Author(s): Richard Wentworth (Artist); Hans Ulrich Obrist (Contribution by)

Art and Design

A leading figure in the New British Sculpture movement of the early 1980s, Richard Wentworth (born 1947) uses photography to register chance encounters of oddities and discrepancies in the modern landscape, expanding the possibilities of sculpture into the public realm. Documenting Wentworth's ongoing series Making Do and Getting By, the book's 750 images document excess--a creativity beyond functionality, something transformative that lurks beneath the surface intention in acts of ordering and repair. In one image, a car door serves to mend a fence; in another, wooden crates are wedged into a doorway. Wentworth seizes on this rupture between object and intended function, object and meaning. In Making Do and Getting By, Wentworth redefines the art of the human hand with a light and witty touch.