Absurd thinking : between art and design / Allan Wexler ; with the close collaboration of Ellen Wexler ; edited by Ashley Simone ; essays by Patricia C. Phillips, Sean Anderson, and Michele Calzavara

Object Details

author

Wexler, Allan 1949-

Author

Wexler, Ellen

editor

Simone, Ashley

Subject

Wexler, Allan 1949-

"Allan Wexler's career resists easy classification. He is best known as a hands-on maker. He explores the fields of architecture and design as an artist. In the late 1960s Wexler was an early member of the group of architects and artists who questioned the perceived divide between art and the design disciplines. They called themselves "nonarchitects, antiarchitects, and paper architects." Throughout his 45-year career he has reevaluated our most basic assumptions about our relationship to what we build, why we build, and how it affects our daily lives. Wexler's works explore the poetics of space and the nonfunction in the functional, how we create ritual, the power of the handcrafted in the time of digital, and the use of chance and the value of accident, our body's relationship to the built, and our roots from the primitive hut"--http://www.allanwexlerstudio.com/now

Summary

"Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design is a survey of work by artist/architect Allan Wexler. The book features projects developed across the artist's forty-five-year career that mediate the gap between fine and applied art using the mediums of architecture, sculpture, photography, painting, and drawing. Wexler's works can be broadly described as tactile poetry composed by re-framing the ordinary. They sustain a narrative about landscape, nature, and the built environment that highlights the intriguing and surprising characteristics latent in the elements and rituals that pervade daily life. Wexler's work is sometimes functional sometimes theoretical, and often a hybrid of the two. In all cases, it demonstrates a commitment to re-evaluating basic assumptions about the human relationship to the built and natural environments. Organized thematically across four categories—Abstraction, Landscape, Private Space and Public Places—this book is a richly illustrated cross-section of Wexler's multi-scale, multi-media work featuring his own writings, narratives and reflections"--Publisher's description.

2017

Type

Books

Catalogs

Physical description

295 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 29 cm

Title

Allan Wexler, absurd thinking, between art and design

Smithsonian Libraries

Topic

Furniture design

Record ID

siris_sil_1078358

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0