Developments in contemporary art have followed no straightforward line of progress or sequence of movements. Recognizing this, Tony Godfrey creates a narrative from a series of often dramatic creative conflicts and arguments around what art is or should be. From object versus sculpture and painting versus conceptual to local versus global, gallery versus wider world, The Story of Contemporary Art traces a history in terms of drastic changes in social and political life over the last sixty years.

How do we experience being human in a world that seems to change so quickly? In exploring art’s relationship to this question, Godfrey asserts that multiple voices must be heard: critics, theorists, curators and collectors, but also audiences and artists themselves. Key to the book is the story of how a perception that art was made almost exclusively by white men from North America and Western Europe has been radically overturned. Compelling and intelligent, but never academic, this book tells us how.

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‘An indispensable volume’
Vogue

‘As rabid admirers and collectors of contemporary art and photography we wholeheartedly recommend this passionate and joyous book. Without art the human soul is unfulfilled. This collection by Russell and Robert fully explains why.’
Sir Elton John and David Furnish

‘Russell and Robert have made talking art not just pleasurable but necessary.’
Lena Dunham

‘As witty, wise and well informed as Russell and Robert’s excellent podcast.’
Edward Enninful, OBE

When launching the Talk Art podcast in 2018, actor Russell Tovey and gallerist Robert Diament had one clear aim: to make the art world more accessible. Since then, the podcast has grown to be a global hit, featuring exclusive interviews with leading artists, curators, gallerists, actors, musicians and fellow art lovers such as Lena Dunham, Sir Paul Smith, David Shrigley, Noel Fielding, Edward Enninful, Rose Wylie and Sir Elton John.

Talk Art, the book, is a beautiful and accessible celebration of contemporary art, and a guidebook to navigating and engaging with the art world. Covering a range of different media from photography and ceramics to performance and sound art, the book explores the way art interacts with our society, highlights lesser-known artists, and provides a snapshot of the art world as it is today.

With a wealth of imagery – some never before seen in print and some created exclusively for the book – and an informative, engaging narrative, Talk Art will become the must-have book art lovers return to again and again.

The book features highlights from interviews with: Tracey Emin, Jordan Casteel, Jerry Saltz, Elton John, Grayson Perry, Ian McKellen, Alasdair McLellan, Helen Cammock, Somaya Critchlow and many more.

Praise for the podcast:
‘Lively, accessible and enthusiastic’ – Financial Times
‘As fast-paced and gossipy as it is genuinely interesting’ – Dazed
‘Trendy, gossipy, fast-paced conversational fun’ – New York Times
‘It’s an education, but not in an alienating highbrow way’ – NME

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• Published to accompany an exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton from 5 April to 28 August 2023
• The collaboration between the two artists, legends of the New York avant-garde, through more than a hundred of their joint works

In the spring of 2023, Fondation Louis Vuitton will be holding Basquiat x Warhol… Painting 4 hands, the most important exhibition ever devoted to the collaborative work of these two artists. The exhibition will feature more than 100 jointly signed paintings, in addition to individual works by Basquiat and Warhol, and works by other major artists (Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf, etc.) in order to recreate the New York downtown art scene of the 1980s.

From 1984 to 1985, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) and Andy Warhol (1928–1987) jointly produced about 160 paintings, some of the largest in their respective careers. A genuine artistic dialogue of style and form had developed between them that dealt equally well with crucial issues such as the integration of the African-American community into the narrative of North America, a continent where Warhol was a major manufacturer of icons.

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A unique survey of 350 artworks by a global and diverse array of LGBTQ+ artists – many underrecognized and overlooked – from the last 50 years

Though the Stonewall Riots might now be shorthand for the start of the gay rights movement, so much of art and culture has been ‘queer’ since the beginning of time. In About Face, art historian and curator Jonathan D. Katz explores this concept head-on, curating a tapestry of works that connect historical threads and reveal how gender and sexual identity have been interwoven by artists contemporaneous to and since Stonewall. With more than 350 artworks by over 40 LGBTQ+ artists across nationalities and generations, and original texts by artists and scholars, About Face is as stunning as it is important.

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Phaidon’s ‘Vitamin’ series has long proved an extraordinarily accurate predictor of tomorrow’s stars. This paperback edition of the latest volume is a cutting-edge and indispensable survey of the very best of contemporary drawing, as chosen by a panel of the world’s leading art experts

Over the past 50 years, drawing has been elevated from a supporting role to a primary medium, ranking alongside painting as a central art form. Since Phaidon’s publication of the first such surveys (Vitamin D in 2005 and D2 in 2013), contemporary artists have continued to explore drawing’s possibilities – from intimate to large-scale works, in a diversity of mark-making processes and materials. Vitamin D3 showcases more than 100 such artists, as nominated by a global panel of more than 70 international art experts.

The more than 70 nominators include such iconic figures as: Iwona Blazwick, Louisa Buck, Mark Coetzee, Thelma Golden, Laura Hoptman, Geeta Kapur, Pablo León de la Barra, Christine Macel, Kate Macfarlane, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Zoe Whitley.

The more than 100 selected artists include: Miriam Cahn, Robert Crumb, Tom Friedman, Tania Kovats, Claudette Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Otobong Nkanga, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Deanna Petherbridge, Christina Quarles, Qiu Zhijie, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Wael Shawky, Emma Talbot, and Johanna Unzueta.

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