Between the Eyes Painting. Gene Beery: Para-Visual Painter of Word Signs

Gene Beery LIFE! is the first monograph dedicated to this prolific American artist (b. 1937) who has interrogated with humour and irony the moment of aesthetic experience. What are the stakes between a viewer and an artwork? What does the surface of the canvas promise to whoever looks at it? Beery positions himself with pictures to be read, whose phrases announce the arrival, the possibility of such an experience. Behind the apparent nonchalance and sarcastic distance of his practice emerges a profound reflection on the existence of art and the role of the artist. Beery is best known for his black-on-white paintings, replicating signs, notices and announcements. The book published by Mousse and Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg offers an in-depth investigation of his work. It assembles more than 65 artworks and three essays, by Kenneth Goldsmith, Jo Melvin and Balthazar Lovay, as well as an interview with Gene Beery by Gregor Quack.