Author Description

Artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset consistently devise new possibilities in the way art is presented and perceived through their subversive and multivalent practice. Published on the occasion of the artists' first US museum survey, this book expands on the eponymous exhibition to cover the breadth of the artists' sculptural production from the mid-1990s through the present day. 'Elmgreen & Dragset: Sculptures'--the first-ever dedicated study of the duo's sculptures--is visually organized according to the aesthetics and conceptual working methods that the artists have employed thorughout their career, with five essays approaching their practice from various art-historical and thematic perspectives, accompanied by photographic documentation of 112 of their sculptural works in 198 color illustrations. In her introduction, Leigh Arnold discusses narrative, meaning, and context, and situates their art among the Nasher Sculpture Center's collection of modern and contemporary sculpture. Alex Potts surveys the artists' figurative sculptures, positioning them within statuary traditions and social concerns. David J. Getsy approaches Elmgreen & Dragset's work from the perspective of queer art theory, providing for the first time an in-depth unpacking of the artists' strategy of queering normative formal languages in sculpture. Joan Kee writes about the influence of Minimalism in their work, focusing on the social aspects of their sculpture and incorporating legal angles that shed new light on Elmgreen & Dragset's practice. And Anna Iannocchione, toegether with Arnold, co-authors the first extensive overview of the artist' achievements in public sculpture.