Texts by Angela Lampe, Michael Baumgartner, Charles W. Haxthausen, Christine Hopfengart, Cathrin Klingsohr-Leroy

Known for its whimsy and levity, Paul Klee’s art is often considered gleefully childlike. This groundbreaking volume argues that Klee’s style emerged from a philosophical school that originated with early German Romanticism and consisted of perpetual shifts between satire and affirmation of the absolute, finite and infinite, and real and ideal. Featuring approximately 250 works, this careful appreciation of Klee connects each stage of his career to the larger philosophical context.

Exploring the satires and caricatures of Klee’s youth, his experimentations in Cubism and “mechanical theater,”and the constructivist approach of the Bauhaus school, this book follows the trajectory of Klee’s oeuvre as a reflection of prevailing styles. It closes with the artist’s final years, in which he was labeled a “degenerate artist” by the Nazi regime and struggled with illness. Viewed through the many facets of irony as a complex theme, and against the backdrop of Europe’s seismic political and artistic movements, Klee’s body of work takes on a renewed significance as one of the most critical of its generation.

Paul Klee: Irony at Work

A painting by On Kawara, titled MAY 11, 1967, dated 1967.

On Kawara, One Million Years (Past), 1970-1971, Page 2001.

Tommy Simoens

Jonathan Watkins

Texts by Tommy Simoens and Jonathan Watkins

On Kawara (1932–2014) is considered to be one of the most important and most radical modern artists of our time. His oeuvre is consumed with time and place, concepts that he used to try and map out the meaning of human existence.

 focuses on Kawara’s creations from 1966, which was a key year within his oeuvre as it was the birth of his world-famous date paintings—small paintings in which he inscribed the exact date on which he created the painting in white letters and numbers on a monochromatic background. If a painting wasn’t complete by midnight, it was destroyed. Since the start of the 

 series, as the entire collection is called, in 1966, he created more than 2,000 date paintings in more than 100 different cities. The artist used a folder to accurately record the days on which he created a painting and what the format was. He also kept a smear of the paint he used and the newspaper headlines for that day in this folder. This folder, in which he documented his 1966 creations, is fully portrayed in 

In 2015, Kawara’s date paintings from 1966 were displayed in the Dhondt-Dhaenens Museum in Deurle. This was the last project that the artist collaborated on, together with the museum curator and the editor of this book, Tommy Simoens, before his death in 2014.

On Kawara: 1966

14.08.041_mama-mummy-and-mamma-predecessors-2_splash_1

Portrait of Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Photo by Stefan Ruiz

Texts by Cheryl Brutvan and Taiye Selasi

This catalogue is the first publication to focus on the work of Nigerian-born, L.A.-based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby. It accompanied an exhibition of the artist's work held at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2016. Contents include an introductory essay by exhibition curator Cheryl Brutvan, Taiye Selasi's text "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What Is An Afropolitan?)", artist interview, artist's chronology, and select bibliography and exhibition history. With full color reproductions of all works in the exhibition.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby: I Refuse to be Invisible

"This is a Book of Drawings that was made by me, Jason Rhoades over the time of the conception, production, erection and realization of a project / sculpture 'Perfect World'.”

 is a large-scale artist’s book consisting of over 400 single-sided reproductions of Rhoades’s drawings and handwritten notes, bound together by four aluminum screw bolts. Although originated by the artist during the presentation of his immense and critically acclaimed exhibition 

 at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in 1999, 

 was not an actual catalogue for the show, but instead a stand-alone object produced as part of the preparation for, and creation of the piece. Intended as a sort of user’s manual, the book reveals the artist’s grappling with the enormity of the 

 exhibition, as well as the conceptual and physical challenges he was facing in his creative process more generally.

 on the occasion of the 2016 LA Art Book Fair. This numbered edition of 100 copies features all the original black and white reproductions as well as one of Rhoades’s original cover designs, a color photograph depicting his father’s garden.

