Description
One of today's leading conceptual artists, Los Angeles-based Walead Beshty (b. 1976, London) works across photography, sculpture and words. Beshty's art is expansive and best described as an ongoing conversation, to which this monograph is his next articulation. Through a deconstructing lens, Walead Beshty explores every exhibition and project the artist has presented in collaboration with Thomas Dane Gallery in London, Turin and Naples. The monograph offers a guide to some of the artist's key bodies of work.
Uncovering processes is central to Beshty's art. He deliberately incorporated marks made by oxidation and human touch into his FedEx copper works and Copper Surrogate works, as well as photographing the many individuals involved in his exhibitions in Industrial Portraits. The work that has gone into this substantial new monograph, which features contributions from publisher Francis Atterbury, book designer Billie Temple and Thomas Dane partner Francois Chantala, is, quite literally, laid bare. Also presented is an insightful essay by leading professor of Juridical Sociology at University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Carlo De Rita.
Adopting a semiotic approach to books as 'not just a thing you hold, but something held in common', Walead Beshty embraces the archetypal format, tropes and conventions of a traditional - if unorthodox - book, employing printing and publishing practices seldom seen in contemporary bookmaking. It reflects on what an artist's monograph might represent as it explores the contingencies that allow art to function. Walead Beshty is itself another carefully curated exhibition of his work.
Walead Beshty's Addenda to a Sequence of Appearances is a highly conceptual work and a continuation of the themes of his artistic practice, exploring how we envision and interact with an artist book.
About the Author
Walead Beshty is an artist, writer and curator living and working in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions at such institutions as Musee d'art moderne et contemporain, Switzerland; the Barbican Centre, London; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Malmoe Konsthall, Sweden and Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid. His work has been included in the 2015 Venice Biennale, 2012 Shanghai Biennale, 2009 Tate Triennial, and 2008 Whitney Biennial. Beshty's work is held in permanent museum collections worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate, London, England and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
Book Information
ISBN 9780903696623
Author Walead Beshty
Format Hardback
Page Count 216
Imprint Hurtwood Press
Publisher Hurtwood Press
Weight(grams) 800g