Against Reason: Tony Smith and Other Modernisms

A publication series of commissioned writings and projects exploring the ongoing vitality of American modernist Tony Smith (1912–1980) in the canon and via contemporary influence.

Edited by James Voorhies

Forthcoming MIT Press

Designed by Practise

Made possible with funding and support from Tony Smith Foundation and MIT Press; initiated as part of my responsibilities while Executive Director of the Tony Smith Foundation

Against Reason: Tony Smith, Sculpture, and Other Modernisms

Contributions by Judith Barry, Tom Burr, Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Saim Demircan, Mario Gooden, and Jenni Sorkin

Against Reason: Tony Smith, Architecture, and Other Modernisms

Contributions by Mario Gooden, Christopher Ketcham, Marta Kuzma, Peter L’Official, R.H. Quaytman, and Jasmine Rault

Against Reason: Tony Smith and Other Modernisms will present newly commissioned writing, research, and projects by historians, curators, and artists offering renewed reflections on works by the artist and the history of abstraction combined with previously unpublished interviews and writings by Smith.

The Against Reason books will be published alongside each of the Tony Smith Catalogue Raisonné volumes, together serving as comprehensive documentation of the depth and complexity of the artist’s career while positioning Smith’s oeuvre in dialogue with contemporary discourses on art and culture.

Against Reason: Tony Smith and Other Modernism seeks to push the boundaries of the catalogue raisonné form by innovating what these kinds of large-scale publications can look like, updating the methodologies for researching and writing—interweaving—modern and contemporary art histories.

Books

Tony Smith, Olsen House, 1951–53, Guilford, CT (Photo: James Voorhies).