Frances Stark. The Fall of Frances Stark

The new book is conceived as a sister publication to Stark's "Collected Wiritings 1993-2003". The fundamental idea is to compile a graphic counterpart, a complement, drawn from the body of visual works which is comprised of paintings, collage, drawings, video, etc., from 1993 to the present. The book addresses the paradox of reproducing works which are significantly un-photogenic because of their tactility and detail - and particularly because of their scale, complicated by small text that is de-contextualized from the small page format. The relationship between verbiage and image-making that the pairing of the two books suggests, is also a persistent theme explored in the work. The book formally addresses how verbiage flows in and out of the work(s), and leaves no space for the legitimizing language of the critic or curator. Neither a typical catalogue nor monograph, it pushes for a third form, a new piece of art constructed from existing pieces. In this sense, also, it is the only "new" piece of work being made for the retrospective exhibition it accompanies at the Van Abbemuseum, "The Fall of Frances Stark."
Frances Stark