Using traditional techniques such as direct carving and lost-wax casting, Mosley's early works in wood and later works in bronze enter into a dance between the organic and manmade
Hbk, 10.25 x 11 in. / 426 pgs / 316 color / 20 bw. | 9/30/2025 | Awaiting stock $80.00
Published by Karma Books, New York. Text by Fred Moten, Catharina Manchanda, Jessica Bell Brown. Oral history by Bridget R. Cooks, Amanda Tewes. Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Born in 1926 in New Castle, Pennsylvania, Thaddeus Mosley has made sculptures from wood for over six and a half decades from his home in Pittsburgh. Using only a chisel and gauge to maintain the integrity of the original log, Mosley reworks salvaged timber into monumental abstractions. Through a process of direct carving, the artist's marks respond to and rearticulate the natural gradations of the material's surface. With influences ranging from Isamu Noguchi to Constantin Brâncusi, from Scandinavian design to West African sculpture—Mosley's "sculptural improvisations," as he calls them, also take cues from the modernist traditions of jazz. Weight in Space is the most comprehensive monograph on the artist's oeuvre to date. In addition to a detailed chronology, this volume features new scholarship by Fred Moten and Catharina Manchanda, a conversation between Mosley and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and excerpts from an extensive oral history interview conducted by Bridget R. Cooks and Amanda Tewes.
Published by Karma Books, New York. Foreword by Ingrid Schaffner. Text by Brett Littman, Jessica Bell Brown, Ed Roberson, Connie Choi. Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Poetry by Sam Gilliam.
Since 1959, the monumental, freestanding sculptures of Pittsburgh-based artist Thad Mosley (born 1926), crafted with reclaimed building materials and felled trees, have occupied the forefront of abstraction in American sculpture. This book surveys his career.
Thaddeus Mosley