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Eye Candy, Noses, Beauty and Ugliness, Illustrated

The list ranges from studies of the modern city to an anthology of ugliness.

From The New York Times -- Interior Design, 12/7/2007 12:00:00 AM

Just as there is more to art than pretty pictures, there is more to art books than gorgeous illustrations. When the art and architecture critics of The New York Times were asked to choose their favorite books of 2007, their selections included a collection of essays on the museum in the age of globalization, two pessimistic studies of the modern city, a volume of poetry and an anthology of ugliness. But rest assured: the list still includes plenty of provocative, powerful and just plain knockout pictures, from Rembrandt's soulful noses to Martín Ramírez's visionary paintings.

CONTEMPORARY ART AND THE MUSEUM: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE edited by Peter Weibel and Andrea Buddensieg (Hatje Cantz Books, 254 pages; $40). In the great wave of globalization, museums of contemporary art on the Western model are spreading around the world. But is that model right for everyone? Many non-Western audiences have little experience of, or use for, art in the Western sense; and even in the West, minority audiences may not share mainstream definitions of art.

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