Meridian Art Press Recent Publications

Meridian Art Press publishes a small number of books, when time permits, focusing on fine arts and poetry. Our specialty is high-quality, full-color books that feature painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, digital art, and other visual arts, as well as books of poetry, with thoughtful, creative layout.

The Black Album: Writings on Art and Culture, Expanded Second Edition (2019) is a collection of art reviews by painter and writer Bradley Rubenstein. There was once a time when art, technology, science, and poetry collided with politics. Zola and Cézanne. Fénéon and Seurat. Balzac and Rodin. Jean Arp and Hans Arp. Anarchy and beauty combined. In our current moment it seems that we might be well served to remember this past; when art and culture are driven underground, new ideas emerge. Taking Joan Didion’s collection of criticism, The White Album, as a point of reference, Rubenstein creates a new vocabulary for critiquing an age where art has wed technology, fiction has become reality, and images, like words, are not always meant to be trusted. Like Robert Smithson, Rubenstein eschews a personal writing style, instead using screenplays, poetry, science fiction, satire, and other genre styles to create a lively, continuously changing narrative.

Press Eject and Give Me the Tape: Dialogues, Interviews, and Exchanges 2001–2020 (2020) is a collaboration between the painter and writer Bradley Rubenstein and over 35 contemporary painters, sculptors, photographers, and performance and video artists. It is as important for current discussions on contemporary culture, theory, media, and politics as it is for discussion of contemporary art. Artists drawn into the action include Inka Essenhigh, Michael Rees, Gary Stephan, Angela Dufresne, Pedro Barbeito, Nicola Tyson, Liz Markus, Peter Williams, Brenda Goodman, Michael Zansky, John Paul, Millree Hughes, and more. Both a slice-of-life view of artists working today and a valuable historical resource for tomorrow.