MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art

From the art of Cindy Sherman to Anish Kapoor, from Yayoi Kusama to Tracey Emin, Michael Pentry's coffee-table book "MirrorMirror" presents an intriguing and beautifully illustrated global survey of "reflective" work by more than 150 artists from different media, nationalities, genders and locations.

A fascination with mirrors and reflective surfaces is a common theme among artists of the past. Michael Petry's thought-provoking introduction begins with Jan van Eyck's famous Arnolfini portrait (1434), one of the first paintings to feature a significant mirror. Petry refers to important works by the great masters, from Diego Velázquez's The Rokeby Venus (1647-1651) to Édouard Manet's complex painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) to Claude Cahun's Reflected Image in Mirror, Checked Jacket (1928), a groundbreaking picture for those who often turn their gaze on themselves.

Contemporary practitioners are no less intrigued, revisiting historical concerns and approaches for contemporary conditions, and often working with modern technologies and materials. Petry presents the balloon sculptures of Jeff Koons, the stainless steel life-size trees of Subodh Gupta and the mirror architecture of Not Vital, and documents works that use real mirrors, including works by Gavin Turk and Alicja Kwade, and the large-scale, spectacular installations of Doug Aitken, Teresita Fernández, Olafur Eliasson and Sarah Sze. There is a special focus on selfies and how the cell phone now functions as a modern mirror for the self.

Specifications
Title: MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art
Author: Michael Pentry
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Size: 282 x 237 x 30
Size: 288 pages
Weight: 1710 grams
Language: English
Material: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780500026205
Published: February 2025

View our extensive range of luxury art books of the world's most famous old and new masters; from Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Vermeer, Warhol, KAWS, Hockney, Basquiat and many others.