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  • The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss book cover
  • The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing by Adam Moss book cover
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The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing

by Adam Moss

Inside the making of art

$33.18 USD
$55.30 USD $33.18 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Bestseller

    The New York Times bestseller

  • Editorial selection

    One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024

    Included among Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2024.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Inside the making of art

Adam Moss brings together conversations with artists and traces the development of work across novels, paintings, jokes, films, and songs. Journal entries, doodles, and sketches accompany accounts of the decisions, revisions, abandoned possibilities, and breakthroughs involved in making each piece. The book’s range of forms and working materials makes artistic creation its subject not as a single flash of inspiration, but as a process shaped by choices over time. Its focus is both practical and reflective: how an initial idea changes as artists test, reconsider, and develop it toward a finished work.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in how artists develop and revise their work.
  • For those curious about creative processes across literature, visual art, film, music, and comedy.
  • For readers who enjoy conversations with artists alongside examples of their working materials.

Themes

The creative processRevision and artistic decisionsArt across different formsArtists’ working materials

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

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

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 Gl
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