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"[O]ne doesn't want to insist that the conceptualist movement is without point. It may, indeed, be heralding the complete collapse of art into philosophy. Several possibilities suggest themselves. Perhaps we should now leave art to philosophers who would seem to be, on this thesis, especially well suited to the tasks of "framing propositions," "advancing investigations," "initiating inquiries," etc. Or perhaps we should recognize that a Hegelian dialectical apocalypse is coming to pass, and that the apologia pro vita artis conceptualis documented in this anthology signals the death of art." --The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 1974

Artist and author, Ursula Meyer originally wrote and edited Conceptual Art in 1972. Though reviewers of the time were convinced neither of the budding movement's viability, nor of Meyer's analysis of it in her introductory essay, they did concede the book's value as a "small, cheap, portable museum" of post-object art as it captured the conceptual work of some 40 different artists of the time. 25 years after its original publication, Conceptual Art has establish its place in the canon, Meyer's thesis endures, and only the book itself has fallen (needlessly) out of print.

Thanks to artist Alex Klein for reminding us of Meyer's book in her essay "Remembering and Forgetting Conceptual Art", posted at Words Without Pictures, April 2008.

Project Notes:
For this project, contemporary artist, professor and author Owen Smith proposes: "updating and expanding the basic project as it is concerned with presenting and documenting the forms and nature of conceptual art.... the basic idea is to create a contemporary version of the book in which updates or analogs of the past work in contemporary form are gathered and presented in an homage to Meyer's classic edition."

The team could potentially produce this project in two separate volumes (one classic, one new);  or as a single, bound volume with the texts interspersed; or in a single volume of only the new text, subsequently packaged with vintage copies of Meyer's original. One of the first tasks for the team will be to contact the author's estate to determine copyright status and seek their approval of the project.

The Project Team (Contact )

• Project Manager: Krista Molnar
  
• Editor/Author: Owen Smith
  
• Publicist: apply
• Designer: apply
• Bookstore Sponsor: apply

Download a PDF Sample (600 KB)"As a first-hand account of life with one of the major artists of our century [Max Ernst, 1891-1976], as the autobiography of a distinctive and original American painter [Dorothea Tanning, b.1910], and as a poetic evocation of the ways in which dream and reality can mate and mingle [Dada/Surrealism], Birthday is a book to read and re-read, an 'Alice in Wonderland' for grown-ups." —The New York Times

Project Notes:
First published in 1986, Birthday is out of print, but still in copyright. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to contact the author (perhaps through the previous publisher, or a more recent publisher of another of her books) to determine copyright status and seek her approval of the project.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (700 KB)Comprised of essays published primarily in The New Yorker from the 1970s to mid-90s -- covering photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus and more -- Diana & Nikon is the complete collection of Janet Malcolm's writings on photography.

"I admit to an acolytes devotion to Malcolm, to a thirst for everything she writes. There's a thrill to reading her that comes from the moments when her writing breaks ever so subtly with the decorum of journalistic worldliness to hint at something personal, painful even, about Malcolm herself." —photographer and writer Moyra Davey, Long Life Cool White

Project Notes:
First published in 1980 and then expanded and reissued in 1997, Diana & Nikon has again fallen out of print. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to contact the author to determine copyright status and seek her involvement in the project.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (1 MB)"With running comments, often caustic and sometimes witty, on such abstract schematizations [mentioned previously] interpolated among his own personal observations covering some forty years of study and appreciation of art and nature, Professor Mather comes to the conclusion in this book that most theories of esthetics are so much moonshine and worthless to aid any one in experiencing beauty. Only direct personal experience of concrete works of art or forms in nature, he says in effect, can awaken the spectator to a genuine esthetic pleasure... Professor Mather's cogent and mature observations 'Concerning Beauty' are well worth the serious attention of the reader." —The New York Times, 1935

Mather is the namesake of the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism. Awarded annually by the College Art Association, it remains one of the most important honors for writings in visual art. 

