Angel Otero: Everything and Nothing

Held at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 2017, Angel Otero: Everything and Nothing is the artist's first survey exhibition, encompassing more than a decade's worth of painting and sculpture.

This monograph contains an introduction and essay by the organizing curator, Valerie Cassel Oliver, as well as incisive and wide-ranging contributions by contemporary art scholars that reveal the corporeal, cultural, and intellectual repositories that have shaped and sustained his creative endeavors over the past decade. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Otero has enjoyed massive acclaim since he first began exhibiting his work in Chicago in the mid-2000s. He continues to push against a myriad of personal and art-historical narratives in lush, seductive canvases and in the hybrid products of his kiln.

This volume highlights both the overt themes and the more ambiguous substructures of Otero's work to date, from his early still lifes and famous "skins"—paintings made of fragments and scraps of oil paint culled from previously painted images—to his more recent "transfers" and innovative sculptural work in porcelain and metal. The scope and comprehensive material promise to serve as a scholarly reader and a critical and lasting document.