Books by Suzanne Hudson

Contemporary Painting (World of Art)

by Suzanne Hudson

This international survey of contemporary painting by a leading author features artwork from over 250 renowned artists whose ideas and aesthetics characterize the painting of our time.
The twentieth century brought radical changes in art―including the shift from modernism to postmodernism―which were accompanied by fierce debates regarding the place of painting in contemporary culture. Contemporary Painting argues that the medium has not only persisted in the twenty-first century but expanded and evolved alongside changes in art, technology, politics, and other factors, developing a unique energy and diversity.
Renowned critic and art historian Suzanne Hudson offers an intelligent and original survey of the subject, organized into seven thematic chapters, each of which explores an aspect of contemporary painting, from appropriation to the ways in which artists address and engage the body. Hudson’s inclusive and compelling text is sensitive to issues such as queer narratives, race, activism, and climate and demonstrates the continued relevance of painting today.
Bringing together more than 250 eminent artists from around the world, such as Cecily Brown, Julie Mehretu, Theaster Gates, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Takashi Murakami, and Zhang Xiaogang, this is an essential volume for art history enthusiasts, students, critics, and practitioners interested in discovering how painting is approached, reimagined, and challenged by today’s artists. 245 color illustrations

Opposable Thumbs

by Suzanne Hudson

Fiction. In this premier collection of stories, OPPOSABLE THUMBS, Suzanne Hudson reignites literary interest in her work that has laid dormant for years since she turned her back to the literary world after winning the Hackney Literary Awards competition as well as being published in Penthouse magazine and New Writers magazine. In this collection of shorts, "integrations, incest, white trash, and God...it's all here, in a bitter-sweet meringue. Suzanne Hudson's hilarious and moving stories tackle some of the South's major themes without flinching"-Tom Franklin. "Hudson writes like a fallen angel. Her characters may have one foot in heaven, and the other in hell, but she touches them with an ironic humor and a fiery grace"--William Gay.

Painting Now

by Suzanne Hudson

An international survey exploring the many ways in which painting has been re-approached, re-imagined, and challenged by today’s artists Painting is a continually expanding and evolving medium. The radical changes that have taken place since the 1960s and 1970s―the period that saw the shift from a modernist to a postmodernist visual language―have led to its reinvigoration as a practice, lending it an energy and diversity that persists today.

In Painting Now, renowned critic and art historian Suzanne Hudson offers an intelligent and original survey of contemporary painting―a critical snapshot that brings together more than 200 artists from around the world whose work is defining the ideas and aesthetics that characterize the painting of our time. Hudson’s rigorous inquiry takes shape through the analysis of a range of internationally renowned painters, alongside reproductions of their key works to illustrate the concepts being discussed. These luminaries include Franz Ackermann, Michaël Borremans, Chuck Close, Angela de la Cruz, Subodh Gupta, Julie Mehretu, Vik Muniz, Takashi Murakami, Elizabeth Peyton, Wilhelm Sasnal, Luc Tuymans, Zhang Xiaogang, and many others.

Organized into six thematic chapters exploring aspects of contemporary painting such as appropriation, attitude, production and distribution, the body, painting about painting, and introducing additional media into painting, this is an essential volume for art history enthusiasts, critics, and practitioners. 230 illustrations, 224 in color

Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present

by Suzanne Hudson, Alexander Dumbadze

An engaging account of today’s contemporary art world that features original articles by leading international art historians, critics, curators, and artists, introducing varied perspectives on the most important debates and discussions happening around the world. Features a collection of all-new essays, organized around fourteen specific themes, chosen to reflect the latest debates in contemporary art since 1989 Each topic is prefaced by an introduction on current discussions in the field and investigated by three essays, each shedding light on the subject in new and contrasting ways Topics include: globalization, formalism, technology, participation, agency, biennials, activism, fundamentalism, judgment, markets, art schools, and scholarship International in scope, bringing together over forty of the most important voices in the field, including Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, David Joselit, Michelle Kuo, Raqs Media Collective, and Jan Verwoert A stimulating guide that will encourage polemical interventions and foster critical dialogue among both students and art aficionados

Deborah Remington

by Suzanne Hudson, Anna Katz, Margaret Mathews Berenson, Caroll DUNHAM, Stephanie HOHLIOS

A long overdue survey of this exceptional artist, a renegade in every sense of the word, celebrating her legacy as an original member of the Beat Generation in San Francisco and abstract painter in New York.

