PUBLISHER
Walther König, Köln/D.A.P.

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 7.25 x 10 in., 80 pgs / 58 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 2/28/2010
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2010 p. 56

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781935202134 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $55.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

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WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN/D.A.P.

Ellsworth Kelly: Thumbing through the Folder

A Dialogue on Art and Architecture with Hans Ulrich Obrist

In this Dialogue on Art and Architecture, Ellsworth Kelly (born 1923) reminisces with Hans Ulrich Obrist about his early career, his teachers (Max Beckmann, Brancusi, Léger and Vantongerloo) and particularly on the relation of his work to architecture: “architects are usually the first people who understand my work,” he tells Obrist here, while describing his many collaborations in this field. Throughout this beautiful publication runs a series of collaged and overpainted postcards by Kelly, dating from 1949 to 1984, which are reproduced here for the first time. These postcards, referred to throughout the dialogue, are unlike any of Kelly's paintings and sculptures, particularly in their use of body imagery; others are closer to familiar Kelly terrain, as projections of torn colored paper forms onto found landscapes and architecture. This artist's book makes a wonderfully unusual record of a warm encounter.

This featured image, Ellsworth Kelly's collage Dolder Grand, 1977, is from Ellsworth Kelly: Thumbing through the Folder, A Dialogue on Art and Architecture with Hans Ulrich Obrist, published by Walther König and D.A.P.

STATUS: Out of print | 11/30/2012

For assistance locating a copy, please see our list of recommended out of print specialists

FROM THE BOOK

“I have a theory that color was used very differently in Europe than in America in the 1950s. Color was used by the Fauves at the beginning of the 20th Century, followed by Kandinsky and later Leger, let's say in 1912. They used all the colors of the spectrum. When I was a student at Pratt Institute before the War, we were instructed in Munsell Color Theory. I painted my first spectrum in Paris in 1953 which influenced my use of spectral colors. [showing images of his early work] …you see, this was how it started in Paris. I think Benjamin Buchloh wrote about a special use of spectrum colors that I brought back to America where it wasn’t understood.”

Ellsworth Kelly, in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, from Ellsworth Kelly: Thumbing through the Folder.

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