The Art of Athena Tacha. A Complete Catalogue

Born in Greece in 1936, Athena Tacha was awarded an MFA in sculpture from the School of Fine Arts in Athens, an MA in art history from Oberlin College, and a PhD in aesthetics from the Sorbonne, Paris. Although well known as a pioneer in site-specific sculpture in the early 1970s -- she has won over forty public commissions from Alaska to Florida -- her art is much more varied and includes smaller sculptures, temporary installations, prints, drawings, video, film, photographic work, artist's books, web art, and many text-based conceptual pieces. Widely published and exhibited, and represented in some fifty museums, her body of more than two thousand works -- made of every conceivable material, from the artist's hair, breast and bowels, to sugar cubes, paper wasp nests, shattered automobile glass and cicada exoskeletons -- has never been catalogued before. In this richly illustrated volume, Syrago Tsiara, who co-curated the major traveling retrospective exhibition, Athena Tacha: From the Public to the Private, 2010, provides an insightful overview of Tacha's seventy-five years of exceptional creativity.