Jason Rhoades: Xerox Book

Antoon Melissen

Over the course of nearly 40 years, Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven (1914–1994) produced works on paper and sculptural reliefs, while maintaining his job as a civil servant employed by the Dutch Post Office. This new monograph places the artist, one of the most important Dutch artists of the 20th century, in an international context, arguing for his role as an influential player in European art after the Second World War.

From his central position in the Netherlandish Informal Group, associated with Art Informel, to his later involvement with the Dutch Nul group, part of the international ZERO network, Schoonhoven participated in two of the most important currents of postwar European abstraction from his hometown of Delft. This volume features many hitherto unknown works and photographs and sheds new light on the work of the “master of white.”

Jan Schoonhoven

Briony Fer

Jessamyn Fiore

Sarah Sze

Text by Briony Fer. Interview with Sarah Sze by Jessamyn Fiore

Well known for his radical “anarchitectural” interventions throughout the 1970s, Gordon Matta-Clark was always deeply, though less publicly, committed to drawing. His works on paper—which span three-dimensional reliefs, calligraphy, and notebook entries—capture the interdisciplinary spirit that defined the art world in the 1970s. Intricate and concise, they testify to his interest in the crossovers between visual and performance arts, as well as the broader integration within his oeuvre of the natural and built environment.

Documenting the artist’s extraordinary accomplishments as a draftsman, this publication originates from the 2015 solo presentation at David Zwirner, New York, entitled 

, organized in close collaboration with Jane Crawford and Jessamyn Fiore from the Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark. This catalogue presents in vibrant detail selections from Matta-Clark’s 

, and his own “calligraphy,” many of which have never been published. Perhaps the best known of the group, the 

 explore parallel, smaller-format versions of his physical interventions in architecture; slicing meticulously through several layers of paper, gesso, or cardboard, Matta-Clark created sculptural flat works that emphasized the voids created by the extraction of matter. Drawings with his own “calligraphy” emphasize the medium of drawing as an independent form. Abstract letters make up a code that remains indecipherable, but points toward a visionary longing to invent new languages and structures of experience. Some of the most elaborate and colorful compositions include trees, several of which refer explicitly to Matta-Clark’s 

 performance at Vassar College in upstate New York in 1971. In full-color plates, the reader can see the physical structure of his trees “dissolving” into kinetic energy and, in some drawings, becoming reduced to a multitude of arrows. Near-abstract tree shapes also incorporate his calligraphic marks, with branches constructed from imaginary letters, again emphasizing the importance of language to a new visual experience. Matta-Clark’s notebooks, which he often insisted on completing in a single sitting, are presented in elegantly curated groups. Combining elements of Surrealist automatic drawing with an interest in choreography, these works appealed to performance artists at the time—including Laurie Anderson and Trisha Brown. This unparalleled presentation of Matta-Clark’s drawings is accompanied by new and exciting scholarship by Briony Fer, as well as a conversation between Jessamyn Fiore and contemporary artist Sarah Sze; it marks a major contribution to the literature on this highly influential artist.

Drawings and Notebooks

Gordon Matta-Clark: The Beginning of Trees and the End

Eva Badura-Triska

Veit Loers

Bernhard Riff

Texts by Eva Badura-Triska, Veit Loers, and Bernhard Riff

During the 1990s, Franz West’s work moved in new and innovative stylistic directions, as his career was solidified through important international exhibitions. This publication delves into this significant decade in an effort to contextualize the evolution of West’s singular practice.

The 1990s proved critical in the development of the idiosyncratic style for which West is still known today. His key innovations from this period—which included the addition of exuberant color to his papier-mâché forms, the incorporation of furniture both as art object and as social incubator, and the inclusion of work by other artists in his own installations—resulted in dynamic, frequently interactive installations that helped to expand the possibilities of sculpture and the ways in which art is experienced. Produced on the occasion of David Zwirner’s 2014 exhibition in New York, this fully illustrated publication gives an in-depth overview of the decade, arguably the most important of the artist’s lengthy career. It features essays by noted West scholars Eva Badura-Triska and Veit Loers, as well as a personal account by Bernhard Riff on video collaborations made with the artist throughout the 1990s.

