Surface Charge thoroughly alters the traditional museum practice of importing art works in order to display them on the walls or floor. The works in Surface Charge were created directly on and with the walls of the Anderson Gallery, turning its very surfaces into active forces, as opposed to neutral supports. A variety of techniques were used, and most of the works existed only for the duration of the exhibition. The participating artists are Ragna Róbertsdóttir (Iceland), Karin Sander (Germany), Odili Donald Odita (Nigeria/U.S.), Elana Herzog (U.S.), Lawrence Weiner (U.S.), Karina Peisajovich (Argentina), Kim Schoenstadt (U.S.), Katrin Sigurdardottir (Iceland), Maix Mayer (Germany), Lisa Sigal (U.S.), and Sally Smart (Australia).

Surface Charge

Arts & Photography

Volk, Gregory

Ruß, Sabine

History & Criticism

Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University

"Roxy Paine's conceptual works are provocative, challenging our perceptions and biases through a combination of complex layering, serious humor, romanticism, and a touch of irony. Second Nature examines Paine's monumental art-making machines and his naturalistic, botanical environments, exploring how they illustrate a reversal between the artist, whose repetitive processes are machinelike, and machines, which are programmed to emulate human art making."

Roxy Paine: Second Nature

Mayo, Marti

Individual Artists

Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston

This book documents a recent show of Fred Tomaselli's work at the James Cohan Gallery in New York, and includes several works using his signature combination of acrylic paint and pills to create colorful psychedelic collages.

Fred Tomaselli

Tomaselli, Fred

James Cohan Gallery

From a distance, Yun-Fei Ji's traditional brush paintings hark back to the atmospheric landscapes of the Sung Dynasty painters. Step closer though, and Ji's mists are revealed to be toxic clouds, and his craggy mountains are shown to be piles of overflowing garbage and abandoned vehicles. His misty imagery also includes stylized abstractions that may or may not refer to intestines, explosions or bubbling slime. Using traditional materials (inks, Chinese brushes and handmade mulberry paper) Ji employs age-old methods to illuminate historic and contemporary concerns. This full-color monograph/catalogue includes a new thematic group of six large-scale works made especially for the exhibition. Multi-page gatefolds of these paintings are included.

Yun-Fei Ji: The Empty City

Lin, Tan

Chiu, Melissa

Ha, Paul

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

This catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition Diana Al-Hadid, on view from February 9-May 5, 2013.

Diana Al-Hadid

Eden, Xandra

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro

<div>This is the most comprehensive monograph to date on the innovative abstract site related installations of German artist Katharina Grosse (b.1961). Grosse's daring move from the canvas into both architectural space and the landscape, with her signature colorful spray paintings, has resulted in a deeply compelling body of work. From a Toronto airport to a decrepit beach structure on the New York coast and the spaces of major museums worldwide, Grosse's works present thorough, yet temporary, carnivalesque transformations of extant places and situations. Author Gregory Volk has known Katharina Grosse and written about her work since the very outset of her career&nbsp;and has witnessed her journey from unique talent to radical visionary. As he suggests here, Grosse's continually developing practice, simultaneously ungainly and exhilarating, bewildering and liberating, radically extends the possibilities for contemporary abstract painting.</div>

Katharina Grosse (Contemporary Painters Series)

Lund Humphries

Focusing on natural forms and the act of perception, Teresita Fernández‘s installations and objects blend reflection and transparency in potent configurations. Clouds, trees, water and fire, rendered in steel, glass, plastic and thread, become screens, mirrors and lenses. This monograph offers the fullest view of Fernández's work to date.

Teresita Fernández: Blind Landscape

Hickey, Dave

Norr, David

Stringfield, Anne

Carlozzi, Annette

JRP|Ringier

Syrian-born, but raised in the U.S., Diana Al-Hadid (born 1981) is known for her gravity-defying works built from layers of gypsum, steel, cardboard, wax and paint, that integrate references to Western European and Islamic mythology. Employing motifs such as pipe organs, labyrinths and spires, her works recall Northern Renaissance painting and Gothic cathedrals, yet appear in a deteriorated state reminiscent of ruins of long past civilizations. “Ancient ruins are culturally nostalgic objects that carry with them a distinct psychological effect,” she has observed. “[The] cross-cultural attraction to ruins is itself fascinating.” Al-Hadid’s haunting, architecturally inspired sculptures and drawings have been shown in numerous international exhibitions. By presenting her large-scale sculptures, drawings and bronzes together for the first time, this publication highlights the innovative methods through which Al-Hadid recovers influential visual histories and advances them into contemporary times.

Hatje Cantz

Between 1969 and 1973, Vito Acconci's creative output was focused on body pieces and performances, many of them seminal works now firmly lodged in the art historical canon of the time. Whether he was transforming space by masturbating under a platform extension of the gallery floor or transforming the body by tucking his genitals between his legs, Acconci promoted a radical, corporeal method of working with the human presence that has remained relevant in these less performative times. This publication traces the development of Acconci's early work through his own writings and documentations from that time. Rather than a critical study, it offers invaluable primary source materials: For each of the approximately 200 performances/works included, Acconci drafted meticulous notes, mapping out his ideas and describing the specifications of each piece. Many of the artist's works were ephemeral performances and actions, and these primary source materials are now the only extant artifacts from the work. Thus the book's contents come directly from Acconci's personal archives, and include his notes and documentations, plus photographs, where available. An introduction by Gregory Volk provides historical context and addresses the issues of body art and performance still relevant today.

Vito Acconci: Diary of a Body 1969 -1973

Acconci, Vito

Charta

A detailed exploration of the influences, source material and groundbreaking technique of contemporary artist Sebastiaan Bremer.

Sebastiaan Bremer: To Joy

Cotton, Charlotte

Bremer, Sebastiaan

Frame Publishers

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Books by Volk, Gregory