Destination Art
'Destination Art' will not be coming to a museum near you - it is art that you have to travel to and meet in its own space and on its own terms. Designed for both the international art tourist and as a key reference work, this book is the first ever comprehensive critical guide to land and environmental works, sculpture parks and site-specific installations worldwide.
The book features more than two hundred destinations, including a detailed look at fifty-four key sites with accounts of their histories and numerous spectacular photographs. A further 150 sites are given concise descriptions.
Destination Art is not only packed with practical information for the traveller, but also provides a chronological survey of the world's most important large-scale and public works of 20th- and 21st-century art.
The first book to signal the fact that this important century-long trend in art has fully come of age in the 21st century.
Includes work by some of the world's most important and popular artists, from Henri Matisse, Antoni Gaudí, Jean Tinguely and Constantin Brancusi to Richard Serra, Robert Smithson and Antony Gormley.
Among the destinations featured: the Park Güell in Barcelona, Watts Towers in Los Angeles, Matisse's Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, The Rock Garden in Chandigarh and the Henry Moore Foundation in Hertfordshire, England.
A book that in a modest way could change your life
–Martin Gayford, Apollo
Dempsey’s prose is intelligent and serious; it is also inviting to the uninitiated. The book’s engaging illustrations allow for absentminded leafing, and with its plethora of practical information, it may also serve as an inspiring locus for the reader’s next journey.
-Public Art Review (USA)
Amy Dempsey provides a real art-niks delight ... It functions simultaneously as a vibrant picture book, a travel guide and catalogue of important public art sites around the world. It's an impressive undertaking and so very well executed.
-State of Art (UK)
The first impression of this remarkable book is that it might help travellers, for it points the way to fascinating pieces of art ... Amy Dempsey also weaves delightful tales of the 'environmental' artists behind these creations.
-The Globe and Mail (Canada)
For travelers seeking art on a grand scale, the 200 modern and contemporary site-specific works in this survey more than “merit the detour.”
-American Craft (USA)
A practical and informative guide to over 200 art sites around the world, Destination Art is a lavishly illustrated tour of places that if you cannot see then you ought to be aware of. A great gift for the armchair traveler.
-Art Times (USA)
In an era of grand outdoor installations, this book is for art lovers who want to venture beyond the confines of the museum… It's also an eye-opening experience for the armchair adventurer and amateur art critic.
-San Francisco Chronicle (USA)
Lucidly written, beautifully illustrated, and accompanied by practical details, Amy Dempsey's book can be studied at home by readers who dream wistfully of traveling to one or more of these Destination Art sites, or by travelers, who, volume in hand, have just arrived triumphantly to experience them firsthand.
- Moira Roth, author of ‘Traveling Companions/Fractured Worlds’
If there’s anything more likely to make you want to jack it all in and travel the world, I haven’t found it yet.
-Artists & Illustrators (UK)
Destination Art (2006) was published in Belgium (Ludion), France (Thames & Hudson), Germany (Belser), Spain (Blume), UK (Thames & Hudson) and USA (University of California Press).
Destination Art: Land Art · Site-Specific Art · Sculpture Parks (2011) was published in the UK by Thames & Hudson.