This first comprehensive monograph on Remington (1930–2010) examines her extraordinary career through paintings, prints, and drawings. An enthusiastic participant in the Bay Area’s Beat scene in the early 1950s, Remington made her way to New York in 1965, where she joined the prestigious Bykert Gallery and quickly gained critical attention. Luminous and saturated, her hard-edged abstractions of the 1960s and 1970s are well known; yet the work from the last twenty-five years of her life is not as familiar to art world audiences. After a mid-career survey in 1983, Remington returned to a poetic, gestural sensibility that evoked the natural world and, eventually, her ailing body. This publication traces the arc of these evolutions through lavish illustrations as well as a broad range of texts that includes scholarly essays, remembrances, an interview, and a narrative chronology. Extensive research reveals the artist’s innermost thoughts, enhancing our understanding of the art world during her time. This long overdue examination of her career reveals a visionary artist untethered to the trends and art movements of her own lifetime and prime for rediscovery.

Nicole Wittenberg

by David Salle, Suzanne Hudson, Jarrett Earnest, Nicole Wittenberg, Devon Zimmerman

The highly anticipated first survey of the work of American painter Nicole Wittenberg

Over the past two decades, Nicole Wittenberg has developed an expressive body of work that includes paintings of landscapes, portraits, and erotica. Best known for her vibrant and energetic mark making, Wittenberg creates seemingly spontaneous images from studies and drawings - oftentimes from life - which she synthesizes into much larger paintings on canvas.

Weaving together painterly gestures across subject matter - some published here for the first time - this debut monograph features essays by the art historian Suzanne Hudson, the curator Devon Zimmerman, and the contemporary painter David Salle, as well as an extended conversation between the artist and writer Jarrett Earnest. These texts create an insightful portrait of Wittenberg as an artist. Presented in a beautiful cloth case showcasing details of one of her floral compositions, this book explores the full range of Wittenberg's artistic vision and represents the most significant publication of her work to date.

The publication of the book coincides with two solo exhibitions of the artist's work, at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art.

Anahuacalli

by Suzanne Hudson, Michel Blancsubé, Wallace Whitney

* Robert Janitz in conversation with the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City

* An extraordinary dialogue between pre-Hispanic and contemporary aesthetics

The Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City, a pyramid-shaped structure of volcanic stone, was intended to be the final mansion of Diego Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo. Today, it houses Rivera's vast collection of pre-Columbian art. Unlike typical museums, the building's galleries resemble religious or ceremonial chambers, and the corridors are dramatic and cavernous. In 2022, artist Robert Janitz (b. 1962 in Alsfeld, Germany), who had recently moved to Mexico City from New York, was invited to exhibit his work at Anahuacalli. This catalog documents this extraordinary dialogue between pre-Hispanic and contemporary aesthetics. As an outsider, Janitz was free to respond to what he found compelling at Anahuacalli: the colors, the textures, the visionary architecture. Throughout the museum's three floors, Janitz installed large-scale paintings on the walls, even the ceiling and floor, to amplify and distort Rivera's almost ubiquitous decorative program. His paintings of tubular structures, halfway between hieroglyphs and shapes, were spotlit against the heavy, dark stone walls, giving them a jewel-like luminosity and creating an almost metaphysical and spiritual experience. Conceptually and chromatically, Anahuacalli seemed the perfect home for Janitz's extravagantly colored silhouettes. Text in English and Spanish.