Jimmy Robert Vis-à-vis

This catalogue accompanies Jimmy Robert Vis-à-vis, the first large-scale US solo exhibition of the Brussels-based artist’s work. One of Europe’s most dynamic younger artists, Jimmy Robert (b. 1975) works in a range of media—including photography, sculpture, film, video, and collaborative performance—gently breaking down divisions between two and three dimensions, image and object. Robert’s work is guided by an interest in the body and the poetic potential of ephemeral materials such as paper and tape. Creating form through gesture, he draws inspiration from artists such as Yvonne Rainer and Yoko Ono. His exploration of moving bodies, crumpling paper, and repetitive gestures, in works that feature actions such as a hand tearing tape from skin or fingers rubbing a text, has come to define him as an artist of touching. Utilizing multiple paper stocks and sizes, this volume features the artist’s newest work while surveying his oeuvre to date with essays by MCA Curator Naomi Beckwith and art historian Marie de Brugerolle, along with a dialogue between Robert and artist Ian White.

Jimmy Robert Vis-à-vis is the second book in the series MCA Monographs.

Published by MCA Chicago, 2012, spiral-bound softcover with French flaps, 134 pages, 10 x 8 inches.