ΒΟΟΚ:Metamorphosis, S.M.A.K./Prestel Publications

James Welling has been questioning the norms of representation since the 1970s. His work centers on an exploration of photography, shuffling the elemental components of the medium to produce a distinctly uncompromising body of work. Welling is also intensely interested in cultural and personal ideas of memory in his work. In opening up the medium of photography for experimentation, James Welling’s practice has influenced an entire generation of artists and photographers. His new monograph ”Metamorphosis”, features highlights from four decades of James Welling’s oeuvre and  published by S.M.A.K. / Prestel, on the occasion of Welling’s first major European survey exhibition, which is currently on view at Kunstforum Wien and was organized in collaboration with S.M.A.K.  This monograph, designed by Joseph Logan in close collaboration with the artist, presents a selection of works from the early 1970s to today, demonstrating the artist’s conceptual foundations. Welling’s series are dialogues between image and matter, process and result, representation and abstraction. This volume includes, amongst other series, selections from “Diary/Landscape”, “Glass House”, “Wyeth” and “Choreograph”. The illustrations are accompanied by an extensive interview with the artist and critical essays that discuss Welling’s work in connection with American painting, post-modernism, and authorship, and the artist’s eloquently emotional photographic language.-Efi Michalarou