Now available in paperback, this is a radically new approach to the understanding of abstract art, expanded to include sixteen new contemporary artists from six continents, and an emphasis on textile as abstract.

Now available in paperback, this is a radically new approach to the understanding of abstract art, expanded to include sixteen new contemporary artists from six continents, and an emphasis on textile as abstract.

In his fresh take on abstract art, now available in paperback and expanded to include sixteen new contemporary artists from six continents, noted art historian Pepe Karmel chronicles the movement from a global perspective, while embedding abstraction in a recognizable reality. Moving beyond the canonical terrain of abstract art, the author demonstrates how artists from around the world have used abstract imagery to express social, cultural and spiritual experience.

Karmel builds this fresh approach to abstract art around five inclusive themes: body, landscape, cosmology, architecture and man-­made signs and patterns. In the process, this history develops a series of narratives that go far beyond the established figures and movements traditionally associated with abstract art. Each narrative is complemented by a number of featured abstract works, arranged in thought-­provoking pairings with accompanying extended captions that provide an in-­depth analysis. This wide-­ranging examination incorporates work from Asia, Australia, Africa and South America, as well as Europe and North America, through artists ranging from Wu Guanzhong, Joan Miró and Jackson Pollock to Hilma af Klint and Odili Donald Odita. Breaking new ground, Karmel has forged a new history of this key art movement.

Details

ISBN13: 9780500298381
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 360
Edition:
Publication Date: 20 Jan 2026
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 26.2(H)x20.4(L)1460
Weight (gm): 1460

Author Biography

Pepe Karmel received his B.A. from Harvard College and his Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and now teaches in the Department of Art History, New York University. He is the author of Picasso and the Invention of Cubism, and has written for publications including Art in America and The New York Times. Karmel has also curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions.

Reviews

'Karmel approaches the field not as a steady tunnelling toward nothingness, as figures and other discernible objects fell away, but as something more dynamic - and much less white, Western and male ' - Vogue.com
'Handsomely illustrated' - Best Art Books of 2020, Sunday Times
'Magnificent … warmly recommended to anyone who loves art and possesses an open mind' - Evening Standard
'Carefully conceived and beautifully produced... an original and valuable way to approach twentieth and twenty-first-century abstraction' - artblog.com