Franz West: The 1990s

Elena Filipovic

Danh Vo

Carol Bove

Tino Sehgal

Texts by Elena Filipovic, Danh Vo, Carol Bove, and Tino Sehgal

Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Specific Objects Without Specific Form

 documents the groundbreaking retrospective curated by Elena Filipovic with the artists Danh Vo, Carol Bove, and Tino Sehgal that traveled to Wiels Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels, Fondation Beyeler in Basel, and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt in 2010 and 2011.

Organized by Wiels Contemporary Art Centre in collaboration with the 

, the exhibition offered visitors the possibility of finding a new interpretation of Gonzalez-Torres' work with each visit. Following the installation of a retrospective version of the exhibition at each institution by Elena Filipovic, an artist whose practice has been informed by Gonzalez-Torres’s work was invited to entirely re-install the show halfway through its duration. Danh Vo’s version was presented at Wiels, Carol Bove’s at the Fondation Beyeler, and Tino Sehgal’s at the Museum für Moderne Kunst. Through this structure, the exhibition evolved into several different forms—none being the definitive one.

The publication has been years in the making as Elena Filipovic and the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation worked together to find the best ways to present the complexities and nuances of the exhibition. The book includes installation views of each version of the show and an illustrated checklist with images of the artworks in every instance of their installation. The structure of the publication allows the reader to see the immensely different ways the artworks can be installed, as well as how context acted on and through each piece during the cycle of exhibitions.

Amanda Cruz

Lewis Baltz

Roland Barthes

Carlos Basualdo

Bertold Brecht

David Deitcher

Marguerite Duras

Russell Ferguson

Rainer Fuchs

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

bell hooks

Miwon Kwon

Charles Merewether

Gerardo Mosquera

Bob Nickas

Virgilio Piñera

Rainer Maria Rilke

Tim Rollins

Susan Sontag

Nancy Spector

Wallace Stevens

Robert Storr

Susan Tallman

Anne Umland

Simon Watney

Edited by Julie Ault. Texts by Amanda Cruz, Lewis Baltz, Roland Barthes, Carlos Basualdo, Bertolt Brecht, David Deitcher, Marguerite Duras, Russell Ferguson, Rainer Fuchs, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, bell hooks, Miwon Kwon, Charles Merewether, Gerardo Mosquera, Bob Nickas, Virgilio Piñera, Rainer Maria Rilke, Tim Rollins, Susan Sontag, Nancy Spector, Wallace Stevens, Robert Storr, Susan Tallman, Anne Umland, and Simon Watney. Chronology by Julie Ault

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, one of the most influential artists of his generation, lived and worked resolutely according to his own democratic ideology, determined to “make this a better place for everyone.” Combining principles of conceptual art, minimalism, political activism, and poetic beauty, Gonzalez-Torres’s ever-changing arsenal included public billboards, give-away piles of candy or posters, and ordinary objects (clocks, mirrors, light fixtures) often used to startling effect. His work challenged the notions of public and private space, originality, authorship, and—most significantly—the authoritative structure in which he functioned.

Now in its second edition, Gonzalez-Torres’s editor Julie Ault has amassed a comprehensive monograph of this important artist. In the spirit of the artist’s method, Ault rethinks the very idea of what a monograph should be. The book, which places strong emphasis on the written word, contains texts by Robert Storr and Miwon Kwon among other notables, as well as significant critical essays, exhibition statements, transcripts from lectures, personal correspondence, and writings that influenced Gonzalez-Torres and his work. Ample visual documentation adds another decisive layer of content. We see works not just in their finality, but often witness their transformation over a lifespan. This collection is a critical reference for the history of contemporary art.

With hundreds of pages of new and previously unpublished essays, notes, and letters, 

 is the most comprehensive collection of the artist’s writings assembled to date.

This timely publication includes Judd’s best-known essays, as well as little-known texts previously published in limited editions. Moreover, this new collection also includes unpublished college essays and hundreds of never-before-seen notes, a critical but unknown part of Judd’s writing practice.

