CAA News Today

Laura Anne Kalba visits Sonia Delaunay at Tate Modern. The exhibition marked “the first-ever in-depth analysis of the artist’s work in the United Kingdom” and featured “a provocative succession of works of high art, crafts, and industrially produced goods,” which “produced a heightened awareness of the tension between reverence for the unique art object and the allure of the copy.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

Catherine E. Burdick reads The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak by Mary Ellen Miller and Claudia Brittenham. In this “thorough text,” the authors “draw from decades of study to advance fresh perspectives regarding the facture, narrative, and reception of these exquisite paintings,” “enriching our knowledge of one of the most complete artworks produced in the pre-Columbian Americas.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

Modupe G. Labode discusses Dell Upton’s What Can and Can’t Be Said: Race, Uplift, and Monument Building in the Contemporary South. A “challenging, carefully argued book,” the volume “explores the meaning of the evolving commemorative landscape” of Confederate and civil rights monuments. Creating a “layered description” of the subject, Upton “reaches unsettling conclusions about race and public life.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

Robert Bezucha reviews The Museum of French Monuments 1795–1816: ‘Killing art to make history’ by Alexandra Stara. The book traces the history of the “Museum of Monuments,” a “short-lived,” “revolutionary,” and “controversial” institution that, in the words of the author, “heralded the modern understanding of artifact-based history.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.