Katherine Bernhardt: The Magnificent Excess of Snoop Dogg

Katherine Bernhardt's The Magnificent Excess of Snoop Dogg is a lush and punchy artist's book. Jerry Saltz has called Bernhardt's style "a hybrid of funk, punk, pop and every kind of Expressionism, be it abstract, neo-, German or East Village. She paints things I'm often suspicious of or have seen too many times before: fashion models, consumer goods and pop stars...Yet Bernhardt's work--for all its flaws--sends me." In this volume, Bernhardt juxtaposes her fashion model and celebrity paintings with the media images she uses for source material. A scrappily painted portrait of an anorexic looking, large-headed Kate Moss shares a spread with its source photograph--so we can see that Bernhardt has indeed captured its essence faithfully. Also included are a photo-tour of Bernhardt's studio, candid snapshots and revealing essays by critic and curator Nick Stillman and painter Lisa Ruyter.