Judd’s earliest published writing, consisting largely of art reviews for hire, defined the terms of art criticism in the 1960s, but his essays as an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, published here for the first time, contain the seeds of his later writing, and allow readers to trace the development of his critical style. The writings that followed Judd’s early reviews are no less significant art-historically, but have been relegated to smaller publications and have remained largely unavailable until now. The largest addition of newly available material is Judd’s unpublished notes—transcribed from his handwritten accounts of and reactions to subjects ranging from the politics of his time, to the literary texts he admired most. In these intimate reflections we see Judd’s thinking at his least mediated—a mind continuing to grapple with questions of its moment, thinking them through, changing positions, and demonstrating the intensity of thought that continues to make Judd such a formidable presence in contemporary visual art.

Edited by the artist’s son, Judd Foundation curator and co-president Flavin Judd, and Judd Foundation archivist Caitlin Murray, this volume finally provides readers with the full extent of Donald Judd’s influence on contemporary art, art history, and art criticism.

Donald Judd Writings

Claudia Jolles

Ellie Meyer

Texts by Claudia Jolles, Flavin Judd, and Ellie Meyer

The work of Donald Judd, one of the most significant American artists of the postwar period, has come to define Minimalist art, a label to which the artist strongly objected. The unaffected, straightforward quality of Judd’s work demonstrates his strong interest in color, form, material, and space. Wanting to create works that could assume a direct material and physical presence without recourse to grand philosophical statements, Judd eschewed classical ideals of representational sculpture and created works that relied on clear, definite objects.

 represents the first-ever focused examination of Judd’s works in Cor-ten steel, which he began to produce in earnest in 1989 and would continue to elaborate on until his death in 1994. Cor-ten is an alloy that makes steel more resistant to corrosion, and eliminates the need for paint. With its distinctive red-brown patina, Cor-ten afforded Judd a new medium for exploring the relationship between surface and volume, as well as color and form. Prior to 1989, Judd executed a handful of works in Cor-ten primarily as outdoor commissions or site-specific works. This volume is produced on the occasion of the 2015 exhibition at David Zwirner, New York. Designed in close collaboration with Flavin Judd and Judd Foundation, 

 sheds new light on a body of work that represents the culmination of three decades of aesthetic output and underscores the mastery and control over material and space that characterizes Judd’s practice as a whole.

Donald Judd: Cor-ten

Robin Clark

A key member of the Light and Space movement in Los Angeles during the 1960s and 1970s, De Wain Valentine is distinguished in particular by his in-depth understanding of synthetic materials and his ability to transform industrial products into artworks that investigate the seductive power of light, transparency, reflection, and surface. Published in conjunction with his critically lauded 2015 exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, 

De Wain Valentine: Works from the 1960s and 1970s

 focuses on the artist’s pioneering achievements in polyester resin. A new scholarly text by Robin Clark on Valentine’s production from this period details his personal history and his innovations with this material. Influenced by the vast California landscape, he was initially confronted with material limitations: at the time, polyester resins could not be poured in volumes exceeding fifty pounds. Not willing to accept this restriction, Valentine partnered with Hastings Plastics in 1966 to create an entirely new resin that could be cast in larger quantities. The resulting material, known as Valentine MasKast Resin, allowed the artist to dramatically increase the scale of his work. With its inherent ability to contain and reflect light, while maintaining a powerful luminous dimension, polyester resin would form the foundation of Valentine’s practice.

 includes rich color plates of Valentine’s “Columns,” corporeally scaled sculptures cast in colored polyester resins that recede from a wider base up to a narrow tip; his “Circles,” 6-foot discs that display not only the artist’s mastery of geometrical form, but also highlight his command of color in sculpture; and a selection of the artist’s smaller forms—rings, discs, and double pyramids. The catalogue also features extensive documentation of 

 (1975–1976), two massive, identical columns that each stand twelve feet tall. Originally executed for Baxter Travenol Laboratories’ newly built corporate headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois, Valentine had conceived of two immense vertical columns standing side by side, but because of architectural modifications (the ceiling in the company’s reception area was lowered at a late stage of construction), Valentine was forced to install the two slabs on their sides. Forty years after its initial conception, the exhibition at David Zwirner represented the first time this work was presented in its intended configuration.

