Doug Wheeler

Publisher: David Zwirner Books

Publication Date: 2020

Text by Germano Celant

Over five decades, Doug Wheeler has pioneered the art of light and space. His work powerfully explores the way we perceive “empty” space—the way light can affect our perception and make emptiness feel full and dense. From his early experiences flying across the desert with his father, a doctor in Globe, Arizona, Wheeler developed a passion for the intensity and stillness of vast expanses, seeing in them a whole new set of possibilities for visual art.

Although Wheeler began his career as a painter, his wall-mounted artworks soon began incorporating light as a medium and quickly gave way to an unprecedented art-historical breakthrough: his construction of an absolute light environment, crafted in his studio in 1967. Since that unparalleled moment, Wheeler’s work has been exhibited widely all over the world; in the past decade, with numerous major gallery and museum installations, his reputation as the definitive light and space artist has been solidified.

This volume, featuring new scholarship by renowned art historian Germano Celant, traces the entire course of Wheeler’s career to date, from his first mature paintings to his immersive installations. Writing on Wheeler’s intense and direct engagement with the absoluteness in the optical fields he creates, Celant provides a detailed account for Wheeler’s development as one of the most original and influential artists of his generation. Wheeler’s work not only changes how we encounter reality after we see it, but also how we envision what is possible more broadly in visual art.

Details

Publisher: David Zwirner Books

Artist: Doug Wheeler

Contributors: Germano Celant

Publication Date: 2020

ISBN: 9781941701249

Retail: $75 | £60 | €70 | $550 HKD

Status: Available

Designer: David Chickey

Printer: VeronaLibri, Verona

Binding: Hardcover

Dimensions: 9 ½ × 12 in | 24.1 × 30.5 cm

Pages: 352

Reproductions: 158 color

Artist and Contributors

Doug Wheeler

Over the past six decades, pioneering American artist Doug Wheeler (b. 1939) has become known for his innovative constructions and installations that engage with the perception and experience of light, space, and sound.

Germano Celant

Germano Celant, renowned art historian and theoretician, is internationally acknowledged for his theories on Arte Povera. He is also the author of more than one hundred publications and curator of numerous exhibitions for museums and institutions worldwide. He is currently the artistic and scientific superintendent of Fondazione Prada, Milan and Venice, and the curator of both Fondazione Aldo Rossi, Milan, and Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, Venice.

$56.25

$75