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Two decades of intricately layered works on paper from an artist known for his contemporary still lifesComprising 100 works on paper, Drawings: 2003-2023 is the most expansive collection of Jonas Wood's artistic practice to date. This body of work traces the artist's trajectory back to his early days in Los Angeles, where he worked alongside painter Laura Owens and sculptor Matt Johnson. It was during this formative period that Wood's distinct visual language began to take shape: a language that would come to define his mature practice. Drawing played a central role in Wood's process, serving as both preparatory sketches for his collages and paintings, as well as independent works of art in their own right. At the core of Wood's prolific output lies a deep appreciation for the handmade--a reverence reflected in his engagement with found photographs, manual projectors and half-erased pencil sketches. Although rendered in a flattened perspective, the resulting tableaux are deeply layered, revealing traces of the artist's hand, miscellaneous references and the transformative nature of various artistic media. The comprehensive catalog features an essay by Douglas Fogle and a conversation between Laura Owens and the artist.The Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood (born 1977) creates paintings, drawings and prints, which mostly comprise intricate still lifes and interior domestic scenes. Throughout his compositions, the artist draws from art history, memory, and the people, objects and interiors that comprise his life. His work is boldly colored, detailed and graphic, and often features basketballs, ceramics and lush plants.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARI MARCOPOULOS"DUMB OBJECTS CAN BECOME ARTWORKS SIMPLY BY MOVING THEM SOMEWHERE"KARMA, NEW YORK, 2013

Teddy bears, toys and fruit populate Imai's intimate and imaginary compositions In The Scene, Japanese painter Ulala Imai (born 1982) draws references from popular culture, including Peanuts comics and Star Wars, to make delicate still-life-style works that, according to author Hiji Nam, create a "magical mannerist fable world."

Three generations of women artists create a new visual vernacular inspired by Maine's scenic landscapeThis catalog unites the work of three women artists of different generations whose work responds to the unique environs of Maine. Spanning oil paintings, fused-glass works and ceramics, these pieces help forge a critical genealogy of artists who have spent time working in the state.

Expansive landscapes, solitary figures and serene interiors characterize Xiao's contemplative and philosophical paintingsThis is the first monograph for Chinese painter Xiao Jiang (born 1977), whose works are populated with subjects drawn from his everyday life and memories, imbuing his paintings with both a sense of remoteness and an emotional tenor, and evoking work by artists such as Edward Hopper. Inspired by the mountains surrounding Jinggangshan, the city of his birth, Xiao's sweeping views of peaks and highlands complement his more subdued domestic scenes that minimize humanity's presence in the world. Including a wide selection of pieces on canvas or burlap made between 2008 and the present, this monograph showcases Xiao's range of techniques and formal development as a painter. As he has said: "I would like my artworks to be less straightforward; they appear to be ordinary yet with a hint of suggestion. This helps leave room for audiences to have their own interpretation." New essays by Winnie Wong and John Yau offer insight into the artist's life, provide evocative close readings of works and situate Xiao's practice in relation to both the Western painting canon and to centuries-old Chinese artistic and philosophical traditions.

After decades of working with gouache, Blair turns to oil paint for his most recent series of hyperrealist street scenes, tablescapes and windowsWorking from his own photographs of subjects such as cigarette packets, blossoming flowers, snacks, liquor glasses and coffee cups, doors and desolate, nighttime scenes, New York-based artist Dike Blair (born 1952) creates intimate, diaristic tableaux paintings. His depictions of food evoke the soft palette and bird's-eye perspective of Wayne Thiebaud, while his window views and landscapes combine the modernism of Edward Hopper with the photorealistic eye of William Eggleston. After using gouache for decades, Blair began working in oil in 2017; the resulting noirish scenes retain the artist's signature style, but imbue his works with a particular novel luster. This expansive monograph presents Blair's paintings in oil to date. Illustrated with hundreds of recent works, the book features a reprint of a formative 2018 essay on the artist by Helen Molesworth, as well as new scholarship by Jim Lewis and Christine Robinson.

