Re-Object Published by Kunsthaus Bregenz. Edited and with foreword by Eckhard Schneider. Text by Sebastian Egenhofer, John Gray, Herbert Molderings. Urinals, vacuum cleaners, basketballs, glass sheets… livestock? This study of key moments in the history of ready-made and object-based art features Damien Hirst (London), Gerhard Merz (Munich), Jeff Koons (New York) and their shared historical point of reference, Marcel Duchamp (Paris and New York, 1887-1968). Recently a poll of 500 British critics called Duchamp's 1917 Fountain the most influential Modern artwork ever created. Even more recently, a man assaulted it with a hammer at the Centre Pompidou, confirming that, nearly a century later, emotions are still running high. Object-based art, which grew into a major twentieth-century trend and continues today, took its cue from the ready-made, and Re-Object explores the continuation and transformation of both lines in contemporary artistic practice, via large-format photographs and analytical essays on the artists.
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