How does a vision - an image in the mind, in the imagination - get from the head to the hand, and out into the world? The passage can take a lifetime or happen almost instantaneously in the works of painters and sculptors. In this concise, pithy study, art critic David Levi Strauss makes an
argument for the continued relevance of art made by hand. A wide variety of examples are under consideration: the works of individual sculptors and painters; 'exotic' practitioners, such as the West coast Haida and the poet Cecilia Vicuna; curatorial figures and critical thinkers; the distinction
between labor and poetics, and more. The author's core concern is an ongoing inquiry into the relation of art-making to the present cultural and political ethos, which Strauss asserts as a necessary connection. This larger claim is kept in focus by the specificity of his accounts, an often
remarkable tracing of fact, response, perception, and thought. Strauss' resistance to (intellectual and aesthetic) fashion makes for a rewarding exchange between aesthetic theory, art historical knowledge, and independent thought.
Part I
From Hand to Head and Back Again: Some Lines for Martin Puryear
Sculpture & Sanctuary: Ursula Von Rydingsvard
Laborare est Orare
Reanimating Matter: Raoul Hague & Robert Frank
Part II
Beuys in Ireland
Between Two Worlds: The Haida Project
Relational, in the Sense of Operative: Community in the Holy Forest
The Memory of the Fingers
Part III
In Praise of Darkness
Why Move on from Illuminations that Haven't Yet Been Understood?
Her Plumbing & Her Bridges, in Sweet Assemblage
The Dissemination of
Painting
Part IV
The Fighting Is a Dance, Too
Fallen Figures & Heads
Remembering Golub
Spero's Heart
Part V
Hosephat & the Wooden Shoes: Duncan & Delire
Radial Asymmetries: On Guy Davenport
The Bias of the World: Curating After Szeemann &
Hopps
It Has to Be Danced to Be Known: Leo Steinberg
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David Levi Strauss' essays and reviews appear regularly in Artforum and Aperture, and he has written exhibition catalogues and monographs on the work of numerous artists, including Martin Puryear, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Carolee Schneeman, Alfredo Jaar, Miguel Rio Branco, Mike Bidlo, Raoul
Hague and Robert Frank, Tim Davis, and Daniel Martinez. He was also a recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in writing in 2003- 2004 and is on the faculty of the Center for Curatorial Studies and Art in Contemporary Culture at Bard College.
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