Now You See it

Drawing on unconventional means of transformation, such as alchemy and magic, as a way to examine the metaphysical changes that occur when materials are used to conceptualize complex ideas, Now You See It–which includes work by Walead Beshty, Alexandra Bircken, Ceal Floyer, Tom Friedman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Wade Guyton, Wolfgang Laib, Robert Morris, William O'Brien, Mitzi Pederson, Dieter Roth, Robert Ryman, Fred Sandback, Anna Sew Hoy, Gedi Sibony, Rudolf Stingel, Lawrence Weiner, Jennifer West and Erwin Wurm–proffers the notion that visual recognition alone is insufficient to determine an object’s materiality. In this volume, published concurrently with an exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum, the question of materiality is recontextualized–through insightful essays by Aspen Art Museum Director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson and Peter Eeley, Visual Arts Curator of the Walker Art Museum–as more than a mere struggle between content and form. Other contributions are by Paul Valery and Jeremy Sigler.