Ann Temkin - Böcker

Each volume in this new series offers an in-depth exploration of one major work in MoMA’s collection. Through a lively illustrated essay by a MoMA curator that examines the work in detail, the publication delves into aspects of the artist’s oeuvre and places the work in a broader social and arthistorical context.

Robert Gober rose to prominence in the mid-1980s and was quickly acknowledged as one of the most significant artists of his generation. In the years since, his reputation has continued to grow, commensurate with the rich and complex body of work he has produced. Published in conjunction with the first comprehensive large-scale survey of the artist’s career to take place in the United States, this publication presents his works in all mediums, including individual sculptures and immersive sculptural environments, as well as a distinctive selection of drawings, prints, and photographs. Prepared in close collaboration with the artist, it traces the development of a remarkable body of work, highlighting themes and motifs that emerged in the early 1980s and continue to inform the artist’s work today. An essay by Hilton Als, and an in-depth chronology with extensive input from the artist himself, foregrounds images from Gober’s archives, including many neverbefore- published photographs of works in progress.

In June 2012, Jasper Johns encountered a photograph of the painter Lucian Freud reproduced in a Christie’s auction catalogue. Inspired not only by the photographic image, but also by the physical qualities of the object itself, Johns took this motif through a succession of cross-medium permutations. He also incorporated into his art the text of a rubber stamp he had made several years ago, to allow him to efficiently decline the myriad requests and invitations that come his way: ‘Regrets/Jasper Johns’. But the stamp’s text also calls to mind the more familiar connotations of regret, such as loss, disappointment, and remorse, invoking an enigmatic sense of melancholy. Published in conjunction with an exhibition of this recent series of paintings, drawings and prints, created over the last year and a half through an intricate combination of techniques, this publication presents each of the sixteen new works in full colour. An essay by Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints, MoMA, examine the importance of process and experimentation, the cycle of dead ends and fresh starts, and the incessant interplay of materials, meaning, and representation so characteristic of Johns’s career over the last sixty years.