Books by Gloria Sutton

Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done

by Adrian Heathfield, Malik Gaines, Thomas Lax, Giampaolo Bianconi, Ana Janevski, Harry CH Choi, Vivian A. Crockett, Danielle Goldman, Elizabeth Gollnick, Martha Joseph, Victor “Viv” Liu, Jenny Harris, Sharon Hayes, Benjamin Piekut, Kristin Poor, Julia Robinson, Gloria Sutton

Using "ordinary" movements, the Judson Dance Theater stripped dance of its theatrical conventions
A New York Times Book Review 2019 holiday gift guide pick

Taking its name from the Judson Memorial Church, a socially engaged Protestant congregation in New York's Greenwich Village, Judson Dance Theater was organized as a series of open workshops from which its participants developed performances. Redefining the kinds of movement that could count as dance, the Judson participants―Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Philip Corner, Bill Dixon, Judith Dunn, David Gordon, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Fred Herko, Robert Morris, Steve Paxton, Rudy Perez, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Carolee Schneemann and Elaine Summers, among others―would go on to profoundly shape all fields of art in the second half of the 20th century. They employed new compositional methods to strip dance of its theatrical conventions, incorporating "ordinary" movements―gestures typical of the street or home, for example, rather than a stage―into their work, along with games, simple tasks, and social dances to infuse their pieces with a sense of spontaneity.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done highlights the workshop's ongoing significance. The catalog charts the development of Judson, beginning with the workshops and classes led by Anna Halprin, Robert Ellis Dunn and James Waring, and exploring the influence of other figures working downtown such as Simone Forti and Andy Warhol, as well as venues for collective action like Judson Gallery and the Living Theatre. Lushly illustrated with film stills, photographic documentation, reproductions of sculptural objects, scores, music, poetry, architectural drawings and archival material, the publication celebrates the group's multidisciplinary and collaborative ethos as well as the range of its participants.

Bruce Nauman: A Contemporary

by Gloria Sutton, Eva Ehninger, Eric de Bruyn, Sebastian Egenhofer, Stefan Neuner, Wolfram Pichler, Heather Diack

Bruce Nauman: A Contemporary presents the artist (born 1941) as contemporary in a double sense. First, the works of Nauman’s 50-plus-year career are placed in the context of contemporary positions and discourses. Second, the publication analyzes the extent to which Nauman’s themes, media and forms have forged connections to the present, remaining of enduring importance for artists of subsequent generations.
This publication seeks to counter the tendency to cast Bruce Nauman as an outstanding, solitary figure of postmodernism by putting the artist’s work back in context. Nauman’s early works were originally discussed in the context of contemporary practices and discourses, such as minimal music, postmodern dance, conceptual art, Gestalt therapy or the philosophy of language. But soon Nauman’s reputation came to precede him, and his more recent work has largely been appraised independently of any artistic, social, historical or theoretical context. Critical consideration of Nauman’s work has narrowed to a relatively small selection of the artist’s works and ideas.
Bruce Nauman: A Contemporary redresses this imbalance by focusing on thematic concerns shared by Nauman and his contemporaries. Scholarly essays explore how Nauman and his works enter contemporary conversations on the relationship of art and work, art and globalization, and corporeality in the digital age.

Barbara T. Smith: Proof

by Gloria Sutton, Catherine Taft

A debut monograph that showcases Smith's bold experimentation, from her cutting-edge performance art to her earliest paintings, Xerox prints, drawings and sculpture

A pioneer of the performance art movement of the late 1960s, Southern California-based Barbara T. Smith (born 1931) has long produced work that explores the self, sexuality, gender roles and spiritual sustenance. While her performances have received critical attention, the objects Smith has made over nearly 60 years--many for, or as a result of, performances--are less known. These include her radical Xerox works, assemblages, sculptures, artist's books, drawings, paintings, photographs and videos. Smith's first ever comprehensive catalog is designed by Content Object (C/O). Featuring an illustrated chronology of Smith's life and artwork compiled by curator Jenelle Porter, the catalog also includes essays by scholars Gloria Sutton, Catherine Taft and Pietro Rigolo, who elaborate upon Smith's work as it relates to new technologies, ecofeminism and the archive, respectively.

