Robert Shore

A non-fiction graphic novel that tells the story of a century of revolutionary contemporary art. How did a urinal become art? And a can of tomato soup, a tent, a pickled shark... How do you get at one of the world's most powerful governments by smashing an old vase? How did what seemed like a prank at the New York Armory Show of 1917 explode to become today's global multi-billion dollar art world? This graphic novel answers these questions by following the lives of seminal contemporary artists and the stories behind their groundbreaking works. Against a backdrop of armed conflict and rapid societal change, this book tells the story of contemporary art from Marcel Duchamp's repurposed urinal to Maurizio Cattelan's taped banana. Literal bombs explode and conventions go up in flames as a series of art objects shock and electrify society: canned excrement, a pickled shark, a stuffed hare, human blood. The story moves from Paris to New York and London, and then captures the geographical spread of a rapidly globalizing cultural scene by jumping to events in Tokyo, Belgrade, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos and Beijing, and culminating in Miami - and in the ether, everywhere and nowhere, on the internet. Chapters follow a series of chain reactions as artists meet or inspire each other across the generations and decades. Over a period of 100 years everything changes - and yet the cry of 'It's not art!' never goes away. No matter how long people have had to get used to it, contemporary art continues to upset expectations and disrupt conventions - and inspire anew.

Joel Meyerowitz: A Question of Color traces the experiments in color and black-and-white photography of the young Meyerowitz, a pioneer in the history of color photography. An early advocate of color photography, Joel Meyerowitz has impacted and influenced generations of artists. For fifty-eight years, the master photographer has documented the United States’ ever-changing social landscape. During the late 1960s, Meyerowitz carried two cameras: one loaded with monochrome stock, the other with color. Just how, when, and why American fine art photographers switched from black-and-white image-making, prized within the gallery system, to color photography, once seen as the preserve of tourist photography, has been the cause of much debate. In Joel Meyerowitz: A Question of Color, Meyerowitz tells the story of his early days as a photographer when he was told that serious photographers took black-and-white pictures. "But why," he asked, "when the world is in color?" He then bought a color camera and various rolls of film and began to experiment with color techniques: a passion he continues to pursue. 194 illustrations / 120 in color

The popularity of the television series 'Mad Men' has raised the public awareness of advertising firms and what may or may not happen behind the scenes. We all recognise advertising when we see it: it's those bits that surround the editorial content in papers and magazines, that interrupt TV programmes or pop up on the websites you like to browse. As a discipline it might be defined as follows: advertising is about creating a message about something (usually a product or service) and then getting it out to people in the hope that they will react in a particular way - which in all likelihood means "buying it". Or put another way, it's paid persuasive communication that uses the mass media to connect an identified sponsor - the person or company that pays for the ad - with its target audience. This book examines the different elements of those definitions and shows readers - through discussion of the ten key principles underlying all great advertising - how to create dynamic, well-targeted adverts of their own. Engagingly written by journalist and critic Robert Shore, this book provides the basic principles behind creating a successful advertisement.With clear explanations, illustrations and checklists for each chapter, the reader is guided through what goes into making an advertisement work.