Le corps de l'artiste: Phaidon's thematic survey of body art

Phaidon has published "Le corps de l'artiste" by Tracy Warr and Amelia Jones, a thematic survey examining the artist's body in contemporary art. The volume covers five decades of creation, from Jackson Pollock's action paintings to Mona Hatoum's video installations. It is divided into two parts: works and documents. The works section presents each piece with an image and description, while the documents section includes excerpts from artist writings, art criticism, philosophy, and humanities. The book is organized around sub-themes: painting, action, ritual, transgression, territory, identity, absence, and extension. The publisher argues that thematic analysis and examination of major art movements provide effective entry points into the vast corpus of works, a strategy widely used in exhibitions. The iconographic richness, layout quality, and abundance of information cater to both casual browsing and scholarly research. The theme of the artist's body intersects artistic, intellectual, and political histories, and the combination of works and documents exploits this intersection effectively.