ArtQuake

Pros: I often wish I had majored in Art History, so I am thankful for books about art and artists where I can learn about one of my favorite subjects. The approach of this book is fascinating—50 works of post-18050 art that shook the world and often ushered in new eras of and approaches to art. Although many of these works of art are well known, I did not know the stories behind them until reading this book.

Some of my favorite details in this book were the timelines and history sections that set the art in time and place; the artists’ quotes; and that each artwork was captioned with the medium, size, and where it is displayed. Also, the works of art looked great in the digital copy I read, so I assume the printed copy of this book will be a showpiece.

Cons: Until the last section, this book mostly featured European and American artists. I would have loved to see more diversity in the artists featured.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – White Lion for the opportunity to read this book.

This is a beautiful book. I love reading books about art, and I found this one interesting among all the other books. It was fun revisiting all those paintings with a fresh view. I'd love to have the hard copy.

The second book in the new Culture Quake series, ArtQuake by Susie Hodge is a step-up for me compared to FilmQuake. The most obvious reason is that I am not nearly as well versed into general art as I am with films, thus making this read very worthwhile, eye-opening, and even inspiring.

Hodge chose a collection of 50 bold and boundary-pushing works of art, from famous paintings like Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" and Bansky's "Girl with Balloon"/"Love is in the Bin", to subversive sculptures and "readymades" like Duchamp's "Fountain" or "Immersion (Piss Chris)" by Andres Serrano. Each piece has exhaustive and straightforward biographical notes on the artist's life, placing each of them in their historical and artistic contexts. A compelling, quick, and inspirational read that I would recommend to fellow artists and art-lovers.

Following quickly on from Filmquake, which does the same for cinema, this gives us fifty key, semi-canonical moments of the art world of the Victorian era up, taking us from Courbet's "The Bathers" to, well, other dodgy art pieces concerning nudity for spurious reasons. So a shark gets pickled, a pope gets struck by a meteorite, someone takes the piss with a urinal, someone else does worse with shit, and someone gets to call something a "Decontextualization of an Action, Unannounced Performance, Behaviour Art" as if invisible theatre wasn't a thing fifty years previously. (Mind you, as regards the last piece, what the heffing kell are those men wearing only pink knickers and nothing else doing??!!)

Once again the book is structured around the timelines, to point out not only that each painting, happening and sculpture exists as a point in time, but equally as a section and chapter of a longer, wide-reaching narrative. The text labours this at times, demanding we accept each artist influenced each other, and built a bridge from A to C, wherever C was (probably somewhere involving nudity or shit). This clearly isn't a general narrative of 20th Century art – Rothko is absent visually; Christo and Jeanne-Claude get a name-check, but none of their works are here; Land Art ignored for being too subtle. But in being a guide to what artists have done (and still do) to get known, to make a difference and to make something different, this is a powerful survey, never extending its essays and box-outs beyond the necessary basics (pink knickers notwithstanding), and appropriately showing the cycle of real life influencing art influencing real life ad infinitum. Not exactly one for the vicar's wife at times, this is still an enjoyable slice of entertaining education. A strong four stars.

Filmquake :- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4385211028

A really informative and interesting look at art history, with a slightly humourous and more entertaining lens.
Just because it's about history and a serious subject, doesn't mean that it has to be dry and boring, which I was incredibly impressed about.

A comprehensive look at both well known and lesser known artists, with detailed information about the creation of famous works and not just the pieces themselves.

I’ve read into it and it’s quite good! Very interesting and I like the design and the layout. I haven’t read all of it yet but from what I can say it’s great, not amazing but I really liked what I read and the different forms of art.

"ArtQuake" as the title indicates shows you what has shaken up the art world, certain artists, their works, and even periods in history. You learn so much from how "ArtQuake" has divided the art periods, the timelines were a favorite of mine because it was separated for each art period, not just one huge timeline which I certainly appreciate and you can identify exactly when each art period began and what was happening in the world at that time. The artworks that were chosen, in "ArtQuake", to be discussed and which created such criticisms at that time the pieces were made, certainly lets you understand how controlled the art scene was, and although there's a reason for it all, and putting yourself during those time periods you can see how the certain artworks really gave critics something to talk about.