Ashley Simone (ed.)

Allan Wexler
Absurd Thinking

Between Art and Design

Absurd Thinking, Between Art and Design is the first comprehensive monograph on the work of Allan Wexler, one of the most original artists of the last half century. The publication documents more than 200 projects, which mediate the gap between fine and applied art using the mediums of architecture, sculpture, photography, painting and drawing. Wexler's work can be broadly described as tactile poetry composed by re-framing the ordinary. It demonstrates a commitment to re-evaluating basic assumptions about our relationship to the built and natural environments.

“I make buildings, furniture, vessels and utensils,” begins Wexler, as one answer to the query “What kind of work do you do?” No easy question for the artist, who has printed 20 different responses onto business cards, to hand out when so queried.

One of the 20 Cocktail Party Responses (2014) is on the frontispiece of this volume, a testimony to the humor Wexler brings to conceptual musings.

Absurd Thinking, Between Art and Design is thematically organized across four categories – abstraction, landscape, private space and public places. This publication is a richly illustrated cross section of Wexler’s multi-scale, multi-media work. The artist returns time and time again to the same issues, albeit from different angles and using strategies that freshly blur the lines between various fields. Project descriptions are written by Wexler, as are short fiction writings. Essays by Patricia C. Phillips, Sean Anderson and Michele Calzavara.

Absurd Thinking, Between Art and Design is the first comprehensive monograph on the work of Allan Wexler, one of the most original artists of the last half century. The publication documents more than 200 projects, which mediate the gap between fine and applied art using the mediums of architecture, sculpture, photography, painting and drawing. Wexler's work can be broadly described as tactile poetry composed by re-framing the ordinary. It demonstrates a commitment to re-evaluating basic assumptions about our relationship to the built and natural environments.

“I make buildings, furniture, vessels and utensils,” begins Wexler, as one answer to the query “What kind of work do you do?” No easy question for the artist, who has printed 20 different responses onto business cards, to hand out when so queried.

One of the 20 Cocktail Party Responses (2014) is on the frontispiece of this volume, a testimony to the humor Wexler brings to conceptual musings.

Absurd Thinking, Between Art and Design is thematically organized across four categories – abstraction, landscape, private space and public places. This publication is a richly illustrated cross section of Wexler’s multi-scale, multi-media work. The artist returns time and time again to the same issues, albeit from different angles and using strategies that freshly blur the lines between various fields. Project descriptions are written by Wexler, as are short fiction writings. Essays by Patricia C. Phillips, Sean Anderson and Michele Calzavara.


“Celebrating [Wexler's] individual vision is a new monograph recently put out by Lars Müller Publishers, the first that takes us deep inside his constantly searching mind.
Hyperallergic


Edited by Ashley Simone with the close collaboration of Ellen Wexler

With contributions by Patricia C. Phillips, Sean Anderson, Michele Calzavara

Design: Integral Lars Müller

21 × 28 cm, 8 ¼ × 11 in

296 pages, 427 illustrations

hardback

2017, 978-3-03778-516-4, English
CHF 50.00
Out of print

Allan Wexler

Allan Wexler has worked in the fields of architecture, design, and fine art. He has been represented by the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York City since 1984 and has exhibited, taught and lectured nationally and internationally since 1972. Wexler is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016), is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and a winner of both a Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the Henry J. Leir Prize from the Jewish Museum. He has had numerous national and international solo exhibitions, has lectured on his work internationally, and has been reviewed by major art and architecture publications. Wexler currently teaches at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

Ashley Simone

ASHLEY SIMONE is a New York City–based editor, photographer, and professor of architecture at Pratt Institute. The intersection of art, culture, and the built environment is the focus of her practice that draws on her training as an architect at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Her photography has been exhibited in New York and London and featured in journals and magazines that include Architectural Design and Interior Design. She is the editor of A Genealogy of Modern Architecture:
Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Form (Lars Müller, 2015) and Absurd Thinking Between Art and Design (Lars Müller, 2017).