Against Reason, Volume 1: Tony Smith, Sculpture, and Other Modernisms

Original essays and visual art that reveal the depth and complexity of the sculpture of American modernist Tony Smith, placing his multifaceted practice in dialogue with contemporary voices.

Against Reason, Volume 1 is published alongside the Tony Smith Catalogue Raisonné: Sculpture, itself the first of two volumes—the other focusing on architecture—documenting the artist’s career. This book reveals the depth and complexity of Smith’s oeuvre in sculpture while positioning its transdisciplinary nature in dialogue with contemporary practitioners. Commissioned essays by art historians and curators and visual projects by artists offer renewed perspectives on a variety of cultural systems, exploring the ongoing vitality of Smith’s work. Their contributions reflect upon the modernist era in which Smith’s work was produced to think through ingrained ideologies, revealing other, parallel modernisms and histories.

Against Reason delves deeply into work by Smith that has not been previously parsed or discussed within art historical contexts. The book shuttles among visual art projects and texts, from Mario Gooden’s essay exploring Smith’s refusal to occupy the known quantities assigned to “artist” and “architect,” to Saim Demircan’s study of the re-presentation of Smith’s work through its photo-documentation in the mainstream press, to Judith Barry’s transformation of Smith’s sculpture into the form of a flipbook and centerpiece “pop-up.” Jenni Sorkin explores the influence of Smith’s sculpture practice on his daughter Kiki Smith, while Yann Chateigné Tytelman casts a wider net to examine correspondences between Smith and the contemporary artists Joachim Koester, Mai-Thu Perret, and Cauleen Smith. Tom Burr closes the volume with a photo-collage project reflective of his ongoing engagement with Tony Smith‘s oeuvre.

James Voorhies is an American curator and historian of modern and contemporary art. He has authored several books including Postsensual Aesthetics: On the Logic of the Curatorial (MIT Press, 2023) and Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968 (MIT Press, 2017); he is coeditor of a two-volume catalogue raisonné of the work of American artist Tony Smith, and editor of two companion volumes of essays and projects related to Smith (all MIT Press, 2024–2025).Voorhies is based New York, has taught at Bennington College and Harvard University, and holds a PhD in modern and contemporary art history from the Ohio State University, USA.