Every painting student within the last forty years has been told painting is dead.  But we continue to surround ourselves with paintings, to visit museums and galleries, and to read books filled with images of paintings.  And the market still values paintings–Yue Minjun’s Execution, painted in 1985 and originally sold for $5,000 is now worth almost $6 million.

Author Tony Godfrey picks up on Art Today’s tradition, of using the prestige and magic of print, to effectively create a timeless capsule of paintings from the last forty years. His collection of paintings, arranged by theme, act as an introduction to the major movements in contemporary painting. His writing aims to pose as many questions as it does answer. A question like, “why do we surround ourselves with paintings?” is followed by brief but insightful backgrounds to the work presented. Godfrey shares Philip Guston’s history with the holocaust lending a new meaning to his cartoon characters clad in Klan masks.  He points to the literary motivations behind Cy Twombly’s paintings and their initially enigmatic scrawls of writing.

Godfrey themes deal with the obvious: figure, still life, abstraction, and landscape. But they also deal with the subtle: painting space (mental and physical space as experienced through time in a Franz Ackermann installation), and death and life (Dana Schutz’s painting of Michael Jackson’s autopsy). His writing is bold and positive, but scholastically humble and approachable. He writes in a section titled Painting Tomorrow, “we need words to help explain, enjoy and muse on painting, but we need always to keep coming back to the actual experience,” illustrating his passion for criticism but the importance of seeing a painting. Painting Today offers both.

Wang Guangyi, Great Criticism: Coca Cola, 1990-3, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm; Farber Collection, New YorkZhang Xiaogang, Big Family No. 1, 2001, oil on canvas, 200 x 300 cm, sold Sotheby’s 27 February 2008

Ida Applebroog, Installation at the Whitney Biennial, 1993 including Jack F: Forced to Eat His Own Excrement, 1992, oil and resin on canvas, four panels, overall 279.4 x 228.6 cm; and Kathy W: Is Told That if She Tells, Mommy Will Get Sick and Die, 1992, oil and resin on canvas, two panels, overall 279.4 x 182.9 cm

Julie Mehretu, Black City, 2005, ink and acrylic on canvas, 308.8 x 487.7 cm

Adriana Varejão, Entrance Figure III (Figura de Convite III), 2005, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm

Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib 43 (Triptych), 2005, oil on canvas, three panels, each 130 x 96 cm

Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing No. 1131, ‘Whirls and Twirls’ (Wadsworth), 2004. Acrylic on walls of museum staircase, 5.5 x 35 m (18¼ x 115 ft); Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hanford CT

Matthias Weischer, Oberlicht, 2006, oil and egg tempera on canvas, 120 x 150 cm (47¼ x 59 in)

- Chris Force

Chris Force is the founder and editor of ALARM Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter.

Heidilicious by Rankin

Heidilicious by Rankin
teNeues, New York, 2009. 144 pp., 100 color and duotone illustrations, 11¼x14½", $65

Pure comedy, there is even a forward by Seal.

Heidi Klum by Rankin

Heidi Klum by Rankin

Serious Drawings by Marc Johns

Serious Drawings
by Marc Johns
144 pages, Hardcover, $19.95, TeNeus

This has been sitting on my desk for a while–just got a chance to flip through and enjoyed it.

H is for holy crap

Wold Famous Drawing

We Enjoy Dressing Up As Birds

Bill Murray's Socks

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom & Music Listography

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson
432 pages, paperback, Da Capo Press, $18

A chronological collection of his interviews, including a preface by his wife.

Music Listography Journal
by Lisa Nola, 160 pages, paperback, Chronicle, $16.95

Another title in the "Listography" series, these books are strangely addictive.

Music Listography

Stitches: A Memoir... by David Small

Stitches: A Memoir... by David Small

Stitches: A Memoir... by David Small

Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging
This is a great visual resource by Simon Go, 200 pages, Princeton Architectural Press.

Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging

Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging

Hong Kong Apothecary: A Visual History of Chinese Medicine Packaging

Seymour (Chronicle), The Artist's Guide (Da Capo), Guerrila Art (Laurence King)

Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast
by Seymour Chwast, Hardcover, 272 Pages, Chronicle Books, $40

The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love
by Jackie Battenfield, Paperback, 380 Pages, Da Capo, $17.95

Guerilla Art
by Sebastian Peiter, Hardcover + DVD, 112 Pages, Laurence King, $19.95

Detail image from Guerilla Art by Sebastian Peiter

All kidding aside, the book contains an impressive collection of more than a hundred years of romance-novel cover art, dating from Mills & Boon's 1908 beginnings through the present.

A studious introduction details the publication's histories and how romance novels became a type of escapism for generations of women. The pop art inside accentuates that although opportunities and accepted mores for women have changed over the years, many ideals of love and romance have remained the same.

In line with many other types of "for women" entertainment, there are contrasting poses — those of lovey-dovey relationships, such as the sweater-clad couple at an ice rink on the cover of Alison Fraser's Time to Go (Mills & Boon, 1990), and those of relatively graphic imagery, like the torn dress about to fall off a gun-wielding brunette on Dale Bogard's Pardon my Body (Harlequin, 1951).

Bowring and O'Brien document the intolerances of Western society as well. For instance, Louise Gerard's Jungle Love (Mills & Boon, 1924) cover casts a loincloth-wearing warrior in a predatory pose over a distressed, possibly comatose woman on the jungle floor.

Though many would prefer to steer clear of the publishers' erotica-lite beach reads (not to mention their "family and church" oriented series), The Art of Romance is perfect for the coffee table, and in the right-size prints, many of the images would look perfect on a nearby wall.

Anita Thompson brings the legendary Gonzo back to life with all his quick-witted, sarcastic, and downright genius charm. Starting chronologically in 1967, the interviews include selections from Rolling Stone, High Times, Esquire, Playboy and NPR's All Things Considered.

An introduction by Christopher Hitchens, a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, provides an in-depth look into the world of Gonzo journalism, a subjective first-person narrative style created by Thompson, and the man himself through interview snippets and personal experiences at Owl Farm, Thompson's ranch in Colorado.

Throughout the interviews, some of Thompson's most well-known and controversial points are highlighted, including his stint in Hells Angels, his belief of the death of the American Dream, and his attempt at running for sheriff of Aspen. Thompson's sly sarcasm beats the interviewer over the head — and the readers.

Before his passing, Thompson had been working closely with assistant editor Tim Mohr of Playboy through a series of interviews. Concluding this book is a compilation of Thompson's unique outlook on freedom, driving, courage, karma, demolition, drugs, and many other aspects of life.

The interviews bring Hunter Stockton Thompson back to life as a character with an inhuman amount of knowledge, persuasion, and passion. Fans who followed him through his life, and those who know little about the writer, can now sit down and enjoy a conversation with him.

- Kim Manning

Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson
Anita Thompson
Paperback, 390 pages
$25.95, Da Capo

The novel combines innovative typography, black-and-white illustrations, and more than 100 different fonts to create a meaningful narrative about the attempts of two forlorn lovers to regain all that they have lost.

-Rick Maturo

Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring
Zach Plague
Paperback, 287 pages, $14.95, Featherproof Books
www.featherproof.com