Abigail McEwen

Pedro de Oraá

Susanna Temkin

Lucas Zwirner

Text by Abigail McEwen. Interview with Pedro de Oraá by Lucas Zwirner. Illustrated chronology by Susanna Temkin

Radical political shifts that raged throughout Cuba in the 1950s coincided with the development of Cuban geometric abstraction and, notably, the formation of Los Diez Pintores Concretos (Ten Concrete Painters). The decade was marked by widespread turmoil and corruption following the 1952 military coup and by rising nationalist sentiments. At the same time, Havana was undergoing rapid urbanization and quickly becoming an international city. Against this vibrant backdrop, artists sought a new visual language in which art, specifically abstract art, could function as political and social practice.

 marks one of the first major presentations outside of Cuba to focus exclusively on the origins of concretism in the country. It includes important works from the late 1940s through the early 1960s by the twelve artists who were at different times associated with the short-lived group: Pedro Álvarez, Wifredo Arcay, Mario Carreño, Salvador Corratgé, Sandú Darié, Luis Martínez Pedro, Alberto Menocal, José M. Mijares, Pedro de Oraá, José Ángel Rosabal, Loló Soldevilla, and Rafael Soriano. Many of the group’s members had traveled widely in the preceding years and corresponded with those at the forefront of European and South American abstract movements.

Produced on the occasion of the major exhibition at David Zwirner, 

 is the first in-depth catalogue on the subject to be published in English; the show offered a “wonderful taste of a very complicated history,” according to Roberta Smith of 

. With an extensive plate section, which includes works from the exhibition and a selection of important pieces from the permanent collection of Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, this volume provides readers with a rich visual experience of this crucial period in modernism’s history. The catalogue also features an extensively researched illustrated chronology, compiled by Susanna Temkin, which tracks the development of the period artistically and politically from 1939 through 1964. New scholarship by Abigail McEwen offers an interpretative framework for this group of artists, and a deeper understanding of the forces behind the development of this movement. Also included is a conversation between Lucas Zwirner and Pedro de Oraá, one of the central members of Los Diez.

Concrete Cuba: Cuban Geometric Abstraction from the 1950s

Marcel Proust

Jennie Feldman

ekphrasis

By Marcel Proust. Afterword by Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat. Translated by Jennie Feldman

Long overlooked in Proust’s posthumously published writings, 

, written when he was only twenty-four years old, not only reemphasizes the importance of visual art to his development, but contains the seeds of his later work.

Proposed in 1895 by Proust to the newspaper 

 (it was rejected), this essay is much more than a straightforward piece of art criticism. It is a literary experiment in which an unnamed narrator gives advice to a young man suffering from melancholy, taking him on an imaginary tour through the Louvre where his readings of Chardin imbue the everyday world with new meaning, and his ruminations on Rembrandt take his melancholic pupil beyond the realm of mere objects.

Published for the first time as a stand-alone volume and newly translated, this edition, part of the David Zwirner Books 

 series, aims to introduce a wider audience to one of Proust’s most important and influential works in Western literature. “For the true artist,” as Proust writes, “as for the natural scientist, every 

 is interesting, and even the smallest muscle has its importance.” The same could be said of the author’s own work—every essay has its own crucial place in the formation of his groundbreaking oeuvre.

The afterword by renowned Proust scholar Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat, originally published in the French by Le Bruit du Temps, is an impassioned argument in favor of returning to the lost paths of Proust’s early thinking. It sees, in the passage from Chardin’s world of objects to Rembrandt’s contemplative paintings, a movement toward the radical interiority for which Proust would later become widely celebrated as a novelist. Written at the beginning of his literary career, 

 gestures back to some of Proust’s earliest notes on art, while creating space for what was to come.

