Mark Barrow

Matthew Higgs: Can you say more about the book project you have been working on recently, and how you plan to present it - i.e. within a functional, furniture-like structure of your own design?

Mark Barrow: The project is a conceptual piece that takes the form of book. It is called Redaction because it is a collection of texts and images I appropriated, and also because I alter the texts by removing words. The basic conceit of the book comes from the linguists Lakoff and Johnson: we can only understand concepts in terms of other concepts. To facilitate movement between concepts I try to pare the texts and images down to their basic elements-pixels and words. (...) The book represents similar ideas to those behind the paintings, but in a different form. I didn't have to do much research for the book because I was already thinking about most of the texts and images vis-à-vis my paintings. The book seemed like a more direct or transparent medium for delivering the ideas because it did not carry the baggage of being a 'painting.' Itd's just thoughts bound together. In this sense, making the book has given me clarity in my own thoughts, and in how I approach my paintings.



The first monographic publication on American artist Mark Barrow is split into two small volumes, counterparts that complement each other to provide new insights into Barrow's unique practice. A Catalogue of paintings and drawings, featuring a conversation between the artist and Matthew Higgs, accompanies Redaction, Barrow's first artist's book.

2 volumes (40+40 pages) Language: English Date: 2013 Size: 19 x 14,5 cm ISBN: 9788867490462 Price: € 18

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Nicola Martini: Nervo Vago



"Nicola Martini's work creates a concrete universe, different from nature. He relies on his own powers to forcibly bend the obscure ones of matter, the laws of physics, bridging the schism between the manual realm of action and the mechanical one of nature. To achieve this, he uses every possible means to alter the physical state of a material, employing methods that have defined the difference between human and animal since history began, like fire and the subsequent invention of cooking. This book contains essays that explore, define and guide us through these fields of research and these links to our past and present, with questions that only anthropologists are capable of examining, to find new possible interpretations of what are referred to as customs or characteristics, but whose manifestation instead reveals the traces of a fascinating, hidden history." (Alberto Salvadori)



Published in coordination with the artist's first solo show in an Italian art institution, the catalogue "Nervo Vago" takes the form of an anthropological essay composed of multiple contributions - Ines Dahn, Davide Daninos, Denise Lombardi and Michele Maggiolini (with a visual dimension addressed in collaboration with Jacopo Menzani) - offering different perspectives on the concepts and contingencies that lie behind the practice of the young Italian artist Nicola Martini.