Unruly Tools

Painting,
often regarded as the oldest of art forms, has been repeatedly declared
"dead." In this groundbreaking study, such notions are thoroughly dismantled,
as technical art historian Pia Gottschaller demonstrates how painters
radically reimagined the medium in the years following World War II. No
longer content to limit themselves to the paintbrush in their search for new
types of expression, artists began to experiment with new methods, employing
found, fabricated, and repurposed objects-as varied as an Afro comb, the
human body, and a robotic airbrush-to create paintings unlike those ever seen
before, revolutionizing the course of art history.


Beginning with Jackson Pollock and the Gutai Art Association in
Japan, Gottschaller traces the transformation of painting across the globe
from the postwar era to the present day before turning to in-depth
explorations of the work of thirty-eight contemporary painters, including
Amoako Boafo, Helen Frankenthaler, Yves Klein, Julie Mehretu, Beatriz
Milhazes, Howardena Pindell, Kazuo Shiraga, and Andy Warhol. Richly
illustrated with over 240 images of artists and their creations,
Unruly Tools is the first
study of this kind and offers essential testimony to painting's continued
vitality and reinvention.