Contemporary Sculpture and the Critique of Display Cultures

In this book, Dan Adler addresses recent tendencies in contemporary art toward assemblage sculpture and how these works incorporate tainted materials - often things left on the side of the road, according to the logic and progress of the capitalist machine - and combine them in ways that allow each element to retain a degree of empirical specificity. Adler develops a range of aesthetic models through which these practices can be understood to function critically. Each chapter focuses on a single exhibition: Isa Genzken's &quote;OIL&quote; (German Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2007), Geoffrey Farmer's midcareer survey (Musee d'art contemporain, Montreal, 2008), Rachel Harrison's &quote;Consider the Lobster&quote; (CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, 2009), and Liz Magor's &quote;The Mouth and Other Storage Facilities&quote; (Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, 2008).