New and classic pieces exploring the art industry as a microsystem of capitalism

The art of Los Angeles-based Walead Beshty (born 1976) is mostly geometrically abstract in form and industrially produced, evoking Minimalist art. But Beshty does not present his works as autonomous objects for interaction with the exhibition space and the viewer; rather, he sees them within a broader context in which they are produced, transported, installed, exhibited, viewed, traded and discussed as objects of circulation. They are conceived in such a way as to document their own genesis, as well as to make visible the influences of the system in which the works also function: as a commodity, a carrier of meaning, a means of transport, a news archive, a fetish, an object of research.

This volume, published for Beshty's exhibition at Kunst Museum Winterthur, focuses on his recent output, presenting numerous works for the first time alongside his well-known photograms and Fed-Ex sculptures.