Karen Marta

Gabriela Rangel

José Leonilson (1957-1993) came of age as an artist during the 80s generation in Brazil. What he shared with this diverse artistic milieu was the so-called 'joy of painting,' rediscovered in the years following the end of Brazil's dictatorship.What separated him from his contemporaries was his personal way of working and his distinct aesthetic centred on raw emotional feelings, introspective musings, and private affairs.Focusing on Leonilson's production as a mature artist, the catalogue will feature approximately fifty paintings, drawings, and intimate embroideries made between the mid -1980s until 1993, when the artist died of AIDS.This short yet prolific period showcases the artist's fully developed language, connecting his oeuvre with contemporary art practices, Brazilian vernacular traditions, and global issues prompted by the AIDS crisis.Published on the occasion of the exhibition, José Leonilson: Empty Man at the Americas Society, New York (27 September 2017 - 3 February 2018).

Empty Man

José Leonilson

Simon Castets

In the "St. Petersburg gamble," the house offers to flip a coin until it comes up heads. The payoff doubles each time tails appears. By conventional definitions, the St Petersburg gamble has an infinite potential return; nonetheless, most players feel that they should not risk more than a few dollars each time. Explaining why people offer such small sums for something with infinite potential remains contentious in both economics and philosophy. "The St. Petersburg Paradox" embodies Swiss Institute's longstanding dedication to producing inventive group exhibitions, putting artists across a century (Marcel Duchamp, Ericka Beckman, Hans Arp, Amalia Ulman, Tabor Robak) in dialogue with each other to explore the precarious nature of gaming and the impulses that underlie the way risk is calculated. Embracing the conceptual framework of an exhibition at Swiss Institute and its related public programs, each book in the SI Series adds retrospective context through seminal essays, archival materials, event transcripts, artist portfolios and exhibition documentation, as well as reprints and new translations of important texts. Each book in the series assumes a unique format to delve into the work of an artist, an artistic movement or a philosophical conundrum.

The St. Petersburg Paradox

Massimiliano Gioni

Since the mid-1990s, Chris Ofili's (born 1968) painstakingly crafted paintings and sculptures have dazzled--and often distressed--viewers with a fusion of opposing forces: sacred meets profane, formal bows to demotic, and exalted bleeds into vulgar. Paintings of rare beauty are propped on elephant dung; deities squat to defecate; and lovers embrace and yet are forcibly bound.This volume in Deste's "2000 Words" series is authored by Katherine Brinson, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where she curated the museum's 2013 Christopher Wool retrospective and also organizes the Hugo Boss Prize, a biennial award honoring significant achievement in contemporary art.

Chris Ofili: 2000 Words

An exciting new monograph from Cuban-American artist Jorge Pardo documenting over 20 public projects from the artist's oeuvre in one volume for the first time. Includes texts by Emma Enderby, Maja Hoffman, Ian Volner, and an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist.0'Jorge Pardo: Public Projects and Commissions, 1996-2018', is the first monograph focusing strictly on the public works and commissions of artist Jorge Pardo. The volume documents, in extensive detail, twenty-four seminal public projects and installations from Pardo's oeuvre, in over 200 richly illustrated pages. From private residences and boutique hotels to museum installations, city squares, and cafés the book takes a close look at an artist who has toed the line between designer, architect, and craftsman for over thirty years. The publication also presents twelve never-before-seen "unrealized projects" from the artist's career, discussed in conversation with curator and art historian Hans Ulrich Obrist. Includes texts by curator Emma Enderby, patron Maja Hoffman, and writer Ian Volner. Beautifully designed by Los Angeles based designer Garrick Gott, with over 150 full-color reproductions.

Karen Marta

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