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Rating: 
Summary: spotty, fuzzy, handsomely printed
Review: any book that attempts to cover western 20th century art deserves to be reviewed with a large dose of charity -- the task is huge and perhaps impossible. however, this two volume set (one volume in the paperback edition) seems to go out of its way to make things harder than they have to be. as with any taschen publication, the printing standards are exceptionally high. there is a wealth of beautiful and often canonical color images of major works by many artists ... the binding is solid and the text crisply printed. as a visual browse the book is a delight. the concluding biographical "who's who" of artists is a useful resource -- the book is probably worth having for these merits alone. unfortunately the coverage of artists and movements is alarmingly spotty. there is no coherent, clear exposition of the guiding principles or characteristics of surrealism, abstract expressionism or modernism (e.g., greenberg and fried), l'art informel, arte povera, etc.; no mention of the evolving and interdependent influences of art, art criticism, art markets, intellectual trends and social causes. everything is broken up into discussions of individual artists, which is obstructive because there is no subject index. and artists of the calibre of joan mitchell, andy goldsworthy, lucien freud or john marin (!) are omitted entirely. worst, the text is larded with fuzzy, inane or fatuous commentary that illuminates or documents nothing and very often fails to connect ideas to the illustrated examples. of frida kahlo: "The moving paintings of this long-suffering artist are socially critical without being aggressive." (the illustrated painting is a self portrait.) of joseph beuys: "Beuys devoted his entire life and energy as an artist to propagating his own inner convictions. It would simply not have occurred to him to put his message up on a sign above his front door." well, what's your point? of valerie export: "The Austrian artist Valerie Export devoted herself in her feminist Actions to historical manifestations of female body language (ill. right)." the illustration referred to shows export wearing a box; what is not explained is that this permits men to grope her bared breasts in public. of chris burden: "Chris Burden set out on a voyage of self-discovery via his own body (ill. below left)." what does that mean? the illustration referred to shows two video captures of burden's face and two figures, one pointing a rifle at the other; what is unexplained is that burden is having himself shot in the arm, or why that is interesting. and on and on ... it is not all that difficult to select representative or important works of art from the 20th century -- auction prices and critical reputation can guide the way. on that criterion these two volumes are well done. it's quite another thing to illuminate, explain, contextualize and connect the enormously rich history of art over the past 100 years, and that is where this overview is a serious disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: 20th Century Art Shines !
Review: This art book is the most complete description, most detailed analysis, most distinguished book of its kind. It has almost every painter of the twentieth century (and some impressionists of the 19th as well) with his/her's most important works and some not so very well known that show the great variety some painters have. This book is full of color photographs of painters (book 1) and of sculptors (book 2). You've never seen Picasso, Pollock, Kline, Lissitsky, Moholy - Nagy, Dali, Vasarely, and hundreds of other so well before ! At the very end of the second book you have a short biography of EACH AND EVERYONE of the painters and sculptors in the book. This is THE MUST BOOK for every art lover in the world.
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