Some people think or expect that you should make the same kinds of art forever because it creates a convenient narrative ... I want my work to embody my inherent contradictions.
Kiki Smith
A/D (Artist Designer), a strong and unique voice in the 1980s and 1990s, commissioned visual artists to create functional objects that were meant to be lived with and used. The idea was that visual artists would bring different solutions to design problems, and would challenge material limits in ways that designers and architects normally would not. The success of the gallery and all that they published was a result of this challenge, and of the standards that they were willing to commit to projects. The roster of artists published by A/D is impressive, from Sol LeWitt and Chuck Close, to Jennifer Bartlett and Arlene Shechet. Further, A/D worked with the best possible fabricators who often worked closely with the artists to realize their vision and create works in small editions.
While many of the A/D editions were successful in their time, a number of the editions were never completed. Since A/D closed some 20 years ago, no other publisher has pursued this path in the same way. A/D remains a very special marker of its decade, and their editions represent an important impulse that is still influential.
The present work is an example that A/D retained for its own archives.
