Customer Reviews
At this price, it is a steal! (25th Century Edition) - By: R. Siddiqui, 21 Aug 2008 
I bought a copy of this book for an artist friend a couple of months ago & paid around £25 for it. This is a newer (2008) edition & has literally hundreds of photos & illustrations. A very, very attractive book, like all Taschen offerings, & I would call it a huge bargain. With free shipping (thanks to Amazon Prime) there is no reason why one should not buy a copy right away.
About the book: It is a survey of the contemporary art & gives a nice overall picture of what is happeningin the world of photography, painting & architecture. Taschen would not be organised, no not them! The book has everything thrownin & the only order that is followed is the surnames of the artistsin alphabetical order. (Follow Taschen & you will be left with a bookshelf displaying Titian (Taschen Basic Art Series) next to The Big Book of Breasts! In short, they are eclecticin everything they do & this makes their publications so very unique. Do expect some "chaos" when you buy this book. The book can be opened at any page & since every section is self-contained, they can be browsed through repeatedly. I am very happy with my purchase & although contemporary art is not my specialty, this book can be an excellent starting point.
A useful survey of art today - but note the different editions! - By: Benjamin, 18 Jan 2008 
As is sometime the case with Amazon, they group reviews for different editions of a book together. For the record there are several editions of ART NOW:
"ART NOW 137 Artists at the Rise of the New Millennium", ISBN 382281444X (pub June 2002)
This reasonable size book, it measures 25.5cmm x 20cm (10"x8"), 640 pages, & is packed full if images. It covers the work of 137 different artists from the areas of painting, photography, film & video, sculpture, performance art & installation. Each artist is allotted four pages, has a brief introduction of one paragraph (printedin English, German & French), along with a thumb-nail photograph of the artist & a short list of selected exhibitions & bibliography. The pictures fill the pages, sometimes several to a page;in total I estimate there are around 750 illustrations almost entirelyin colour. The book concludes with a glossary & brief biographical notes on the authors, plus a section entitled The Art Newspaper which provides art market details & facts about leading art citiesin the world.
It covers many well known names including Jeff Koons, Damien Hurst, Luc Tuymans, John Currin, Peter Doig, Tracey Emin to mention a few, plus some less familiar, providing a very useful if brief summary of art today
"ART NOW Artist at the rise of the new Millennium" ISBN 9783822840931 (pub April 2005)
A scaled down version of the above; this is fairly compact book with around 360 pages, it measures 22.5cmm x 18cm (8.75"x7"). It covers the work of just 81 of the artists from the original edition, exactly as they appear there. There are over 500 illustrations almost entirelyin colour. The book concludes with a glossary & brief biographical notes on the authors, but there is no "Art Newspaper"
"ART NOW VOL 2 137 Artists at the Rise of the New Millennium" ISBN 3822839965 (pub Dec 2005)
This edition I have not seen, but I understand that the format is the same as before; however all the artists covered are entirely new, none is repeated from previous issues. It is listed as having 640 pages & as being the same size as the original edition.
Excellent - By: Farmer Clare, 26 Apr 2007 As with all Taschen art books, this has beautiful & huge colour prints throughout & is a facinating look at a little bit about vast varieties of different modern artists. Extremely interesting, even for those with no interestin art.
Great! - By: , 17 Dec 2002 This book is a continuation of the book "Art at the turn of the
Millenium". It follows exactly the same format. Each artist has
four pages of photographs dedicated to his or her work. There is also a small paragraph about the artist & a mug shot of the artist's
head. Unfortunately, the problems with the origional book have
carried through to this one. The captions to the pictures are unhelpfull, especially with installation & film work & there is little quality writing about the artistin question. However,
the book is extremely concentrated & none (as far as I can see)
of the works featuredin the origional book are featured here,
even though many of the artists are. The works on show are thus
those since 2000 or there about. It is however, extremely good value & contains much material which is unavailable outside
art magazines & gallery brochures over the last few years.
If you liked the origional book then this is more of the same, & it's just as good as the last one, if not better!
However, those wanting to begin learning about modern art would
be well advised to look elsewhere. For some artists, the entries
may well mean nothing to you if you don't know at least something about those artists or have seen their exhibitions.
Great! I hope another one comes outin three years time!
