Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine, Adriano Marinazzo, Muscarelle Museum of Art, 243pp, $49 (hb)
Is there anything left to say about the Sistine Chapel? Adriano Marinazzo, the curator of the accompanying exhibition of the same name at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the college of William & Mary in Williamsburg (until 28 May), believes he has uncovered something original. In the exhibition catalogue, he describes how he came across a sheet containing a sonnet and a small, mysterious sketch attributed to Michelangelo. “It became evident that the sketch represented the architectural outline of the Sistine ceiling as seen from below,” he writes. His research subsequently revolved around the theme of genesis, which links to other objects such as a four-sided tomb of Pope Julius II commissioned by the pontiff from Michelangelo in 1505. “In my view, Michelangelo subtly integrated elements of this tomb project into the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes, particularly within the painted architecture,” writes Marinazzo.
David Hockney, Norman Rosenthal (editor), Thames & Hudson in association with Fondation Louis Vuitton, 328pp, £45 (hb)
This volume, published to accompany the mammoth David Hockney 25 exhibition (9 April-31 August) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris explores in detail “the important moments, signature styles and preoccupations of the artist’s varied career”. The book presents a selection of more than 400 of Hockney’s works dating from 1955 to 2025. Contributors include Suzanne Pagé, the artistic director of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and the novelist James Cahill. The final chapter focuses on Hockney's engagement with new technology, particularly the iPad: “I always wanted to see things as spatial, which photographs never allow. [An] interesting thing about the iPad is that after a while the picture becomes your palette. You can pick up any colour you have put down,” he told the RA Magazine in 2020. Taschen is also this month releasing David Hockney: 220 for 2020, which includes more than 220 iPad paintings created by the artist at his farmhouse in Normandy.
Art on My Mind: Visual Politics, bell hooks, Penguin Modern Classics (re-issue), 304pp, £10.99 (pb)
In Art on My Mind, the late cultural critic, feminist thinker and author bell hooks examines topics such as the representation of Black bodies and the use of blood in art. In a chapter on Jean-Michel Basquiat, hooks writes: “At the opening of the exhibition of Basquiat’s work at the Whitney Museum in the fall of 1992, I wandered through the crowd talking to folks about the art. I had just one question. It was about emotional responses to the work.” The book, which also includes interviews with the artists Carrie Mae Weems and Alison Saar, was first published in 1995; hooks died in 2021.
Derek Jarman: The Authorised Biography, Tony Peake, Allison & Busby, 640pp, £30 (hb)
This new biography covers the life and legacy of Derek Jarman, the late UK artist, film-maker, diarist and political campaigner. Jarman’s reputation was built on his painterly, subversive, feature-length films, his gay rights and Aids activism, and the garden he created at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness on the Kent coast. The author Tony Peake, Jarman’s former literary agent, focuses on Jarman’s development as an artist, writing: “The painterly aspects of Jarman’s work on [the 1982 stage production of] The Rake’s Progress and [the ballet] Mouth of the Night reflect his return to the easel in the early 1980s. With no film in production, painting provided the perfect way of filling time and soothing frustration while maintaining contact with an artistic self.” The book, which has been updated, was first published in 2011.