Project Notes:
Concerning Beauty is out of print. First published in 1935, the work would still be under copyright. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to contact the author's estate or previous publisher to determine copyright status and seek their involvement in the project.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (1.7 MB)"Ernst Fischer [1899-1972], the Austrian poet and critic, surveys the whole history of artistic achievement through Marxist eyes. People have always needed art: but why have they needed it? And what shaped the forms whereby they satisfied their need? Fischer's answers to these questions should be as voraciously studied and debated here as they have been on the Continent." —Kenneth Tynan, 1960s

Project Notes:
The Necessity of Art is out of print. First published in English in 1961, the work in its original German and the English translation first done by Anna Bostock, are still under copyright. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to contact the author's estate, previous publisher, and/or translator to determine copyright status and seek their involvement in the project. This project could be a republication of the original translation with Bostock's participation, or a new translation of the original work.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (700 KB)"...writer Roger Cardinal coined the term 'Outsider Art' as an equivalent for the French term 'Art Brut' in his now seminal book Outsider Art, more than a quarter of a century ago.... Taking his lead from [Jean] Dubuffet, he constructed a canon of Outsiders measured by the extent of their perceived anti-cultural position. Since that time Cardinal has been a key figure in defining and reviewing the territory..." (Colin Rhodes, Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives)

Widely considered one of the premier works in the category -- second only to Dubuffet's earlier Asphyxiating Culture -- Cardinal's Outsider Art includes a series of introductory overview essays followed by profiles of nearly thirty Outsider artists.

Project Notes:
Outsider Art is out of print. First published in 1972, it would still be under copyright, presumably with the author. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to contact the author to determine copyright status and seek his involvement in the project. Edited, packaged and marketed together as foundational Outsider Art texts, this book and Dubuffet's Asphyxiating Culture, might make a good two-book project for a team.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (1.4 MB)Considered by most to be the missing artistic link between Surrealism and Dada, only four art critics have ever interviewed the highly-acclaimed (and equally reclusive) artist, Jacques Debierue. In fact, not many more people than those four have ever been allowed to see the artist's work beyond his first reputation-making piece "No. One". Set in South Florida in the 70s, The Burnt Orange Heresy is the story of Jamers Figueras, a hyper-ambitious art critic given the rare chance to interview Debierue, and thus securing his entire career in a single stroke. The opportunity though, doesn't come without costs.

This fictional work has proven difficult to categorize, and the oft-used mystery or crime-fiction labels don't capture the numerous possible psychological and satirical readings of the book -- really a modern-day literary heir to Balzac's famous The Unknown Masterpiece.

Project Notes:
The Burnt Orange Heresy is out of print. First published in 1971, it would still be under copyright, presumably with the author's estate. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to locate and contact the estate to determine copyright status and seek his involvement in the project.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (800 KB)This is the Hour is a novel about Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Though generally framed as a biography of the artist, the key plot of the novel revolves around an imagined relationship between Goya and the Duchess of Alba, who the artist painted a number of times. This focus on their relationship has proved the cause of the book's sometime condemnation in art historical circles. For while outside the confines of the novel, the relationship between Goya and the Duchess has indeed been discussed, it is generally dismissed as a flight of fancy at best, or as base gossip at worst. In the hands of Feuchtwanger however, it is undoubtedly a compelling twist on the oft-told story of Goya's life.

Project Notes:
This is the Hour is out of print. First published in English in 1951, it was originally written in German and may have been previously published in that language. It would still be under copyright. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to locate and contact the author's estate to determine copyright and translation status and to seek their involvement in the project.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (600 KB)"Asphxiating Culture is Dubuffet's credo that decries conventional art instruction while extolling an untaught, 'brut' art. The willfulness of his opinions, the combativeness with which he pursues his creative and intellectual position, the strength and clarity of his expression are all part of his redoubtable armory and shows us the artist/writer at his idiosyncratic best." --Thomas M. Messer, former director of the Guggenheim Museum.

Project Notes:
There is no English edition of Asphyxiating Culture currently in print. First published in France 1986, it was first translated into English by Carol Volk in 1988. If a project team were to work on this book, they would work with the original French publisher and either produce a new translation, or contact Volk to reprint her original translation.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.

Download a PDF Sample (1 MB)First published in 1973, this comprehensive biography of French artist Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) is but one of many artist biographies from the prolific and talented twentieth-century author Jack Lindsay (1900–1990).  Those familiar with Robert Hughes' recent biography of Francisco Goya, will find a similar tone in Lindsay's work, though where Hughes tended towards more political and historical description, Lindsay sticks close to his subject. In fact, more than any of the other few, complete biographies of Courbet currently in print, Lindsay's relies heavily on Courbet's own writing and on that of his peers. These direct glimpses into the artist's life and world, give a sense of depth and character to Courbet that has otherwise proven difficult to capture.

Project Notes:
This book is currently out of print, but could be potentially be republished in a new edition. If an interested team were to form, their first step would be to contact the author's estate to determine copyright status and seek their approval and possible involvement in the project.

Project Team Members:
None. This project was submitted by the Hol Editors and is open for anyone to take the lead on. Apply to work on this team.