Julia Wilson

Today's artists have an unprecedented level of choice with regard to materials and methods available to them, yet the processes involved in making artworks are rarely addressed in books or exhibitions on art. Here, Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson argue that the materials and methods used to make artworks hold the key to artists' motivations, their attitudes to authorship, uniqueness and the value of objects, the economic and social contexts from which they emerge, and their approach to the perceived opposition between materiality and conceptualism in art. The book's introduction sets out a history of trends in artistic production and the possible catalysts for the proliferation of production strategies since the mid-twentieth century, followed by nine chapters that explore different methods and media. Detailed examples are interwoven with the discussion, including visuals that reveal the intricacies of each technique or material and its overall effect when presented as an artwork. Artists featured include Ai Weiwei, Ron Arad, Chris Burden, Katharina Fritsch, Isa Genzken, Jeff Koons, Los Carpinteros, Haroon Mirza, Takashi Murakami, Gerhard Richter, Doris Salcedo and Santiago Sierra.

The first comprehensive publication to capture Hayes's unique blend of performance and social engagement which has been at the forefront of questions of feminist history, queer time, and protest culture for over a decadeAmerican artist Sharon Hayes uses photography, film, video, sound, performance, and text to interrogate the intersections between the personal and collective sphere. Her deeply affective and queer approach to history and politics draws particular attention to the language of twentieth-century activism as well as drama, anthropology, and journalism. This book is the first to feature all of Hayes's most significant projects, from the ten-hour performance My Fellow American 1981-1988 to her Monument Lab addressing the absence of monuments to women in Philadelphia. A professor of fine art at the University of Pennsylvania, Hayes's work has been shown at the 2010 Whitney Biennial, Documenta 12 in Kassel, and the 55th Venice Biennale, as well as in the most prestigious museums around the world. Her re-examination of protest, speech, and history is one of the most powerful reflections of the complexity and the urgency of our times. Sharon Hayes is the latest addition to the acclaimed Phaidon Contemporary Artists Series.