Chardin and Rembrandt

Stan Douglas

Jason E. Smith

Diana Thater

Edited with an introduction by Stan Douglas. Foreword by Diana Thater and Jason E. Smith

Contributions by Beth B, Rosetta Brooks, Luís Castro Leiva, Meg Cranston, Charles Gaines, Jack Goldstein, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Susan Hiller, Roni Horn, Kellie Jones, Mike Kelley, Justen Ladda, Thomas Lawson, Sylvère Lotringer, John Miller, Constance Penley, Brian Routh, Mira Schor, Allan Sekula, Robert Storr, and Lynne Tillman

This collection of never-before-published talks at one of the leading art schools in the United States, documents an exciting decade in the development of contemporary art and arts education, featuring interviews with renowned artists, curators, and writers.

Introduced in 1986 as an initiative by Richard Hertz (Chair, Academic Studies, 1979–2003), the Graduate Art Department of the ArtCenter College of Design, located in Pasadena, California, celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2016. This book documents the first decade of the department’s existence by presenting a selection from over three hundred talks, including a 1990 symposium conducted by renowned curator and art historian Robert Storr, as well as twelve talks from its artists and critics lecture series known as the Graduate Seminar. Discussions between students and faculty members range from what it means to be an artist and the changing role of art in society, to how artists function within an academic setting.

Alongside the newly transcribed talks, this volume also includes reproductions of slides used by participants at the time. Bringing the presentations to life, these archival images offer a sense of the context and spirit of the original seminars. Together, an introduction by Stan Douglas—ArtCenter Graduate Art faculty member—and a foreword by Diana Thater and Jason E. Smith, Chair and Associate Chair of Graduate Art, present historical context for these illuminating talks.

The First Decade 1986–1995 

ArtCenter Talks: Graduate Seminar

An untitled painting by Noah Davis, dated 2015.

Texts by Maikoio Alley Barnes, Helen Molesworth, Henry Taylor, and Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker

This catalogue is published by the Frye Art Museum on the occasion of the exhibition 

Young Blood: Noah Davis, Kahlil Joseph, The Underground Museum

. Celebrating the life and legacy of painter, curator, and visionary artist Noah Davis (1983–2015), 

 places Davis’ work in the context of an ongoing visual dialogue with his elder brother, artist and filmmaker Kahlil Joseph. The catalogue features essays by Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, curator of the exhibition; Helen Molesworth, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Henry Taylor, Davis’ friend and fellow artist; and Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, director emerita of the Frye Art Museum. The catalogue contains rich reproductions of the paintings, installations, sculptural, and filmic works in the exhibition. 

is a celebration of black culture, spirituality, and creative legacy.

Marcel Dzama

Justin Peck

Text by Hans Christian Andersen. Interview with Marcel Dzama and Justin Peck by Lucas Zwirner

Marcel Dzama’s prolific output as a draftsman has, in recent years, expanded to include works in many different media—film, sculpture, dance, collage, and even a recent collaboration with artist Raymond Pettibon are all part of his current practice. His at times surreal, often frightening vision, translates beautifully to film and dance, where actors in complex costumes bring to life the worlds Dzama draws on paper.

Published on the occasion of his collaborative ballet with choreographer Justin Peck and musician Bryce Dessner at the New York City Ballet, 

 documents the genesis of all aspects of the project. The gem-like booklet begins with “The Most Incredible Thing,” the Hans Christian Andersen story on which the ballet is based, and continues to present Dzama’s costume designs. The images not only show final design decisions, but also chart the changes in costumes as the project unfolded, and the ways in which Dzama’s conception of the characters in the ballet shifted over time. The book closes with a conversation between Dzama and Peck in which choreographer and artist discuss the nuances of their collaborative process, and the important role of renowned composer Dessner in bringing the project to life. Also included is a poster made specifically for this book by the artist.

Marcel Dzama: The Book of Ballet (La chose la plus incroyable dans le monde)

A still from a film by Francis Alys, titled Children’s Game #26: Kisolo, Tabacongo, DR Congo, dated 2021.