Radical Softness The Responsive Art of Janet Echelman

by Gloria Sutton

Radical Softness is a visual compendium of American artist Janet Echelman's oeuvre, including detailed project documentation, archival source materials, and a fascinating illustrated chronology.



Over the past twenty-five years, Janet Echelman has created monumentally scaled public sculptures using unlikely materials, from atomized water particles to engineered fiber fifteen times stronger than steel. She weaves ancient craft and computational modeling software into an utterly unique art form.



Radical Softness is a comprehensive sourcebook that unpacks Echelman's vital practice and her ongoing commitment to "Taking Imagination Seriously," the title of her TED Talk which has been translated into thirty-five languages and has more than two million views. It features mesmerizing color photographs, a foreword by fellow creative Swizz Beatz, and contributions from a diverse range of internationally recognized scholars, engineers, designers, architects, and curators contextualizing the interdisciplinary impact of Echelman's work within the fields of global art history, architecture, computation, and landscape architecture.



POPULAR MODERN ARTIST: Janet Echelman is renowned worldwide for her public woven structures and is a sought-after lecturer and keynote speaker. Oprah Winfrey once ranked her work #1 on her list of "50 Things That Make You Say Wow!" and Echelman was named an Architectural Digest Innovator for "changing the very essence of urban spaces." She has been featured widely in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Interiors, The Washington Post, Architectural Record, Wired, Travel and Leisure, and Time, to name just a few.



AWARD-WINNING SCULPTURE WORK: Having created more than fifty artworks in twenty-two countries, Janet Echelman is celebrated for transforming open spaces. She was one of Planetizen's 100 Most Influential Urbanists, Past and Present, and winner of the Boston Society for Architecture's Harleston Parker Medal in 2023, and received Dezeen's installation Design of the Year award in 2022.



INTERNATIONAL INSTALLATIONS AND EXHIBITIONS: Echelman's works have become focal points for urban life on five continents, from Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai, and Santiago to Beijing, Boston, New York, and London. She has permanent works installed in Porto (Portugal), Gwanggyo (South Korea), Vancouver, San Francisco, West Hollywood, Phoenix, Eugene, Greensboro, Philadelphia, Seattle, Columbus (OH), and St. Petersburg (FL) that transform daily with colored light.



Perfect for:

• Fans of Janet Echelman and women artists of the 21st century
• Gift-giving to art lovers, art students, and art history buffs
• Sculpture, architecture, and urban design enthusiasts
• Anyone interested in material science, structural and aeronautical engineering, and computer science

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors

by Mika Yoshitake, Gloria Sutton, Alex Jones, Melissa Chiu, Alexander Dumbadze, Miwako Tezuka

The first and only comprehensive volume exploring the artist's best-known and most spectacular series

Published with Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

This book presents world-renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's most famous series, the Infinity Mirror Rooms, and charts its influence on the course of contemporary art for over 50 years.
Kusama's rooms are filled with multicolored lights that reflect endlessly. Ranging from peep-show-like chambers to multimedia installations, each of Kusama's kaleidoscopic environments offers the chance to step into an illusion of infinite space. This definitive publication traces these installations and reveals how, over the years, the works have come to symbolize different modalities, from Kusama's "self-obliteration" in the Vietnam War era to her more harmonious aspirations in the present. By examining her early unsettling installations alongside her more recent atmospheres, this publication historicizes her pioneering work amid today's renewed interest in experiential practices. Generously illustrated, this book invites readers to examine the series' impact over the course of the artist's career.
Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) has worked not only in sculpture and installation but also painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction and other arts. In her early career in Japan, she produced mostly works on paper. With her late-1950s move to New York City, she joined the ranks of the avant-garde, working in soft sculpture and influencing the likes of Warhol and Oldenburg. At this time, she was also involved with happenings and other performance-oriented works and began to deploy her signature dots. Her work fell into relative obscurity after her return to Japan in 1973, but a subsequent revival of interest in the 1980s elevated her work to the canonical status that it still enjoys today.