Amid the calcifying effect of existence-over-time, the most hardened heart'd be pressed to deny Andrei Tarkovsky's advice: "Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win." It is within the furry book, Feelings: Soft Art, a new thematic publication from Rizzoli, that we may find a shoulder to lean on.
Feelings is a book about sensation, first and foremost. Its felt-bound pages contain soft colors, squishy materials, and foggy things. "A viewer takes in a piece through his or her senses, and first responds to the work from those perceptions," Rizzoli writes. Artists include Tracey Emin, Ty Dolla $ign, soft focus spectre Petra Collins, 'Serial Chiller' Parker Ito, hair-raising writings from Karley Sciortino, a collaboration between Dev Hynes and soft portrait scribe Alice Lancaster, and the first-ever meeting between between contemporary fuzz painter Sterling Ruby and Storm King "soft" sculptor Lynda Benglis.
"Soft Art suggests that these gut reactions are not only worth consideration, but may be the best gateway into deeper deliberations about a work," Rizzoli continues. Sometimes, true power is in the ability to be gentle, and in the case of Rizzoli's new book, no more makes itself true than a feeling.
The Creators Project has obtained exclusive images from Feelings: Soft Art, including a work (above) by Ito that otherwise exists solely within the book's pages.
Paola Pivi © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Carrie Mae Weems© Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Jayson Musson © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Henrique Oliveira © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Peter Zimmermann © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Henrique Oliveira © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Merete Rasmussen © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Math Bass © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Nolan Simon © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Shinique Smith © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Berndnaut Smilde © Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015. Read more about Berndnaut's cloud creations here.
© Feelings: Soft Art, Skira Rizzoli, 2015
Follow @Feelingssoft on Instagram for more, and click here to order Feelings: Soft Art.
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