Francis Alÿs

Catherine Lampert

Texts by Francis Alÿs and Catherine Lampert

Francis Alÿs is known for his discreet performative solo actions as well as for coordinating large-scale collective allegorical events. Many of these performances—both ones in which the artist features as a protagonist and the mass actions in which Alÿs himself stays on the sidelines—are now revered as classics of the genre. Characteristic of his approach, whose site-specific projects broach specific local and political situations through dialogue with people rather than by addressing them directly, is the process of negotiation and interaction.

, 1995–) exemplifies the subtlety and inscrutable quality of his oeuvre at large. The small pictures on wood panels measuring approximately 4.3 by 5.9 inches depict miniature scenes and often look like snapshots of simple gestures and activities that, upon closer inspection, appear to be fairly absurd.

It is a series of 111 such paintings the artist created over the past two decades but regards as incomplete. Rather than add new pictures to the ensemble, Alÿs reworks, alters, augments the existing panels, sometimes even overpainting them completely. Some have gone untouched for years, while others are subject to frequent revision. Around one quarter of the series has been repainted since it was last presented; no fewer than sixteen pictures were altered in 2016 alone, as date stamps indicate. The various stages in the work’s ongoing transformation—it may be said to evolve alongside the artist himself—survive only in photographic documentation, illustrating the constancy of Alÿs’s art and the foundation on which it rests, but also his changing interests and priorities.

The pictures are demanding in every respect: with their small formats, they disclose nothing to the fleeting glance—they demand sustained attention. Most of the compositions originated in the notebooks of the artists, whose painterly oeuvre has grown in parallel with his actions and major collaborative projects since the beginning of his career. Its defining feature are recurrent or similar figures that appear time and again, like the characters in a novel. Certain conspicuous protagonists clad in suits and known from other painting series as “the Liar,” “the Prophet,” “the Clown,” and the like were first sketched in 

 and then elaborated elsewhere, or conversely migrated from other creations into the series. Mirroring and inversion are frequent stylistic devices in Alÿs’s work, both in his writings and in his pictures. Le temps du sommeil thus blends the functions of an archive, a creative repertoire, and a medium for brainstorming.

Another salient aspect of his art is the interweaving of word and image, often through the titles of the works. The visitor should not be misled by the fact that the pictures in the series are presented alongside conceptual writings and ideas for interventions and works. The texts are not intended as annotations to the images; they enter into a dialogue with them, shining a light, always tinged with humor, on the complex interrelationship between visual and verbal communication.

Francis Alÿs: Le temps du sommeil

Michael Auping

Alexandra Whitney

Texts by Michael Auping and Alexandra Whitney

Showcasing Dan Flavin’s “corner,” “barrier,” and “corridor” works, this catalogue explores the artist’s core sculptural vocabulary and how his use of fluorescent light forged a new relationship between the art object and its surrounding architecture.

This publication examines how Flavin’s light works, which he described as “situations,” function in space, occupying key positions that highlight how the rooms themselves are constructed. The exhibition is not only historically significant, as it mines early explorations in Flavin’s practice, but many of the works are reproduced for the first time in plates that accurately capture their colors. Published on the occasion of the 2015 eponymous exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, 

takes as its point of departure the artist’s influential show, 

corners, barriers and corridors in fluorescent light from Dan Flavin

, presented at the Saint Louis Art Museum in 1973.

Above all, the photography reveals the unexpected and powerful interplay between the light of neighboring pieces and the space—the way the walls, floor, and various hues mingle to form unpredicted palettes that reveal what Michael Auping, following Donald Judd, calls the “exoskeleton.” These works, with their immediate relationship to architecture, not only function as color experiments but as structural explorations in light, and in his essay, Auping explores how Flavin’s investigations of corners, barriers, and corridors became an essential part of the way the artist understood space. This publication also features rarely seen photographs of Flavin installing his historic 1973 exhibition, as well as detailed notes by Alexandra Whitney about the works included in the St. Louis presentation. Designed by McCall Associates, in close collaboration with the Estate of Dan Flavin, this catalogue presents an especially significant body of work in a completely new way and offers a vital historical perspective on Flavin’s practice.

