David Zwirner Books – serie

Tau Lewis’s mythical sculptures create elaborate portals into fantastic worlds“At 52 Walker, artist Tau Lewis transmutes the lifeblood of scrap objects into something sanctified. . . . I’m reminded that an art gallery can also be a temple.” — New York magazine Following her acclaimed presentation Divine Giants Tribunal at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Lewis has continued to create anthropomorphic forms inspired by those in Yoruban mask dramas—ones which are spiritually activated by the wearer and the audience and, by extension, their community. Conversing with spiritual and ancestral pasts, Lewis’s works reinvent and reconsider narratives of Greek myths, theater, and death. In this body of work, the artist reexamines apocalyptic themes as an opportunity for reconstruction and transformation. Documenting and expanding on Lewis’s exhibition at 52 Walker titled Vox Populi, Vox Dei, this catalogue contextualizes the artist’s investigations and expressions. Poetry by the multidisciplinary artist and activist Yves B. Golden complements Lewis’s otherworldly motifs. With a curator’s note by Ebony L. Haynes, this publication also features an essay by Tiana Reid that explores Lewis’s practice, drawing connections between sources that range from Joy James to Frederick Douglass.

From the legendary and iconoclastic critic Dave Hickey, a collection of twenty of his most emblematic essays on art“We really don’t need to know the aesthetic and moral parameters of a work to love it—­only to know they are there.” —Dave HickeyThe late Dave Hickey was a singular voice on art, music, democracy, and culture. Known for his radical criticism, he united different worlds through a range of literary styles and techniques to ultimately explore what it means to be human. Complementing his iconic collections Air Guitar and The Invisible Dragon, Feint of Heart unites twenty of Hickey’s characteristically astute essays on art from over twenty years, most of which were originally published in exhibition catalogues that are long out of print. The result is a volume that shows the writer at his most creative and incisive in an ever-relevant exploration of beauty and value. Compiled and with an introduction by the writer and critic Jarrett Earnest, this latest book is ideal for cult followers and new readers of Hickey, for artists and art critics, and for thinkers across all disciplines.Including essays on Terry Allen, Karen Carson, Sarah Charlesworth, Vija Celmins, Vernon Fisher, Robert Gober, Ann Hamilton, Luis Jiménez, Hung Lui, Josiah McElheny, Elizabeth Peyton, Lari Pittman, David Reed, Bridget Riley, Norman Rockwell, Ed Ruscha, Steve Schapiro, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol, as well as Hickey’s 2002 text “Buying the World,” an incisive and ever-relevant exploration of beauty and value.