Greene Naftali
Publication
New New Testament
Laurenz Foundation, Basel, Schaulager; Badlands Unlimited, New York.
$250
Hardcover
Color
1082 pages
7.75 x 10.75 inches
Introduction by Sven Lütticken
Edited by Paul Chan, Karen Marta
Book design by Paul Chan
Badlands Unlimited, New York
9783952397152
Artist Page
New New Testament documents Paul Chan’s monumental project Volumes, a series of more than 1,000 paintings made out of dismantled book covers and the texts that complement each painting. "I began destroying books to paint on them, on weekends," Chan says. "Each cover seemed to call for different things; some expressionistic, others naturalistic, still others plainly monochrome. I never read the books I tore apart." A selection of Volumes premiered at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, in 2012, but New New Testament is the first time all the paintings have been united in a single book. Each painting evokes how books and works of art now exist in our digitally interconnected world chiefly as objects of search. The texts that accompany each painting are composed with bewildering combinations of phrases and lexical marks that reflect how historical distinctions between art, media and celebrity culture are rapidly dissolving.
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