A window into the world of 1970s painting through the work of 30 women artistsPublished to follow the landmark exhibition at Karma Gallery, New York, this catalog unites the works of 30 women painters who were active in New York City during the 1970s. The collection showcases the diverse practices and backgrounds of these artists, all of whom were deeply influenced by the transformative legacy of second-wave feminism. During this period, a new form of painting emerged, fusing elements of sculpture and textile into the medium while reevaluating its role through innovative art historical methodologies. Amid debates about the relevance of painting, women artists revitalized the practice, coinciding with a shifting political landscape characterized by the global revolt of women against their marginalized status. Artists include: Emma Amos, Ida Applebroog, Jennifer Bartlett, Betty Blayton, Vivian Browne, Cynthia Carlson, Martha Diamond, Louise Fishman, Suzan Frecon, Nancy Graves, Cynthia Hawkins, Mary Heilmann, Virginia Jaramillo, Jane Kaplowitz, Harriet Korman, Lois Lane, Helen Marden, Dindga McCannon, Ree Morton, Elizabeth Murray, Ellen Phelan, Howardena Pindell, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Faith Ringgold, Dorothea Rockburne, Susan Rothenberg, Joan Semmel, Jenny Snider, Joan Snyder, Pat Steir.

Spinster as state-of-mind: A collection of verse from the illustrious curator-cum-writerIn this poetry collection, the Italian polymath Francesco Bonami (born 1955) dedicates his introspective verses to the figure of a spinster-an embodiment of a state of mind rather than a fixed gender or age. Richard Prince characterizes Bonami's voice as "shapeshifting, mercurial, wayward."

A haptic, funky body of ceramic works from the artist shaping the future of ceramicsThe San Francisco-based artist Woody De Othello (born 1991) finds inspiration for his paintings and ceramics by adapting a position of porousness to the things around him. Through his adroit interventions, everyday artifacts of the domestic-tables, chairs, television remotes, telephone receivers, lamps and air purifiers-are anthropomorphized in glazed ceramic, bronze, wood and glass. The result is often tubular, drooping and coated in vibrant reds, purples and magnetic blacks, imbued with the subterranean futurity of jazz. Fittingly, this catalog, published following the eponymous solo exhibition in New York, is titled after jazz musician Grant Green's 1971 tune. The new body of ceramic works in Maybe Tomorrow brim with spiritual charge; the domestic objects are treated as repositories of psychic significance. The catalog explores this thematic wellspring, along with other topics, in an essay by Jason R. Young, as well as in two conversations with the artist.

Painterly compositions teetering between abstraction and figurationNew York-based artist Marley Freeman (born 1981) works with a steadfast devotion to process. Her paintings emerge over extended periods, seamlessly navigating the realms of transparency and opacity. The selection of works in this book chronicles her ongoing inquiry into painting's expressive capacity.

Sculpture and painting from two esteemed artists offer unique interpretations of sanctuaryThis volume showcases the works of Thaddeus Mosley (born 1926) and Frank Walter (1926-2009). Mosley, self-taught and son of a Pennsylvania miner, uses salvaged wood to create large-scale abstract forms. Walter, from Antigua, expresses the beauty of his homeland's landscapes through paintings and woodwork.

Magnificent early abstractions deploying gels and industrial equipment from Peter BradleyFeaturing contributions from Dieter Buchhart, Adger Cowans, Mia Matthias, and Nancy Princenthal, this volume showcases the works of Peter Bradley (born 1940) from the 1970s, exploring his pioneering use of gel acrylics and commercial-grade equipment to expand the formal and material constraints of abstract painting.

At once surreal and neoclassical, Lee-Smith's masterful compositions reflect the social alienation of mid-20th-century AmericaHughie Lee-Smith came of age in the midst of the Great Depression, spending his early life primarily between Cleveland and Detroit. The Midwest left an indelible impression on the artist, whose Social Realist paintings referenced its expansive gray skies and industrial architecture. Carnival imagery recurs throughout Lee-Smith's work via the motifs of ribbons, pendants and balloons, often evoking the contrast between the carnival's playful theatricality and its uncanny imitation of reality. He depicted abandoned, crumbling urban architecture as the sets for his existential tableaux, and even when his figures appear together, they always seem solitary. Over the course of his long career, Lee-Smith developed a distinct figurative vocabulary influenced by both Neoclassicism and Surrealism--the summation of a lifelong effort to see beyond the real.This volume, published for a 2022 show at Karma, New York, surveys the artist's practice from 1938 to 1999, tracing his development from depictions of the Midwest to his years on the East Coast in the decades following World War II. It features writing by Hilton Als, Lauren Haynes, Steve Lock and Leslie King-Hammond, as well as a conversation between Reggie Burrows Hodges, LeRonn P. Brooks and Kellie Jones.Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-99) was born in Eustis, Florida. Early in his career he was involved in several WPA projects, including Karamu House in Cleveland (the oldest running African American theater in the nation) and the Southside Community Art Center in Chicago, where he would cross paths with Charles White, Gordon Parks and Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, among others. Eventually teaching would take him to the East Coast, where he was artist in residence at Howard University in Washington, DC, and later an instructor at the Art Students League of New York. He died in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Brightly chromatic transformations of everyday objects from the New York painterPresenting 16 new paintings by New York-based painter Matthew Cerletty (born 1980), True Believer includes a short story by Catherine Lacey and an interview by Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte. Depicting a range of familiar subjects from Ellsworth Kelly to a red gas can, Cerletty's paintings challenge habits of recognition.

