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Now that the twentieth century is over it begins to make sense to assess modernism as a whole, and in that context artists like Salvador Dalí become unexpectedly important. For decades he has been an asked-and-answered question, largely on the lead of his expulsion from the Surrealist group in 1939 (when Breton said his work was "little more than crossword puzzles"). He did not help his case by moving so aggressively into marketing, and at the start of the twenty-first century he has the additional stigma of being a favorite among less informed buyers. With the rise of interest in… Full Review

At the stroke of midnight, December 31, 1977, valuable collections vanished suddenly and probably forever from museums all over the United States. The dollar value of the loss has never, to my knowledge, been assessed. Yet, it certainly ranked in the many millions Surprisingly, museum officials at first took little notice of their loss. They filed no police reports, made no insurance claims. In the days and weeks that followed, there were no mass protests against the vast conspiracy, reaching to the very highest levels of the U.S. government, responsible for this uncompensated transfer of huge amounts of museum property,… Full Review

The Bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 has brought in its wake perhaps the most thoroughgoing reassessment of a major artist in recent art historiography, namely Jacques-Louis David. In that year David was the subject of what must be by the same token one of the most productive conferences ever, David Contre David. Since then a flood of articles has been supplemented by a major biography by Dorothy Johnson, Thomas Crow's Emulation, and now Ewa Lajer-Burcharth's long-awaited Necklines. For all the focus on death and dying in David's work, this particular artist refuses to die. … Full Review

This survey of sculptures in French museums, well-chosen and profusely illustrated, covers the history of European sculpture. Written by an array of scholars--most of whom are curators, all recognized as preeminent in the field--the texts define the seventeen periods, from Paleolithic to contemporary sculpture, presented in this comprehensive tome. Their concise introductions are followed by a selection of photographs of works drawing upon the principal public collections of France, which, it goes without saying, have an impressive range of sculptures from which to choose. The ensemble gives a wide range of works, many by lesser known artists, offering a more… Full Review

This exhibition features the work of three women whose lives span the twentieth century: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, and Cindy Sherman. Lynn Gumpert, the cocurator of the exhibition and director of New York University's Grey Art Gallery, originally conceived of the project as a showcase for the extraordinary performance-portraiture produced between 1912 and 1954 by Cahun, a long-obscured member of Paris's surrealist milieu. While Rosalind Krauss and Jane Livingston included examples of Cahun's work in their milestone 1985 exhibition, "L'Amour fou: Photography and Surrealism," at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and a number of other important shows in Europe… Full Review

I must confess that I have a natural affinity toward books about history. I like the subject. I like reading about historians. I like discerning historiorgraphic assumptions and approaches toward the discipline. Thus, when an author offers a book with the promising title The Historiography of Modern Architecture I am inclined to read it and enjoy it--even if it presents only the chance to think about history. Tournikiotis's book does more, by offering various new insights. It is a thoughtful, intelligent, and sometimes astute study of a reasonable number (and choice) of historians of the modern movement: Nikolaus… Full Review

Sometime in the year 1512, the remains of a fallen obelisk were discovered by a barber digging a latrine near the church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. Thanks to a detailed account in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, the monument was almost immediately recognized as the obelisk raised by the Emperor Augustus as the gnomon of a gigantic sundial in the Campus Martius. The Bellunese humanist Laelius Podager confirmed the identification by reading the Augustan inscription on the obelisk's base. Applications were made to Pope Julius II to excavate the monument and erect it in its former… Full Review

In Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul, 1850–2000, curator Robert Sobieszek has produced a highly ambitious and intelligent catalogue to accompany the eponymous exhibition he recently organized at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Considering the photographic portrait from an intriguing combination of philosophical, quasi-scientific, historical, and theoretical perspectives, Sobieszek has written a profusely illustrated and annotated work that should hold a place as a valuable resource on portraiture for some time to come. The scope and serious intent of Ghost in the Shell are somewhat unexpected, given the rarity of substantial writing on… Full Review

The last quarter of the twentieth century was a Golden Age in the study of the history of American art. Inspired by Milton Brown, John I. H. Baur, and Lloyd Goodrich, a new generation of specialists in the field--including Wayne Craven, William Gerdts, Jules Prown, Barbara Novak, and John Wilmerding--initiated a scholarly reassessment of the entire history of American art, especially the neglected nineteenth century. These scholars passed their standards and methodologies on to several generations of students, some of whom have now become leaders in the field. This period of rapid growth was manifested in the organization of hundreds… Full Review

Paintings on copper have long been valued as refined and elegant works of art. The authors of the exhibition catalogue Copper as Canvas have undertaken to evaluate the specific qualities that this material--copper panel used as a painting support--lends to a wide range of works of art. In this ambitious project they have made an important contribution, not only in the information they have gathered but in the conception of the exhibition itself. Other exhibitions have explored the balance between specific painting materials and the visual qualities they lend works of art; the Art in the Making series organized by… Full Review