Julian Schnabel makes art from life and finds his materials in the fabric of the everyday. He uses broken plates as an unlikely painting ground; he paints on velvet, lids of market stalls, army tarps, kabuki theater cloths and floors of boxing rings, found surfaces that lend their own rich history to the artist's exploration.
A figurehead for the return of painting after his sudden success with a first solo exhibition in New York in 1979, he has since worked in a wide variety of media: he creates sculptures that transpose his pictorial forms into space as crude artifacts seemingly worn down by time; he directs award-winning films painting portraits of artists and other subtly heroic figures; and he even builds his own dream of a Venetian palace in New York. "I want my life to be in my work, crushed in my painting like a pressed car. If it's not, then my work is just junk," Schnabel has said, and this urgency permeates his oeuvre regardless of the means or media the artist chooses.
Now available in a popular edition, the full range of Schnabel's work is portrayed in unprecedented depth in this TASCHEN monograph, created in dialogue with the artist. Texts were contributed by friends and collaborators: Laurie Anderson draws an intimate portrait of Schnabel; in three essays by curators and art historians, Éric de Chassey discusses the paintings, Bonnie Clearwater the sculpture and Max Hollein the site-specific work; Donatien Grau writes about Palazzo Chupi, the artist's extravagant home in New York's West Village; while novelist Daniel Kehlmann explores his cinematic oeuvre. In this issue, you can study the surfaces and artistic gestures and actions. It is the most generous opportunity to experience Schnabel's art without meeting him in person.
Specifications
Title: Julian Schnabel
Publisher: TASCHEN
Size: 250 x 334 x 58 mm
Size: 572 pages
Weight: 3691 grams
Language: English
Material: Hardcover
ISBN: 978383656305
