A Caduceus Is for Killing

Covering 30 years of groundbreaking work, spanning from 1976 to 2006, The Paintings of Ross Bleckneris the first major monograph on this important American artist, as well as the first publication devoted to his work since his 1995 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Beginning with an analysis of Bleckner's much-overlooked Constructivist and Post-Constructivist paintings of the 1970s, it continues with chapter-by-chapter studies of all the critically-acclaimed series, from the Stripe, Weather, Chandelierand Memorial(or AIDS) paintings of the early to mid-1980s to the Specific and Anonymous, Inheritance, Proteinand Meditationpaintings of the new millennium. In addition to an intensive analysis of each of the artist's completed works, the book contains 250 black-and-white illustrations, 134 color plates of Bleckner's most seminal works, a comprehensive history of his exhibitions and a complete bibliography. In his monumental text study, author Richard Milazzo writes, "Bleckner's work has always been interested in bringing abstract painting closer to the realities of the external world, while endeavoring to plumb the depths of the subliminal realm of the psyche. Much lauded for the work he has done for ACRIA, the American Community Research Initiative on AIDS, and as an outspoken advocate of the fight against the disease since the late 1980s, his paintings are symbolic expressions of a larger humanity, and, as such, also comprise formal as well as social values."