[Exhibition Catalog]: Tim Hawkinson

This book is the first comprehensive survey of the work of Los Angeles-based artist Tim Hawkinson (b. 1960), whose ingenious constructions of found objects and everyday items have brought him widespread recognition as one of the most original sculptors working in America today. Accompanying an exhibition opening in February at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tim Hawkinson provides an in-depth look at this prolific and endlessly creative artist.

Known primarily for his large-scale kinetic and sound-producing works, such as the monumental Überorgan, Hawkinson has also created a bird skeleton from his own fingernail parings, a latex cast of his body inflated with air, and clocks fashioned from a Coke can, a manila envelope, and a toothpaste tube. His fantastical assemblages, which may include sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, or printmaking, suggest the profound strangeness of life, matter, and time. With 250 color illustrations and three insightful essays, along with the artist's commentary on more than 150 of his hugely varied works, Tim Hawkinson will prove a revelation to all those interested in contemporary art. AUTHOR BIO: Lawrence Rinder is adjunct curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art and dean of graduate studies at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco. He was the curator of the Whitney's 2002 Biennial, among other exhibitions. Howard N. Fox is curator of modern and contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has organized numerous major exhibitions, including Avant-Garde in the Eighties and Eleanor Antin. Doug Harvey is an art critic and writer for LA Weekly.

Tim Hawkinson’s art is the sort of intense, highly personal and often self-referential work that manages through humor and sheer obsessive force to be both accessible and awe-inspiring. It’s often at least a little bit grotesque, but his sculptures and works on paper and canvas flirt with the sublime often enough that it really is worthy of multiple viewings, even though at first it often appears to be a cheap joke. In all of these senses, Hawkinson’s stuff is comparable to the works of Charles Ray, Tom Friedman and Mike Kelley. The companion catalogue to the Whitney Museum-mounted large-scale retrospective finally gives Hawkinson his due. Lawrence Rinder’s essay gives plenty of clearly-written art historical context to Hawkinson’s strange contraptions, while Howard N. Fox speaks of Hawkinson’s near monk-like "sacramental energy." The design is crisp and unobtrusive; the only quibble at all is the use of the Courier font and the fact that the book’s covers are made of a porous material, so be careful to wash your hands before you hold the thing. Inside you’ll find a functioning organ made out of plastic the size of a football field, a bird skeleton made out of nail clippings, a ball made of spoons, a functioning extension cord worn into a knot, a human skeleton fashioned from dog bones, and much more. Hawkinson really turns the world inside out. --Mike McGonigal