39 books like Con Art

This book was introduced on the first day of art school. Then, it was reintroduced and repeated by each professor for the duration of my education. As such, it's fair to say that it's an enduring force within academic circles. 

The book touches on major points essential for any informed artist and the need for modern artists to subvert our viewers' hidden biases. It eloquently teaches artists to dive beneath the surface of a work to understand the unseen, the context, and the subtext. Ways of Seeing skillfully inspires a new lens through which to view the world and urges its readers to peel back the layers of meaning from even the most minimal artworks.

For me and so many other artists, this book was an awakening and is one that I turn back to often and am doomed to cite for eternity. It's a transformative journey that challenges and… show more.

The staggering thing about contemporary art is the money involved. Why would anyone pay $12 million for a dead shark preserved in formaldehyde?

This question drives Don Thompson’s book, as he explores the contemporary art market from the point of view of a professional economist. It’s a relatively unbiased work, free of ridicule or outrage, and is perhaps the better for that. Thompson shows us how the market works, and the role of each player – the buyers and collectors and investors, the rock star artists, the museums and galleries and auction houses – but also explores the psychology at work.

Why did hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen buy Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living for $12 million?

Where Thompson concentrates on the economic aspects of the art market, Thornton takes a sociological perspective.

She is like an anthropologist exploring a strange culture, and in the best participative tradition, takes pains to understand it non-judgementally, on its own terms.

The seven days refer to seven distinct events that make up the ecosystem of the contemporary art world: the auction house where pieces are sold, the university where artists learn their craft, the fair where collectors find new talent, the prize that spotlights tomorrow’s stars, the magazine that critiques and identifies the latest trends, the studio where the artist works, and the exhibition where the triumphant art is displayed and celebrated.

If Thompson’s book is about the finance of art, this is about people.

Before you judge contemporary art, it’s only fair that you try to understand it.

As such, Susie Hodges’ book does a valuable service, collecting together one hundred of the most important, influential, and controversial artworks from the last century or so. This ranges from Picasso to Damien Hirst, from Andy Warhol’s silkscreen prints of tins of tomato soup to Tracy Emin’s unmade bed.

Each entry gives some background to the work, some critical analysis, and attempts to justify why, although your five-year-old might indeed leave their bed unmade, they could not have done so in a way that explores the poignancy of the human condition (or something like that…).

A partisan book, defending the importance of modern art, but an informative introduction.

This book is contemporary art. The graphics are on a different artistic level than most comics or graphic novels. It made me realize that the contemporary art scene can live and flourish in storytelling, which by the end of the day led me on my path to becoming a comic artist. The story about W the Whore has a weird poetic feel. It is not about a prostitute, but about a woman and that is the symbolism and metaphors Feuchtenberger introduces in her surreal landscape.

Every novel Peter Carey writes is a rollicking adventure and this one is no exception. I love his way with words that is always original, and his idiosyncratic characters.

Theft tells the story of Michael "Butcher" Boone, an Australian artist whose career is in the doldrums. The novel alternates between the viewpoint of Butcher and that of his "damaged" brother Hugh. And yes, there is theft in the novel,…and scams and forgeries too. This is my favourite of all Carey’s novels. 

We all know Prince Edward Island from the Anne of Green Gables series, but nothing has made me want to step on the shores more than Liz Johnson’s contemporary romance, The Red Door Inn. When Marie flees a troubled past, she lands in PEI and finds herself helping renovate a historic bed and breakfast. Set right on the water, this story enchants the heart and scratches the travel itch in equal parts. With crackling romantic tension, sweeping views, and brisk sea air, this book has everything you need to drift away for a little vacation right from your couch.

The late Dr. Maya Angelou, or "Auntie Maya" as we called her in our household, is one of the most brilliant and iconic authors in American history.

One of her lesser-known publications is her 1993 picture book, Life Doesn't Frighten Me, illustrated by the legendary artist Jean Michel Basquiat. This book is a work of art for all ages! Dr. Angelou's bold and beautiful poetry paired with Basquiat's genius is a love letter to the human spirit.

This book provides a primer on the global art market from scholars around the world.

The issues addressed include economic integration of multiple circuits/regional markets, the rise of markets in Asia, online marketplaces, and the importance of galleries and collectives to propel artists to success. The biggest advantage to this work is that it is the first book to consider global art markets from divergent perspectives.

While there remains a real center to the art world analyzed in this volume, you can start to see how new regions and countries are charging forward, transforming the domain of contemporary art in the twenty-first century by making it far more diverse and global.

This is a purely visual book of portraits by David Hockney from the beginning of his career until he is nearly 80. It’s full of different styles of drawing and painting and, for that reason, is the kind of book that stimulates visual ideas and makes me want to go straight to the drawing board. In other words, it really gets us thinking in some new ways about how we interpret the world around us in drawing and painting. It’s a good reminder of the pleasures of looking and making.