Art history

Catalogue of the 2025 Islamic Arts Biennale, combining ancient heritage and contemporary art.

A reflection on the autonomy and eternity of art by Canadian writer Madeleine Thien, based on a mural in the Thousand Buddha Grottoes of Bezeklik, China.

A groundbreaking curatorial proposal by Jean-Hubert Martin, bringing together five galleries with very different specialties (primitive arts, art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, antiquarian books and incunabula, Surrealism and modern art, Nouveau Réalisme and contemporary art).

The stock theatrical character Pierrot is an enduring figure in French visual art, where he emerges at the intersection of theatricality and the marketplace. This book offers an account of Pierrot's recurrence in painting, prints, photography and film, tracing this distinctive type from the art of Watteau to the cinema of Occupied France.

This volume traces the history and the political, cultural, and artistic legacy of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517), one of the great powers of the medieval world, known both for its formidable military force and its flourishing artistic production.

This volume traces the history and the political, cultural, and artistic legacy of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517), one of the great powers of the medieval world, known both for its formidable military force and its flourishing artistic production.

A seminal exploration into screens' crucial functions and profound impact on human culture.

A history of art in France from the women's perspective.

An exploration of artistic expression rooted in the diverse traditions of Islamic art and culture.

This posthumously published essay presents Hans De Wolf's sharp analysis of one of the greatest rivalries in art history, a rivalry between two centuries, embodied by two of their most prominent figures: Courbet for the 19th and Duchamp for the 20th century.

An unclassifiable classic, precursor of the “material turn” and of media theory, finally reissued.

Pictorial abstraction in the Middle Ages: an innovative reflection that offers a powerful cross-disciplinary approach to medieval art, under a completely rethought concept of abstraction in close contact with finely analyzed images.

The critical edition of the pioneering work on art history by Françoise d'Eaubonne (1920-2005), inventor of the concept of ecofeminism.

Both an introduction to and an extension of the eponymous exhibition at the Mucem in Marseille, this catalogue offers an accessible and sensitive immersion in the richness of Amazigh culture, from the Neolithic to the present day.

An invitation to rediscover the diversity of 20th-century Arab modernism and to take a fresh look at the history of art scenes still little known in Europe, focusing on the relationship between Arab artists and Paris throughout the last century.

A history of the representation of blindness in art, from Brueghel to Louise Bourgeois.

A wide-ranging discursive study of the cultural geography of the Central European avant-garde between the wars.

Drawing on the notion of “cultural technique”, Bernhard Siegert thoroughly revitalizes posthumanist media studies.

An original history of Pop Art from the point of view of drawing, resituating the leading role played by this medium in the development of closer links between art and life.

What meaning can be given to abstract art forms when the figurative is evacuated in favor of pure gesture and color? This book investigates the case of Hans Hartung, delving into the depths of his psyche—at the frontier between aesthetics, neuroscience, psychoanalysis and medicine.

A historical investigation into why Leonardo da Vinci's plans for the Château de Chambord were censored.

The first book dedicated to Cornelia B. Sage Quinton (1876-1936), this essay traces the visionary career of the first woman director of a major art museum in the United States.

Keep Smiling! The Printed Universe of Pontus Hultén offers a portrait of visionary museum director Pontus Hultén (1924-2006) through over 200 printed works—posters, catalogues, film programmes, and invitations. Reflecting his playful, free-spirited take on anarchism, the archive highlights the bold collaborations he fostered with artists and designers throughout his career.

Keep Smiling! The Printed Universe of Pontus Hultén offers a portrait of visionary museum director Pontus Hultén (1924-2006) through over 200 printed works—posters, catalogues, film programmes, and invitations. Reflecting his playful, free-spirited take on anarchism, the archive highlights the bold collaborations he fostered with artists and designers throughout his career.

The seventh volume of the series dedicated to the life and work of Ilya Zdanevich - Iliazd presents the first English translation of the "Albanian" issue of Bloodless Murder magazine, published in Petrograd in 1916. 

An artist’s book, a work to be read, a journey through the history of painting, drawing on the collection of paintings at the Musée des beaux-arts de Rennes.

Three perspectives (philosophical, sociological and artist's word) on the meaning of the avant-garde, and its relationship to the counter-culture.

The cultural and political legacies of the the 1933 and 1934 Arab Exhibitions in Jerusalem.

The Place of the Symbolic brings together Reiner Schürmann's essays on the nexus between art and politics.

This history of art collecting traces a multiplicity of aesthetic attitudes through the prism of certain key figures in the history of taste. Over the course of the chapters, we discover how art collecting reflects—or responds to—an individual's character.

An anthology of the constructivist movement, bringing together newly translated or previously unpublished writings by artists and theorists, accompanied by numerous illustrations and an extensive critical apparatus: this reference volume sheds new light on the multiplicity and diversity of the approaches of constructivism and productivism in the 1920s-30, and provides a major contribution to the studies of the Soviet avant-garde.

An exploration of queerness in visual and material culture with regard to the specific conditions of the making and experience of art in different cultural, sociopolitical, and historical contexts.

The sixth volume of the bie bao series revolves around Ilya Zdanevich's account of his visit to Berlin at the end of 1922.

A collective exploration of the relationship between contemporary art and archeology.

The notion of primitivism rethought to highlight the role of the African referent in the development of the artistic and literary avant-garde in Europe.

Using an interdisciplinary approach inspired by science and technology studies, and combining museological and sociological perspectives, this groundbreaking study of museum storerooms sheds new light on the world of art and cultural heritage conservation.

Experimental poetry, historical avant-garde, contemporary music, dance, visual arts, intermedia: the sixth issue of Jacques Donguy, Sarah Cassenti and Jean-François Bory's avant-garde artistic and literary journal, with Frédéric Acquaviva, Antonin Artaud, Philippe Boisnard, Bernard Bousquet, Augusto De Campos, Hélène Defilippi, Cassandra Felgueiras, Pascal Le Gallois, Raoul Hausmann, Eduardo Kac, Chris Korda, Thomas Laroppe, Alvin Lucier, Made In Eric, Richard Meier, Simone Osthoff, Nam June Paik, Céline Paul, Diamantino Quintas, Biño Sauitzvy, Raoul Vaneigem.

Parker and Pollock's seminal volume of feminist art history.

What gets counted within the category of heritage, and who gets to do the counting?

This monographic essay explores Iris Clert, an unclassifiable and emblematic figure of the 1960s artistic avant-garde.

A chronicle of the recent transformations of art schools, from the point of view of a teacher, at a time when these spaces are both threatened by increasingly fragile and uncertain public policy management, and at the same time more than ever spaces where the word opens up, practices change and art finds itself in direct contact with the most avant-garde movements in society.

An extended meandering conversation between Swiss art historian, critic and curator Jacqueline Burckhardt and curator/art historian Juri Steiner, accompanied by numerous texts, documents and artist inserts.

Three texts by Michel Guérin on the notions of ornament and decoration, at the crossroads of theological, anthropological, aesthetic and philosophical considerations.

The fifth volume of the bie bao series presents Ilya Zdanevich's fictional auto-biographical writings based on his one-year stay in Istanbul in 1921.