Tom Sachs

The most recent body of paintings of this New York-based artist, featuring the artist's examination of consumer culture in his handmade, "do-it- yourself " aesthetic. This is the first publication to focus exclusively on the roughly hewn paintings by Tom Sachs (b. 1966), tracing his interest in combining cultural icons and corporate logos with a handcrafted aesthetic. Mining the American landscape for iconography, Sachs investigates themes of corporate and cultural identity--such as consumerism, branding, cultural dominance, and technological development--to explore the achievements, failures, and inherent contradictions of contemporary society. In addition to the essay by David Rimanelli and twenty-two plates, there is a conversation with the artist and an extensive chronology. Sachs's meticulously handcrafted paintings depict such diverse topics as the Reese's candy bar, Fanta logo, Family Guy, Air Force One, Krusty O's cereal box, and the American flag; all modern icons that document successes and failures of the American experience and the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in its society and culture.

"Robert Irwin, perhaps the most influential of the California artists, moved from his beginnings in abstract expressionism through successive shifts in style and sensibility, into a new aesthetic territory altogether, one where philosophical concepts of perception and the world interact. Weschler has charted the journey with exceptional clarity and cogency. He has also, in the process, provided what seems to me the best running history of postwar West Coast art that I have yet seen."—Calvin Tomkins

This is a lavishly illustrated volume exploring Tom Sachs' ambitious installation Nutsy's.

For the first time, this book brings together the Tom Sachs supernova, from the products for NIKECraft to the production of industrial films. Tom Sachs's studio, nestled in New York City's Lower East Side, is a universe all its own. After thirty years spent in the space, every inch of it bears the artist's style, characterized by embracing the imperfections that reveal his process. The quintessential Sachs piece is a ceramic vessel: handmade, emblazoned with the NASA logo -- a recurring motif in his art -- and scored with thumbprints and a patched crack. Tom Sachs rose to prominence in the mid-1990s with his loving re-creations of consumerist icons. He made representations of McDonald's meals from Hermès and Tiffany packaging and rebuilt Knoll furniture from phone books and duct tape. Throughout Sachs's career, his studio has engaged in a process of self-documentation, using not just its artwork but its internal codes of conduct as material for short films. Today, his studio bridges the worlds of fine art and fashion through active participation in both. In the age of mass production and planned obsolescence, Sachs's work speaks to the beauty of handicrafts and bricolage. The artist himself proudly proclaims many of his works to be "fucked up," and he elevates and celebrates each sculpture's unique scars. Sachs's work is closely tied to manual labor.

Edited by Ellen R. Feldman. Text by Jeff Fleming, Raphaela Platow.

Tea Ceremony Manual is a complete, lavishly-illustrated guide to Tom Sachs' culture of tea, featuring the artist's step-by-step instructions on how to perform a tea ceremony. Inspired by niche manuals such as The Tea Ceremony, by Seno Tanaka, The Fundamentals of Judo, by Yves Klein, and Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking, by Tage Frid, the book features a statement by the artist, an essay and haiku by Noguchi Museum Senior Curator Dakin Hart, a foreword by Noguchi Museum Director Jenny Dixon, and substantial back-matter, including a visual index of all of Sachs' tea-related works and an array of contextualizing appendices. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Tom Sachs: Tea Ceremony, on view at The Noguchi Museum thru July 24, 2016 and traveling to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas thru Jan 2018.