Meredith Monk is a groundbreaking artist whose work transcends traditional boundaries in music, theater, dance, video, and installation, making her a pioneer of site-specific performance. Central to her artistry is the evocative power of the human voice, transforming the body into a resonating space for a universal, wordless language. She was the first to create a performance for the Guggenheim Museum's rotunda and has performed in diverse venues, from public car parks to opera stages. This catalogue offers the first comprehensive analysis of her career, featuring previously unpublished archival materials, musical notations, drawings, and photographs, along with a revealing conversation with Monk. The essays highlight her enduring influence and the contemporary relevance of her work. Born in New York City in 1942, Monk began exploring the human voice's spectrum through abstract vocal expressions in the early 1960s, developing “extended vocal technique” in her solo performances that showcased her impressive three-octave range. In 1968, she founded The House to foster interdisciplinary performance and later established the Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble. An award-winning filmmaker, Monk has received numerous accolades, including the National Medal of Arts.
Andrea Lissoni Knihy
Philippe Parreno (born 1964) is interested more in the dynamics of how a work of art is shown to the public than in its actual production, and in his films, installations, performances and texts, he subverts the codes normally applied to exhibition spaces. By placing the construction of the exhibition at the heart of his process, the French artist redefines the exhibition experience as a coherent object rather than a collection of individual works. “The exhibition is conceived as a scripted space,” he writes, “like an automaton, producing different temporalities, a rhythm, an itinerary, and a duration. The visitor is guided through the spaces by the appearance and orchestration of sounds and images ... a mental choreography.”Published to accompany his 2015 exhibitions in New York and Milan, Hypnosis Hypothesis offers a rich critical overview of Parreno's work, featuring essays by Cyril Béghin, Molly Nesbit, Brian O’Doherty and Adam Thirlwell, and interviews with exhibition curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Andrea Lissoni. The monograph provides invaluable new research on one of the most influential and charismatic figures on the contemporary art scene.
The first book to interpret the role of photography in current representations of the Holocaust.Photographs of the Holocaust bear a double burden: to act as history lessons for future generations so we will “never forget” and to provide a means of mourning. In Trespassing through Shadows, Andrea Liss examines the inherent difficulties and productive possibilities of using photographs to bear witness, initiating a critical dialogue about the ways the post-Auschwitz generation has employed these documents to represent Holocaust memory and history."Liss experiences creative freedom and infectious exuberance for her topic that she passes along to her reader. After completing her book, I feld hope for the future of Holocaust representation as a carrier of memory and responsibility."— East Bay Express Books