Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
Bibliothèque IHEID, Genève, Switzerland

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing (Hardcover, NEW)

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From former editor of New York magazine Adam Moss, a collection of illuminating conversations examining the very personal, rigorous, complex, and elusive work of making art

What is the work of art? In this guided tour inside the artist’s head, Adam Moss traces the evolution of transcendent novels, paintings, jokes, movies, songs, and more. Weaving conversations with some of the most accomplished artists of our time together with the journal entries, napkin doodles, and sketches that were their tools, Moss breaks down the work—the tortuous paths and artistic decisions—that led to great art. From first glimmers to second thoughts, roads not taken, crises, breakthroughs, on to one triumphant finish after another.

Featuring: Kara Walker, Tony Kushner, Roz Chast, Michael Cunningham, Moses Sumney, Sofia Coppola, Stephen Sondheim, Susan Meiselas, Louise Glück, Maria de Los Angeles, Nico Muhly, Thomas Bartlett, Twyla Tharp, John Derian, Barbara Kruger, David Mandel, Gregory Crewdson, Marie Howe, Gay Talese, Cheryl Pope, Samin Nosrat, Joanna Quinn & Les Mills, Wesley Morris, Amy Sillman, Andrew Jarecki, Rostam, Ira Glass, Simphiwe Ndzube, Dean Baquet & Tom Bodkin, Max Porter, Elizabeth Diller, Ian Adelman / Calvin Seibert, Tyler Hobbs, Marc Jacobs, Grady West (Dina Martina), Will Shortz, Sheila Heti, Gerald Lovell, Jody Williams & Rita Sodi, Taylor Mac & Machine Dazzle, David Simon, George Saunders, Suzan-Lori Parks

The New York Times bestseller and one of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024

"The gift book of the year, a volume that should have broad appeal and deliver many hours of pleasure to the recipient. The Work of Art is a gorgeous book.” —John Warner, The Chicago Tribune

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adam Moss was the editor of New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and 7 Days. As editor of New York, he also oversaw the creation of five digital magazines: Vulture, The Cut, Daily Intelligencer, Grub Street, and The Strategist. During his tenure, New York won forty-one National Magazine Awards, including Magazine of the Year. He was an assistant managing editor of The New York Times with oversight of the Magazine, the Book Review, and the Culture, and Style sections, as well as managing editor of Esquire. He was elected to the Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame in 2019.

REVIEWS

“The book is a visual feast, full of drafts, sketches, and scribbled notebook pages. Every page shows how an idea becomes a finished design.” —Ari Shapiro, All Things Considered

“In The Work of Art, famed creators from the worlds of film, fashion, theater and more explore the hidden alchemy of their craft . . . [Moss] suggests that receptiveness to chance guides art as much as skill. It’s a liberating fact. He wants to demystify creation, and often succeeds. [A] vibrant, companionable and punchily precise dossier.” —Walker Mimms, The New York Times

"I understand that we are barely past the midpoint of the year, nonetheless I’m ready to declare the gift book of the year, a volume that should have broad appeal and deliver many hours of pleasure to the recipient. The Work of Art is a gorgeous book.” —John Warner, The Chicago Tribune

“Moss wants to understand what makes artists tick, and he goes about it in a pragmatic, anti-Romantic way. He treats art works as a mechanically minded kid might treat a dismantled tape deck, poking and prodding their insides to figure out how all these jangled parts make a whole.[The Work of Art] is designed to be absorbed in bursts of pleasure.” —Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 16, 2024
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 059329758X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593297582
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.79 x 1.56 x 9.54 inches

About Our Store

MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and Directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.

Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."

About the Partners

Matt Zoller Seitz

Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.

Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.

Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch and the new The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. In October 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre, considered the biggest film event of Dallas in 2024 by Dallas Observer!

Judith Carter was in the Upscale and Luxury Hospitality Industry for most of her life. In 2004 she had a beautiful baby boy with Special Needs and put the pause on her career until 2017 to dedicate herself to him and then others, assisting and volunteering as a legal advocate ensuring the best medical care, evaluations and educations for Special Needs children and their families.

Matt and Judith were family friends for over 20 years. She was there with her family in support when his wife Jen passed away suddenly in 2006. Then just 6 weeks later while Matt was in Dallas; he and his Father, Dave, and Step-Mother, Genie, were there as support, when Judith was alone and her son received the first of many diagnoses that changed the trajectory of their lives. So it made sense in the turbulent year of 2020, Matt asked Judith to take over running the online store that has become MZS.press. The rest as they say is, "Their"-story.

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
Bibliothèque IHEID, Genève, Switzerland

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing (Hardcover, NEW)

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz Directed by Judith Carter“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”Haruki MurakamiPhoto by Martin Adams on UnsplashBibliothèque IHEID, Genève, Switzerland

The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing (Hardcover, NEW)

About Our Store

About the Partners

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
Bibliothèque IHEID, Genève, Switzerland