Books
May 2, 2023
Happy May! This month, our book reviewers turned their focus largely toward memory: who gets to write the historical record, and how to excavate the overlooked.
Lauren Moya Ford covers a forthcoming book on pioneering assemblage artist Mina Loy, who is finally getting her due. Erin L. Thompson details stories of provenance at the San Antonio Museum of Art and their linkages to ongoing questions of repatriation, while Dan Hicks critiques two new books whose dangerous “anti-anti-colonialism” rhetoric attempts to sanitize the brutal legacy of British colonialism.
We bring you these insightful reviews and much more, including an encyclopedia of 300 women photographers, to consider as you start to form your summer reading lists.
Got a summer art book recommendation to share? Feel free to reply directly to this email and let us know what you’re reading!
— Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Editorial Coordinator
The Stories of Art History’s Detectives
The provenance researcher must be a detective, figuring out alternative ways to get at information that major participants in the trade are often unwilling to disclose. | Erin L. Thompson
Beware the Rise of Anti-Anti-Colonialism
Two new books by Nigel Biggar and Adam Kuper advocate for wilful amnesia and collective repression of British colonial brutality. | Dan Hicks
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10 Brutalist Architects You Probably Never Heard Of
Owen Hopkins’s The Brutalists is an A-to-Z encyclopedia of blocky concrete and utopian ideals. | Sarah Rose Sharp
A Global History of Women’s Photography Includes Over 300 Artists
This book unearths a trove of unseen images from the past two centuries. | Julia Curl
The World Is Finally Ready for Mina Loy
A new exhibition and forthcoming book honor the overlooked 20th-century female artist. | Lauren Moya Ford
An Artist’s Memories of a Haunting Lake
Ode to the Lake Sacalaia is an investigation into the retracing of memory and mythology, as captured through photography. | Rachel Harris-Hufman
