Skateboarding, sexuality and suburbs in artist Ed Templeton’s expansive new book Owner and art director of Toy Machine Skateboards, Ed Templeton’s work has been most widely-seen on boards under the feet of thousands of skateboarders around the world. For fans of his skateboard graphics or those already familiar with his art, the new book ” The Cemetery of Reason “—a compliment to his 2010 solo exhibition of the same name—binds together images of over 260 pieces in a comprehensive survey of the native Southern Californian’s work. Projects span painting and drawing to screen printing and photography, highlighting his free-form approach to combining mediums, something of a hybrid documentary-style that makes for a refreshing take on heady subjects like society, religion and the overall human condition. While Templeton often comments on today’s over-sexed and under-supervised youth, the nomadic life of a pro skateboarder gives the artist unusual glimpses into innumerable global locations. Works in “The Cemetery of Reason” include photos of a bloodied friend after a bad slam or a seedy motel in Middle America, paintings of monstrous creatures speaking brainwashed thoughts and surreal mixed-media works of nude women. While his work spans several mediums, the strength of his aesthetic is his first-person perspective, acting as an overarching link between subjects and artworks to convey his humanistic worldview. Rounded out with telling interviews with Templeton over the years, as well as multiple essays by influential artists, writers and the exhibition’s curator, pick up “The Cemetery of Reason” online from Photo Eye or Amazon .

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The Cemetery of Reason

Mysticism and blue in a sweeping Yves Klein retrospective At age 19 Yves Klein stood in the backyard of his parents’ home in Nice and pointed a camera up at the open sky. This photograph of endless blue was his first monochrome work, setting the stage for hundreds more created during the artist’s short yet profound career. Exploring this approach in both his groundless, brilliant blue canvases, along with films, sculptures, and architecture, I recently had the chance to preview the final leg of the ballyhooed Klein retrospective ” With The Void, Full Powers ” at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center. The show makes the case that Klein’s single-hued work defined his aesthetic not just because he “owned blue” (as some like to quip), but because of his clever pursuit of suspending everyday perceptions to create a heightened reality, or what he called immaterial sensibility . To imagine these hyper-realities, risk was essential to Klein’s process. His proposal for a new architecture arose out of his propensity to rethink the world in spiritual and aesthetic terms. Renderings and blueprints shown in a 1961 L.A. exhibit “Air Architecture” depict a future built environment created only using the elements of fire, water and air. That same year also saw Klein return to his search for pure color, painting “Blue Monochrome.” Working with a chemist to create his own hue of blue, he created the renowned pigment “International Klein Blue,” which he used to indicate his ethereal view of world. Furthering this concept, in his notorious “Anthropometries of the Blue Epoch,” Klein used blue-painted women as his brushes, moving them across the canvas to create abstract disembodied images. “Into the Void, Full Powers” is co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , and is on view from 23 October 2010 to 13 February 2011.

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With The Void, Full Power