Carson Chan

The starting point of this publication is the conceptual encounter between English Pop artist Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) and Swiss historian and architecture critic Sigfried Giedion (1888-1968), famous for his landmark 1941 book, Space, Time & Architecture.In 1949 Richard Hamilton created the Reaper print series as a reaction to Giedion's 1948 book Mechanization Takes Command, in which he describes the mechanization of everyday life. Reproducing Hamilton's complete Reaper series alongside illustrations created by Giedion plus related images, this publication brings together seven essays by renowned international scholars. Among the many topics discussed are Hamilton's early works and exhibition installation practice, postwar British biotechnology and architecture, "Hippie Modernism" and the visual strategy of Giedion's books.

This anthology of newly commissioned texts presents a series of detailed examples of the different kinds of knowledge production that have recently emerged within the field of curatorial practice. The first volume of its kind to provide an overview of the theme of research within contemporary curating, "Curating Research" marks a new phase in developments of the profession globally. Consisting of case studies and contextual analyses by curators, artists, critics and academics, including Hyunjoo Byeon, Carson Chan and Joanna Warsza, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Olga Fernandez Lopez, Kate Fowle, Maja and Reuben Fowkes, Liam Gillick, Georgina Jackson, Sidsel Nelund, Simon Sheikh, Henk Slager, tranzit.hu, Jelena Vestic, Marion von Osten and Vivian Ziherl, and edited by curators Paul O'Neill and Mick Wilson, the book is an indispensible resource for all those interested in the current state of art and in the intersection between research and curating that underlies exhibition-making today.