Meg Cranston: Hot Pants in a Cold Cold World

by Brian Butler, Meg Cranston, Nico Israel

Meg Cranston's work often combines text and imagery from popular culture. With Kippenberger-esque energy and wit, Cranston investigates anthropological and physical issues in sculpture, installation, painting and drawing. Recent shows have featured, for instance, drawings and sculptures of bad teeth and their imagined physiognomic significance, a large composite photograph of an average-size American and a performance about the life of Marvin Gaye. This first monograph on Cranston's work includes texts by Carole Ann Klonarides and Tirdad Zolghadr, as well as an interview with the artist by Nico Israel. Published with Artspace, Auckland, New Zealand.
Meg Cranston has shown internationally since 1988. She has been the recipient of a New School of Social Research Faculty Development Grant, an artist grant from the Penny McCall Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a faculty research grant from the Center for Asian American Studies at UCLA.

202 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

Reviews

[Viv! · Rating 5 out of 5]

For someone who had ever heard of Meg Cranston until reading this book I absolutely loved it. I really enjoyed the format of having her interview first and then someone writing about her followed by images of her work. She’s such an interesting artist and woman and this book, I found really conveyed that.

[Amanda Mcgough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Idea is king. Cranston's monograph reminds me that when work(conceptual art) becomes an abstraction, it is not distorted and altered by its reproduction in books. Like with any artist monograph, the texture and physical presence of the work is compromised, but that's secondary. Primary are her ideas, and to be able to trace threads from the mid-late 80's to now is an absolute pleasure. Her art is funny fuuny funny, and is a relentless reminder of the potency in humor, and how that has instigated and organized the efforts of many other important artists like Kippenberger and Baldessari.