Unmonumental

- Unmonumental features recent work by thirty contemporary sculptors at the vanguard of their craft, all selected by one of contemporary art's top curatorial teams
- Forerunners in a major new artisitic development, the sculptures in Unmonumental are powerful but patently un-heroic; assembled from bits of the world at large, they are sardonic metaphors for our time
- Generously illustrated in large full-colour photos, most of the artworks in Unmonumental have never before been published
- Published in conjunction with the inaugural exhibition of the New Museum of Contemporary Art's landmark new building (designed by Seijima + Nishazawa / SANAA) on the Bowery in New York


'This first decade of the twenty-first century has produced a sculpture of fragments, a debased, precarious, trembling form that we have called "unmonumental."'
- Massimiliano Gioni, p. 65

Unmonumental unveils a signficant recent development in art that takes the definition of sculpture as an autonomous object and shatters it to pieces. Rather than cast or carved, these sculptures have been cobbled together from bits of the world at large. They are of their moment, making gentle or high mockery of a wide range of art histories, from Russian Constructivism to 1980s appropriation art. Far from paying tribute to received notions of the courageous, they are patently anti-heroic. In short, they are a metaphor for our times.

Selected by the curatorial team at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the work in Unmonumental includes some of the most energetic and provocative sculpture being made today.  Most of it has never before been published.  Artists include Alexandra Bircken, John Bock, Carol Bove, Martin Boyce, Tobias Buche, Carlos Bunga, Tom Burr, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Aaron Curry, Sam Durant, Urs Fischer, Claire Fontaine, Isa Genzken, Rachel Harrison, Elliott Hundley, Gabriel Kuri, Jim Lambie, Nate Lowman, Sarah Lucas, Matthew Monahan, Kristen Morgin, Manfred Pernice, Anselm Reyle, Marc Andre Robinson, Eva Rothschild, Lara Schnitger, Gedi Sibony, Shinique Smith, Nobuko Tsuchiya and Rebecca Warren.

Unmonumental also features groundbreaking essays by Richard Flood, Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni and Trevor Smith, a photo essay by Benjamin Godsill and an extensive historical glossary by Eva Diaz.  Extensively illustrated with large full-colour photographs, Unmonumental is a dispatch from the frontlines of art history, a first look at the future of the art object and essential reading for anyone interested in the art of our times.