For over five decades, Ken Price (1935–2012) produced small-scale ceramic sculptures with brightly colored finishes that achieved a balance between form and surface. Then, in the last years of his life, he initiated a dramatic shift in scale and finish. Ken Price: The Large Sculptures unveils this final body of work in its entirety. With dimensions that echo those of the human body, these sculptures speak directly to the viewer’s corporeality. Cast in bronze composite and painted with color-shifting automotive paint, the large sculptures are in one sense the culmination of Price’s long career and in another the beginning of a new path cut tragically short. This large-format book includes a detailed essay by Alex Kitnick that situates these works in the history of modern sculpture. The plates section features multiple views of the works’ seemingly ever-shifting forms. Completing the book are numerous unpublished photographs of the fabrication process at Price’s studio.
"Bulgogi" (2006–11) is reproduced from Ken Price: The Large Sculptures.
Fredrik Nilsen's 2010 photograph of Ken Price's "Simple-istic" (2009) installed outside the artist's studio in Taos, New Mexico (with Happy Price's greenhouse in the background), is reproduced from Matthew Marks' beautiful new exhibition catalog, Ken Price: The Large Sculptures. Essayist Alex Kitnick writes, "The surfaces of Price’s sculptures are … smooth, loaded, and bright with color. Busy with an ecstatic static. (The surfaces of the late sculptures tend to be matte, but they are also more glowing.) It is as if the promise of dynamism and depth cleanly contained behind the hard surfaces of our interfaces has broken out and bodied forth. (I think this goes back to my first impression of the sculptures, reading their surfaces as screens.) A Price sculpture is plasma gone wild, then hardened, waiting to be charged again." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11 x 13 in. / 80 pgs / 59 color / 4 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $35.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $47.5 GBP £30.00 ISBN: 9781880146835 PUBLISHER: Matthew Marks Gallery AVAILABLE: 9/30/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Matthew Marks Gallery. Text by Alex Kitnick.
For over five decades, Ken Price (1935–2012) produced small-scale ceramic sculptures with brightly colored finishes that achieved a balance between form and surface. Then, in the last years of his life, he initiated a dramatic shift in scale and finish. Ken Price: The Large Sculptures unveils this final body of work in its entirety. With dimensions that echo those of the human body, these sculptures speak directly to the viewer’s corporeality. Cast in bronze composite and painted with color-shifting automotive paint, the large sculptures are in one sense the culmination of Price’s long career and in another the beginning of a new path cut tragically short. This large-format book includes a detailed essay by Alex Kitnick that situates these works in the history of modern sculpture. The plates section features multiple views of the works’ seemingly ever-shifting forms. Completing the book are numerous unpublished photographs of the fabrication process at Price’s studio.