Alex Katz celebrates an old friendship, illustrating Brainard's 1970s journals with charcoal flower drawingsIn this tender posthumous collaboration initiated by Alex Katz (born 1927), the artist embellishes journal entries by his old friend Joe Brainard (1941-94) with a new series of exquisite charcoal drawings of flowers (a popular motif in Brainard's own art). Katz and Brainard often collaborated with poets-particularly those of the New York School, such as Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman and Ron Padgett-on artists' books, poetry publications, book covers, writings and paintings. Brainard's journal entries in this volume, written between 1971 and 1972, express this milieu, with accounts of conversations and expeditions with Waldman and Padgett as well as frequent mention of his appreciation for Katz's work: "How Alex has remained so pure all these years is beyond me," he notes in one entry, enumerating his favorite Katz works. Katz's charcoal drawings are simple and clear in execution, matching the serene clarity that famously characterizes Brainard's prose.

Three decades of luminous cityscapes from downtown New York's legendary painter-performerMultidisciplinary performer, designer and artist Tabboo! (born 1959) rose to prominence during the 1980s through New York City's underground drag scene. When Tabboo! first moved to the city at age 23, he fell in love with the electrifying, scrappy downtown environment and began to paint cityscapes for the backdrops in his drag performances. Forty years later, the city has altered drastically but the artist's ardor remains (he even lives in the same apartment in Alphabet City). The sweeping cityscapes gathered in this volume are reminiscent of Tabboo!'s early backdrops. Dramatic color fields render the city in moments of transition, from day into night and back again. Gleaming windows are sprinkled with glitter, scattering the sun's brilliance as it sets. An indelible energy soaks these cityscapes, many of which depict the view from Tabboo!'s apartment window.

A epic painterly panorama of an alternate American 21st centuryNew York-based painter Keith Mayerson (born 1966) is inspired by symbols of American history and pop culture. He depicts familiar figures who have affected the country's consciousness-in addition to personal scenes and his abstract "iconscapes"-through microscopic brushstrokes and coloring. While his formal qualities hint at a French Impressionist influence, his images also evoke the spiritual and cultural commentary of the Symbolists as well as the more visionary aspects of American modernists and the Old Masters. In this survey, Mayerson constructs what he calls a "wordless novel" for the 21st century: an alternate history in which the cultural landscape of American politics is reconstructed to emphasize belonging and understanding. Since the George W. Bush era, his long-running nonlinear narrative My American Dream has been presented in separate catalogs as "chapters," and the ongoing series continues through today. This latest chapter features hundreds of works ranging in date from 1997 to 2021, replete with a foreword by cartoonist Gary Panter, an essay by painter Ann Craven and a conversation between Keith Mayerson and painter Celeste Dupuy-Spencer.

Recent abstractions from the organizer of the landmark 1971 De Luxe ShowNew York-based American painter Peter Bradley (born 1940) is known for his pioneering and influential use of acrylic gel paint in the 1960s. This volume presents nine recent paintings from Bradley, which depart from the thick impasto textures of his early work, instead favoring a flatter and cleaner aesthetic.

