30 artists use the theme of clothing to reflect on gender, social status, desire and fetishism. Artists include Polly Apfelbaum, Joseph Beuys, Sarah Charlesworth, Maureen Connor, Nancy Davidson, Constance DeJong, Lesley Dill, Suzan Etkin, Steven Evans, Leslie Fry, Robert Gober, Theodore Gostas, Kathy Grove and Larry List, Oliver Herring, Mary Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Annette Messager, Tony Oursler, Zizi Raymond, Elaine Reichek, Ruth Scheuing, Stephen Schofield, Beverly Semme, Judith Shea, Cindy Sherman, Elise Siegel, Claude Simard, Mille Wilson and Christopher Wool.

Empty Dress: Clothing as Surrogate in Recent Art

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Independent Curators International (ICI)

This brief history analyzes women's use of video to expolore identity and other issues and surveys the work of 21 artists.

The First Generation: Women And Video, 1970-75T

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

This landmark volume examines the life and work of the extraordinary Swiss Surrealist Meret Oppenheim. Although she became famous at the age of 23 for her fur-covered teacup, she subsequently suffered years of critical neglect, and her subversive work has only recently begun to receive the acclaim it deserves. This beautiful catalogue covers the full range of her art, embracing sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, assemblage, photography, fashion and jewelry design, and a selection of Oppenheim's poems. Now available to the trade in a paperback edition.

Meret Oppenheim: Beyond The Teacup

Burckhardt, Jacqueline

Individual Artists

This catalogue examines a major though little-known body of David Smith's work. Enraged by the rise of fascism that he witnessed while visiting Europe in the 1930s, Smith began to work on the “Medals for Dishonor.” Approaching the tradition of commemorative medallions ironically, Smith denounces historical players who willingly contributed to the horrors of war.

David Smith: Medals For Dishonor

Ashton, Dore

Brenson, Michael

Marks, Matthew

Since the 1980s, with the advent of multiple public crises such as AIDS, homelessness, the politics of sexual identity and abortion rights, the bed has taken on a greater symbolic weight, becoming a pivotal metaphor for the intersection of private and public boundaries. This themed survey includes work by Bob Flanagan, Zoe Leonard and Carrie Mae Weems among others.

Embedded Metaphor

This exhibition examines the uses and the value of the miniscule in contemporary art. It traces recent interest in small-scale art back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, highlighting the work of artists such as Ilya Kabakov, Yoko Ono, Joel Shapiro, Hanna Wilke and many others. In surveying this legacy, the collection presents the work of younger artists who draw on the history of Conceptualism with mischievous absurdity, in many cases hinting that art gains significance as it comes close to disappearing, rehearsing its own erasure. The participating artists are Chris Burden, James Lee Byars, Gene Davis, Jessica Diamond, Judy Fiskin, Tom Friedman, Bethan Huws, Ilya Kabakov, Steve Keister, Charles LeDray, Elizabeth LeMoine, Siobhan Liddell, Guy Limone, John Miller, Joan Nelson, Yoko Ono, Aura Rosenberg, Michael Ross, Sam Samore, Hagop Sandaldjian, Peter Santino, Joel Shapiro, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jeffrey Valance, Hannah Wilke and B. Wurtz.

At The Threshold Of The Visible: Miniscule and Small-Scale Art, 1964-1996

Rugoff, Ralph

Based on the concept of a do-it-yourself manual, Do It provides step by step instructions for producing actions, artworks and events that can be constructed and conducted either at home or at a museum.

Do It (INDEPENDENT CUR)

Altschuler, Bruce

Bold and necessary in both critical approach and geographical range, Beyond Preconceptions: The Sixties Experiment provides a look at parallel art developments in Eastern and Western Europe and in North and South America in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This richly illustrated catalogue and its five revelatory essays show how a small, forward-thinking group of artists translated similar concepts into a variety of approaches based on their specific cultural context. These artists include Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Lygia Clark, Hanne Darboven, Victor Grippo, Eva Hesse, Ilya Kabakov, Jiri Kolar, Bruce Nauman and Helio Oticica. The new models of artistic practice developed by these artists continue to shape what a younger generation of artists is creating today, particularly where institutional critique and concepts of authorship are concerned.

Beyond Preconceptions: The Sixties Experiment

Rinder, Lawrence

Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More...On Collecting examines the collecting impulse in its various incarnations, raising fundamental questions about why we collect and why we collect what we collect. Surprising and eccentric, this publication features three utterly different collections: Pictures (and other contemporary art objects) from the renowned Robert Shiffler Foundation in Ohio; Patents, a selection of the Smithsonian's collection of patent models submitted to the US Patent Office in the nineteenth century; and finally Monkeys, from a private New York-based collection of approximately 1,600 sock monkeys toys. Running the gamut from high art to the unmapped inspirational dregs of American culture, Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More...On Collecting draws on such diverse talents as Ingrid Schaffner--adjunct curator at ICA Philadelphia--and artist Arne Svenson, whose photographs of the sock monkeys combine the haunting and the beautiful. Also included are such artists as Janine Antoni, Willie Coles, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Christian Marclay, Alan Rath, Jason Rhoades, Kay Rosen, Jessica Stockholder and Lisa Yuskavage, among many others.

Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, And More…On Collecting

A modern update of the Medieval trade manuals--the 'come-along-with-me' (vade mecum) of Medieval craftsmen--Words of Wisdom: A Curator's Vade Mecum is an invaluable guidebook for anyone interested in contemporary art and the practice of curating. In over fifty short essays, this compendium offers advice to a new generation of curators from veterans of contemporary art exhibitions who, over the past 25 years, have played a crucial role in shaping what we see today, and how we see it. While providing an intimate look at the minds of these master curators, Words of Wisdom also establishes the curator's craft as an important vocation that has changed tremendously over the past quarter-century. In the course of their musings, the curators offer behind-the-scenes insights into influential exhibitions and institutions and the contemporary art world they represent. Among the contributors are Jean-Christophe Amman, director of the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt, Germany; Donna de Salvo, curator at the Tate Gallery, London; Richard Flood, chief curator at the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; independent curator Hans Ulrich Obrist; and Marcia Tucker, founding director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.

Words Of Wisdom: A Curator's Vade Mecum (INDEPENDENT CUR)

Richards, Judith

Ammann, Jean-Christophe

Kuoni, Carin

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Books by Independent Curators International (ICI)