Dan Flavin: Corners, Barriers and Corridors

A detail from a work by Bridget Riley, titled Study for Measure for Measure Dark 2, dated 2019.

Portrait of Bridget Riley, 2021. Photo by Yuki Shima

Robert Kudielka

Texts by Robert Kudielka and Richard Shiff

Bridget Riley’s explorations of perception through form and color have made her into one of the most significant painters working today. Since the early 1960s, she has used elementary shapes—lines, circles, curves, and squares—to create visual experiences that immediately draw the viewer in, often triggering optical vibrations and illusions. More recently, Riley has shifted back to black and white in her large-scale paintings, marking a departure from her recent colored stripe paintings and a return to the palette of some of her earliest works.

Published on the occasion of her 2015 solo exhibition at David Zwirner, 

 presents paintings from the last thirty-four years of her career, including images of 

, a wall painting previously shown in Germany and England, and exhibited for the first time in New York. These dynamic reproductions begin with stripe paintings from the 1980s and end with a coda of sorts —a return to black and white that ties back to her work from the 1960s, but bear traces of Riley’s deep engagement with color in the interim. As critic Éric de Chassey puts it in his essay for Riley’s 2015 catalogue with Galerie Max Hetzler: “The black-and-white paintings not only enter into a dialogue with the 1960s works, but take stock of every painting experience Riley has created during a long career.”

Also included is a selection of the artist’s works on paper; taken together, these complementary aspects of her practice over the past four decades reveal the astonishing variety she has achieved by developing and rediscovering different forms. An essay by art historian Richard Shiff helps contextualize the developments in Riley’s practice since the early 1980s, and further emphasizes her influence and lineage as a painter. Rounding out the publication are biographical notes by Robert Kudielka, one of the artist’s foremost critics. With a career spanning six decades, Bridget Riley remains one of the most exciting painters today, and 

 presents a selection of works from what may be her richest period to date.

Bridget Riley: Works 1981–2015

Paul Morris

One of America’s most celebrated cartoonists, Robert Crumb helped define cartoon and punk subcultures of the 1960s and 1970s with comic strips like 

. The open sexuality of his work, paired with frequent self-deprecation and a free, almost stream-of-consciousness style, have made Crumb into a global voice and a renowned contemporary artist.

Originally published by Kitchen Sink Press in 1996, 

 is at once a satirical take on aesthetics and a continued exploration of Crumb’s subversion of sexuality and mainstream values. Drawings of women in positions ranging from lascivious to modest or mid-sport are accompanied by quotations, many of which are from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Harvey Kurtzman. Mining his own obsessions and fantasies, Crumb reimagines the history of art, challenging notions of beauty, along with society’s mores and expectations of propriety around the female form. The second volume of 

, published in 2003, expanded on the first, adding all new drawings (also of women) and quotations, likewise taken from the history of art and aesthetics. The effect of both volumes is undeniably destabilizing. The images appeal to a purely erotic sensibility, which in turn is undercut by the inclusion of highfalutin and frequently philosophical prose. The images drag philosophy back down to earth, while the writing challenges the pure eroticism of Crumb’s drawings.

 is released for the first time as part of 

Art & Beauty Magazine: Drawings by R. Crumb. 

It is published on the occasion of Crumb's exhibition at David Zwirner, London, which debuts the new work he created for the magazine’s third issue. Presenting all three volumes in one book, 

 is arranged chronologically and guides the reader through the twenty-year history of Crumb’s magazine, from the earliest images in the 1990s to the most recent drawings completed in 2016. Paul Morris, longtime gallerist and supporter of Crumb’s practice, writes an introduction that contextualizes this body of work and the artist’s career as a whole. This beautiful edition, with a cover specially designed by Crumb for its release, makes the initial two issues available for the first time in over ten years, and presents the new and previously unpublished material from the third. For seasoned supporters and novices alike, 

Art & Beauty Magazine: Drawings by R. Crumb

 is a wonderful window into Crumb’s world of bodies and ideas, art and beauty. A limited edition of 400 signed copies is published as well.

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