A diaristic glimpse of a zeitgeist on the brink, from the influential New York curator and writerWidely recognized for his bold, dissenting and prolific criticism and curation, Bob Nickas has been a fixture of the New York City art scene for nearly 40 years, having organized more than 120 exhibitions since 1984. He has left an indelible impression on the artistic milieu as the founding editor of index magazine; a regular contributor to Artforum; a curatorial advisor for MoMA PS1; and the author of several collections of writing and interviews, including Theft Is Vision, Live Free or Die, The Dept. of Corrections and Komplaint Dept.Nickas' most recent undertaking, Bob Nickas: Yesterworld, consists of hundreds of diary entries written over the course of 2019. Part memoir, part social commentary, Yesterworld is a richly detailed, intimate account of the New York art world in the final years of the Trump administration and in the final months before the advent of Covid-19. Nickas reflects on significant exhibitions, openings, major news headlines, recently published books and his own social escapades.

In 2009 Ida Applebroog's (born 1929) assistants found a box marked "Mercy Hospital." Inside was a series of drawings the artist made nearly 50 years ago, during a period of institutionalization after suffering a debilitating breakdown in San Diego in 1969. During this tumultuous period, Applebroog, by her own account, "withdrew from the world entirely, for a period hardly able to speak at all." Instead she turned to drawing, producing works in graphite, India ink and watercolors, at times accompanied by text from authors such as Kafka and Freud. The drawings oscillate between the figurative and the abstract, laying bare the female form and calling to mind art-historical precedents informed by psychopathology, particularly works produced in early and mid-20th-century France by the likes of Wols. The publication of Mercy Hospital, with a text by Jo Applin, is the first time that Applebroog's work from this period has been documented in full.

Alex Katz illustrates Hawthorne's classic gothic tale of Puritan New EnglandWhile enrolled in an illustration course at Cooper Union in 1948, Alex Katz (born 1927) created nine ink drawings to accompany Nathaniel Hawthorne's gothic romance, The House of the Seven Gables. Published a century earlier, in 1851, Hawthorne's classic novel is a solemn study of greed, guilt and atonement under the Puritan moral code of 19th-century New England, inspired by the curse pronounced on Hawthorne's own family by a condemned woman during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) was one of the most influential American writers of the 19th century, known for his darkly romantic stories and novels such as The Scarlet Letter. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and belonged to a prominent circle of New England-based writers and philosophers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott.Alex Katz (born 1927) is a New York-based artist known for his large-scale Pop-inspired canvases of two-dimensional figures set against monochrome backgrounds. For over seven decades, his work has been the subject of hundreds of solo and group exhibitions worldwide.

In 2002, Kara Walker was selected to represent the United States at the prestigious Säao Paulo Art Biennial. Curator Robert Hobbs wrote extended essays on her work for this exhibition, and also for her show later that year at the Kunstverein Hannover. Because these essays have not been distributed in the US and remain among the most in-depth and essential investigations of her work, Karma is now republishing them in this new clothbound volume. Among the most celebrated artists of the past three decades, with over 93 solo exhibitions to her credit, including a major survey at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker is known for her tough, critical, provocative and highly imaginative representations of African Americans and whites reaching back to antebellum times. In his analysis, Hobbs looks at the five main sources of her art: blackface Americana, Harlequin romances, Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection, Stone Mountain's racist tourist attraction and the minstrel tradition.

In American Spirit, New York-based conceptual photographer Roe Ethridge (born 1969) presents an unabashedly gorgeous collection of mountainous vistas and meta-advertising spreads that riff on the name of the eponymous cigarette brand.Wide-open views of Western peaks are interspersed with close-shot portraits, still lifes and consumer imagery, a Manifest Destiny atlas for the post-internet era.

Luminous painterly interpretations of two abiding motifs in art historyA two-person exhibition featuring angel paintings by Reggie Burrows Hodges (born 1965) and moon paintings by Ann Craven (born 1967), Moons and Angels was staged in the former St James Catholic church at 70 Main Street in Thomaston, Maine. Appearing throughout the canon of art history, these enduring celestial subjects have served as protectors and messengers. Craven and Hodges create warm and inviting interpretations of these guiding lights that allow the viewer to, in Hodges's words, "offer up and be offered back." This comprehensive, fully illustrated exhibition catalog features a collection of poems by Susan Howe.

Unseen early works from a pioneering feminist abstractionistNew York-based artist Louise Fishman (1931-2021) was widely known for her gestural markmaking and atmospheric spaces. This volume presents nine previously unseen paintings from the artist's foundational years as a student, featuring her early forays into abstraction.

Pencil drawings from the acclaimed painter of domestic poetryThe first book on the drawings of New York-based painter Matthew Cerletty (born 1980), this volume features his depictions of the household items familiar from his paintings.

