Voids: A Retrospective

Between Nietzsche's "death of God" and the ascent of Buddhism in twentieth-century America and Europe, the idea of "void" has permeated Western art and culture, and the means by which artists and thinkers have dismantled conventions of reality and perception with acts of emptying, removing, destroying, or emphasizing nothingness, are numerous, as this massive survey testifies. This hardcover edition of Voids serves as a catalogue to the Centre Pompidou's retrospective of empty exhibitions, curated by the dream team of Laurent Le Bon, John Armleder, Mathieu Copeland, Gustav Metzger, Mai-Thu Perret, and Clive Phillpot, and featuring Yves Klein, Robert Barry, Art & Language, Stanley Brouwn, Laurie Parsons, Bethan Huws, Robert Irwin, Maria Eichhorn, Roman Ondák; but it also supplies a crucial anthology of texts, with contributions by artists and writers such as Stuart Comer, Brian O'Doherty, Ralph Rugoff, Jon Savage, Sarah Wilson, Peter Downsbrough, Lawrence Weiner, Sherrie Levine, Seth Price, Trisha Donnelly, Wade Guyton and Olivier Mosset, among others.