Kounellis

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The often disquieting installations of Greek sculptor Jannis Kounellis defy easy explanation. An iron panel crawling wth sewing machines and lit with propane torches; a spring mattress ablaze with solid-fuel tablets beside an identical mattress holding rats in cages--are these parables of absurdity, protests over the human condition or eruptions of unforseen meaning? The opaque essays in this visually provocative volume by Moure ( Marcel Duchamp ) and other scholars circle around Kounellis's ambitious environments, which include live horses, real trains and slabs of hanging beef. Many of the playfully surreal images--cupboards densely packed with boulders, windows with iron panes--recall Rene Magritte's three-dimensional paintings. Also included are the artist's prose poems, manifestos and ruminative outpourings describing his hermetic art as a search among the shards of history to resurrect human value and cultural traditions. (Mar.)

Library Journal

This book of photographs of contemporary art installations features three major exhibits by Jannis Kounellis (b. Piraeus, 1936) in Barcelona (1989), Bordeaux (1985), and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (1986). Mary Jane Jacobs, curator of the installations in Chicago (where sites included several old factory and warehouse buildings) contributes the most intelligible of the six essays here. The book includes Kounellis's complete poetry and prose writings. His sculptural installations in industrial buildings often feature the walling-in of doorways and windows with stones, wood fragments, burlap sacks, wire mesh, and iron panels, or the placement on the floor of objects (e.g., thousands of crystal glasses of grappa with lead shapes laid on top). One memorable work consisted of 12 live horses tethered in a room; another had freshly butchered sides of beef hung against the walls. Photographs (many by Claudio Abate) document the installations, some of which feature the artist's face or body. For contemporary art collections.-- Kathleen Collins, Great Barrington, Mass.