Michael Mack

Gregor Muir

Berlinde de Bruyckere

Ali Subotnick

This book focuses on recent sculptures and installations by Belgian artist Berlinde de Bruyckere and provides a rare and intimate glimpse into her studio and working process. De Bruyckere uses a range of sculptural media, including wax, wood, wool, horse skin, and hair which are combined to create compelling forms that suggest distorted human and animal bodies. Her figures are often faceless, malformed and fragmentary. They perch precariously on high stools or are suspended from the walls, ceiling or tall iron columns. At first their shape seems familiar although they resist interpretation, offering a disturbing vision of fragility and suffering and they appear vulnerable and violated, their skin stretched and broken. The works presented in the book invoke the Schmerzensmann, the eternal Man of Suffering, and focus on eight sculptures in wax, one of the artists preferred materials. The texture of the pallid wax suggests a skin so thin and fragile that it is almost translucent. Close inspection reveals subtly mottled hues and textures that imply vulnerability to heat and cold but also to the more intangible threat of violence and fear. Each of the eight sculptures is illustrated from many viewpoints, offering the chance to examine in detail their form, surface texture, spatiality and relation to the viewer.

Schmerzensmann

Stefan Banz

Stéphane Aquin

Swiss-born Nicolas Party is an artist known for his color-saturated paintings of everyday objects. He captures the essence of his subjects in surprising ways, heightening their physical and emotional resonance. Fascinated by the power of paint to alter our perception of the built environment and, within a gallery context, how we experience art, Party regularly paints murals, either as stand-alone works or as carefully orchestrated settings for his work. This is the first book to examine his career to date and will be a must-read for collectors and followers of the contemporary art scene.

Ali Subotnick

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