Mai-Thu Perret

Mai-Thu Perret's earliest project was The Crystal Frontier, comprised of writings and objects that describe the lives of a group of women living in a utopian commune in the New Mexico desert. This volume surveys the artist's utopia-themed oeuvre, which often draws on the political aspirations of the modernist avant garde.

Mai-Thu Perret examines the relentless movement of capitalism as it absorbs and defeats what were once revolutionary forms, focusing on the aestheticization of historical avant-gardes to reflect the changing realities of utopian thinking. Her major ongoing project, "The Crystal Frontier,” begun in 1999, comprises fictional diary entries and letters written by a group of disillusioned women exiled in the New Mexico desert, as well as myriad artworks that Perret describes as their “hypothetical products.” Born in 1975 in Geneva, where she lives and works, Perret studied at Cambridge University and the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York. This comprehensive artist’s book, Perret’s first monograph, includes a selection of her writings and a specially designed collage of references. Perret’s work has recently been seen at The Renaissance Society in Chicago.