Title No.1: First Works By 362 Artists Editors Francesca Richer &
Matthew Rosenzweig Publisher Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. Format Paperback Pages 424
Usually drowned by the plaudits or brickbats offered by critics, biographers and art historians, it is not often that one gets the opportunity to hear what the artists have to say about their own works, especially what they regard as their ´first works'. This edited volume by Francesca Richer and Matthew Rosenzweig is all the more delightful precisely because of this reason. No.1: First Works by 362 Artists is a compilation of the works by a variety of contemporary artists, including painters, photographers, sculptors and filmmakers. Each artist gets a page, in which an image of the work is presented along with the artists' own interpretation, memory, or recollection of the creation process. In the introduction to the book, the editors mention that when requesting for entries, they deliberately left the definition of first work open-ended. The result was, as they note, "vast and varied. Some artists sent pieces from their childhoods, or works they found embarrassing yet somehow still pertinent; others chose more recent or well-known works....[some chose] the marker of a turning point that affected subsequent works."
Although we get to see only one work of each artist, together these 362 pieces provide one of the most accessible introductions to the world of art. The collection provides an insight into the minds of the artists and their unique processes of art-making. It teaches the reader to appreciate art in its widest definition. Although some of the artists in there are well-known, there are others who one may come across for the first time. Among the artists included are Vito Acconci, Fiona Banner, Nayland Blake, Louise Bourgeois, Vija Celmins, Judy Chicago, John Currin, Amy Cutler, Martin Creed, Tacita Dean, Mitch Epstein, Larry Fink, Tom Friedman, Roni Horn, Callum Innes, Joan Jonas, Anish Kapoor, Mary Kelly, Yayoi Kusama, Glenn Ligon, Barry McGee, Tracey Moffatt, Shirin Neshat, Roxy Paine, Richard Prince, Dorothea Rockburne, Tom Sachs, Kiki Smith, Pat Steir, Juergen Teller, Fred Tomaselli, Rosemarie Trockel, Tunga, Luc Tuymans, Gus Van Sant, John Waters, John Wesley, Sue Williams, Fred Wilson, Lisa Yuskavage and Andrea Zittel. What makes this book even more interesting is the almost invisible presence of the editors, who refuse to either categorise artists or arrange them in a hierarchy of sorts. Presented alphabetically, each artist's note could quite easily have been an entry in his/her personal diary.
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