Vitamin D New perspectives in drawing

This wonderfully illustrated volume explores the renewed importance of drawing in the contemporary art world. It presents in alphabetical order the work of 109 artists who are moving drawing beyond its traditional venue of the notebook or preparatory sketch and literally redefining the medium. Although some are well known and others are just becoming established, all have recently emerged on the art scene and use drawing as a primary medium. The artists are brash and uninhibited and explore subjects that are social, political, sexual, and even religious in nature. The collection itself is global in scope and includes large- and small-scale works that vary in form from representational to abstract, and in technique from simple line drawings to full color and full volume renderings. Emma Dexter (curator, contemporary art, Tate Modern, London) has written an informative introduction. She notes that while these drawings are located between conceptual and theoretical discourse on the one hand, and the intimate, subjective capturing of human experience on the other, they are able to maintain their traditional contribution to history, memory, and narrative. Negotiating this difficult terrain is a continuing challenge and this volume is an excellent chronicle of the struggle. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through professionals. R. M. Davis emeritus, Albion College

This book is a global, up-to-the-minute survey of drawing that focuses on 110 artists selected by a group of prominent international art critics, curators, and museum directors. In her excellent introduction, Emma Dexter (senior curator, Tate Modern, London) defines the importance of contemporary drawing by convincingly arguing that for the first time in history, artists can rely on drawing as their primary medium of expression without their work suffering in status as a result (whereas before, drawing was often considered inferior to painting or sculpture). As an intimate, honest, direct, and expressive form, drawing is a medium these artists use to connect with aspects of culture-e.g., narrative and national identity-previously repressed under High Modernism. Highlighted here in A-to-Z order are eminent contemporary artists such as Kara Walker, Elizabeth Peyton, and Gabriel Orozco as well as less well-known but emerging artists from around the world. With more than 500 illustrations and comprehensive biographical and stylistic essays on each artist, this book is highly recommended for any library with a contemporary art collection. [Vitamin D is similar in format and content to Phaidon's Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting (2002).-Ed.]-Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll. Lib., MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.