Susan Hapgood

Slightly Unbalanced surveys the prevalence of psychological neurosis as a subject in contemporary art. During the past 15 years, inspired by the work of several prominent older artists, a younger generation has expanded the contemporary art vocabulary to encompass a subject that is now well known by the general public. Cumulatively, they make use of psychology as a kind of lingua franca--we all know what the symptoms of neurosis are, if not the particular diagnoses. Beginning with historical work by Louise Bourgeois, Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman and Cindy Sherman and proceeding to more recent work by artists including Alex Bag, Sophie Calle, Beth Campbell, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, Sarah Hobbs, Sean Landers, Cary Leibowitz, Dave McKenzie, Tony Oursler, Danica Phelps, William Pope.L, Ada Ruilova, Ward Shelley and David Shrigley, this exhibition catalogue encompasses the range of media prevalent today: video art, installations, photographs, paintings and drawings.

Globalization expands and contracts daily, as art and artists cross and recross borders. Motorcycles, fashion houses, and vacuum cleaners find themselves exhibited in art museums, complete with their corporate identities intact. Corporate collections grow in size and influence, while Saatchi & Saatchi and Altoids Curiously Strong Mints roll off gallery-goers' tongues. Art & Economy gathers together essays which take a variety of stands on these multiple interrelations, as well as on artists whose work deals directly with our economic reality, such as Acces Local, Liam Gillick, Eva Grubinger, and Peter Zimmerman. It goes without saying that this book is a good deal.