Return to Function

94 pages, illustrations (chiefly colour); 24 cm. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, Wis., May 1 to August 23, 2009 and at the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, October 2, 2009 to January 10, 2010. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Light edgewear to wraps, age toning. *** CONTENTS: Foreword and acknowledgements, by Stephen Fleischman; A return to function, by Jane Simon; Notes on function, by Martha Schwendener; Usefulness: an extension beyond an intention, by Ami Barak. "Return to Function surveys contemporary artists who make functional objects that verge on 'the designed'--from vehicles to clothes to mobile studio units--which happily confirm that the once-firm line between fine art and the applied arts is indeed dissolving. These artists--Jules De Balincourt, Claire Fontaine, Franncois Curlet, Fabrice Hyber, J. Morgan Puett, Michael Rakowitz, Joe Scanlan, Franck Scurti, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga and others--make objects that are simultaneously critical and practical. By choosing to create objects that meet utilitarian criteria, they show that artworks can be a part of the larger social, political and economic fabric. This volume features an in-depth discussion of seminal artists working in this vein, including Lucy Orta, Andrea Zittel and Jorge Pardo." - Publisher. Size: 8vo.…