers the first critical history of how and why modern artworks receive their titles. He shows that titles were seldom produced and can rarely be understood outside of the institutional parameters that made them visible-exhibitions, criticism, catalogues, and even national politics.

A detailed analysis of key paintings from each period, featuring works by artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, Hockney, Kandinsky, and Rauschenberg. Each of these is supported not just by the technical analysis, but also by a background essay on the artist, explaining why the example chosen is seminal to an understanding of his work and how it influenced others.

Working since the late 1970s among the downtown New York music and art overlaps, video artist Tony Oursler (born 1957) is famed internationally for his immersive installations. In the summer of 2001, Oursler staged a spectacular installation at the Kunsthaus Bregenz. Titled Flucht , it involved projections onto the building's glass façade and an audio component with actors speaking in a range of dialects.