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Blow Up!: The Explosion of Contemporary Art

By (author) Robert Shore, Illustrated by Eva Rossetti

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normal price: R 683.95

Price: R 614.95

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| book description |

A non-fiction graphic novel that tells the story of a century of revolutionary contemporary art. How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark... How do you get at one of the worldâ€™s most powerful governments by smashing an old vase? How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of 1917 explode to become today's global multi-billion dollar art world? This graphic novel answers these questions by following the lives of seminal contemporary artists and the stories behind their groundbreaking works. Against a backdrop of armed conflict and rapid societal change, this book tells the story of contemporary art from Marcel Duchampâ€™s repurposed urinal to Maurizio Cattelanâ€™s taped banana. Literal bombs explode and conventions go up in flames as a series of art objects shock and electrify society: canned excrement, a pickled shark, a stuffed hare, human blood. The story moves from Paris to New York and London, and then captures the geographical spread of a rapidly globalizing cultural scene by jumping to events in Tokyo, Belgrade, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos and Beijing, and culminating in Miami â€“ and in the ether, everywhere and nowhere, on the internet. Chapters follow a series of chain reactions as artists meet or inspire each other across the generations and decades. Over a period of 100 years everything changes â€“ and yet the cry of â€˜Itâ€™s not art!â€™ never goes away. No matter how long people have had to get used to it, contemporary art continues to upset expectations and disrupt conventions â€“ and inspire anew.