Jennifer R. Gross

From 1996 to 1999 Richard Tuttle worked for the Kunsthaus Zug, in Switzerland, in an endeavor to provide the institution's collective activities with a new orientation. To this end, Tuttle created four rather different large works that referred to the space of the museum as a whole as well as its immediate surroundings. Astounding in view of Tuttle's body of mostly small and delicate work, these tailor-made objects redefine the space which they inhabit. The works also act in dialogue with show more each other: Replace the Abstract Picture Plane IV, for instance, consists of no less than forty parts whose asymmetrical arrangement on the first two floors of the southern wing respond to the spiral shape of the green snake located in the northern wing. Conceived by Tuttle, this new monograph constitutes a work of art in itself, and represents a pioneering step in collaborations between artists and museums. Also presented here is a photographic essay by Guido Baselgia, who viewed and documented Tuttle's work at Zug for the duration of its three-year stay. show less

This book highlights the unique history of the Société Anonyme, Inc., an organization founded in 1920 by the artists Katherine S. Dreier (1877–1952), Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968), and Man Ray (1890–1976). As America’s first “experimental museum” for modern art, the Société Anonyme provided a means for artists, rather than historians, to chronicle the rise of modernism. Led by Dreier and Duchamp, the group eventually assembled a collection of more than one thousand artworks, show more which it presented to the public in a variety of innovative programs, publications, and exhibitions.

The incredible collection of the Société Anonyme now belongs to the Yale University Art Gallery, a gift from the Société and Dreier. It features the work of more than 100 artists, many of whom are among the century’s most renowned—including Jean Arp, Duchamp, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, El Lissitzky, Piet Mondrian, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, and Joseph Stella—as well as works by lesser-known artists whose contributions to modernism are substantial.

With new archival information, including personal correspondence between Dreier and the artists whose work she assembled, a host of previously unpublished images, essays by leading scholars, and an interview with artists Robert and Sylvia Mangold about the contemporary significance of this collection, this fascinating book is essential to our understanding of the reception and interpretation of modernism in America. show less

The writing is pretty bad, but the exhibit was wonderful and the images are terrific.