A 50th-anniversary tribute to one of America's first racially integrated exhibitionsIn August 1971 Peter Bradley mounted the landmark exhibition The De Luxe Show at the legendary DeLUXE theater in Houston's Fifth Ward. The De Luxe Show was a milestone in civil rights history, as one of the first racially integrated shows in the United States. Curated by Bradley with the backing of collector and philanthropist John de Menil, the exhibition featured emerging and established abstract modern painters and sculptors of the time, including Darby Bannard, Peter Bradley, Anthony Caro, Dan Christensen, Ed Clark, Frank Davis, Sam Gilliam, Robert Gordon, Richard Hunt, Virginia Jaramillo, Daniel Johnson, Craig Kauffman, Alvin Loving, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, Michael Steiner, William T. Williams and James Wolfe. In August 2021, for its 50th anniversary, Karma and Parker Gallery staged a contemporary bicoastal tribute to The De Luxe Show. The tribute honors the long, pioneering legacies of the artists of The De Luxe Show, and continues the dialogue between these innovators in the field of abstraction that began 50 years ago. This fully illustrated catalog includes texts and installation images from the original 1971 catalog, as well as a newly commissioned text by Amber Jamilla Musser and a text by Bridget R. Cooks that expands upon her 2013 essay in Gulf Coast.

The debut monograph on the haunting, tenebrous figuration of the acclaimed Maine painterMaine-based painter Reggie Burrows Hodges (born 1965) explores storytelling and visual metaphor, often drawing inspiration from his childhood in Compton, California. Starting from a black ground, Hodges develops the scene around his figures, who materialize in the recessive space with foggy, ethereal brushwork.Hodges' figures are "forms that are made sharper, and more haunting, not because we see those things in their eyes, but because we see it in their bodies, their postures, the endless desire for humans not to be alone, and to connect," Hilton Als writes. "To that Hodges adds all that wonderful blackness."This fully illustrated catalog features a selection of works made between 2019 and 2020; a newly commissioned essay by Hilton Als; and an interview between the artist and Suzette McAvoy, Executive Director at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

A panorama of painterly motifs, combined and reprisedAnn Craven (born 1972) superimposes source photographs, historical works and her own paintings, creating mediated images that feature layer upon layer of referentiality--a collage of her most treasured curios. Peacocks showcase their plumage; birds perch on a branch; a trio of horses pose "just so." Through these acts of creation and recreation, Craven becomes both master and copyist, citing herself in her own art historical lineage.Animals, birds, flowers, moons: Craven's motifs are in themselves an incantation--a wish to repeat, reencounter, relive. In keeping with this process of revisitation, Craven's paintings are repeated in threes throughout this fully illustrated catalog, mimicking the tripartite structure of her Animals Birds Flowers Moons exhibition. The book is divided into three parts, each paired with one of three texts: two newly commissioned essays by Durga Chew-Bose and Keith Mayerson, and a 2021 interview between Craven and Lois Dodd.

Early paintings and ephemera by Tabboo!, full of 1980s New York punk glamourThis clothbound volume appraises the formative years, from 1982 to 1988, of legendary performer, painter, designer, puppeteer and muse Tabboo!'s career. The book displays historical ephemera--including homemade flyers for performances at iconic clubs--along with the artist's paintings. Additionally, an essay on the "Glamorous Life" by Jarrett Earnest explicates the thematic concerns of the catalog. In a 1995 interview with Linda Simpson about his early work, Tabboo! observed: "the subject matter was drag, glamour, ladies' shoes, lingerie, hairdos, vinyl--same as now." Tabboo!: 1982-88 underscores the joy of creating and living, exuberantly.Tabboo! (Stephen Tashjian, born 1959) moved to New York City's East Village in 1982 and quickly established himself as a fixture in its drag scene. In the style of fellow Boston School artists Nan Goldin, Jack Pierson and Mark Morrisroe, he chronicled the zeitgeist with a raw, diaristic approach. In his work, dizzying visuals of nightlife and its cast of characters accompany affectionate portraits of his friends; seedy glamour and high camp meet in a jubilant fusion of collage, paintings and photography. Not one to be an aloof observer, Tabboo! was often photographed himself--by Goldin, Morrisroe, Pierson, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, David Armstrong and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Both creator and muse, chronicler and participant, he emblematizes the open experimentation central to the mythology of glamorous underground culture.