pressPLAY: Contemporary Artists in Conversation

A personal encounter with 50 of the world’s most significant contemporary artists, pressPLAY draws together the full texts of the complete Phaidon interviews with artists since 1995. From highly established artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Alex Katz to midcareer masters such as Fischli and Weiss and Jenny Holzer to the most exciting artists of the current generation such as Maurizio Cattelan and Pipilotti Rist, the artists in pressPLAY work in every variety of media – from painting to video, sculpture to installation. In discussion with key art critics as well as fellow artists, novelists, musicians and theorists, together the players in pressPLAY explain in full what it means to be an artist today. Highlights include veteran painter Vija Celmins and noted sculptor Robert Gober in an intimate discussion on their differing art practices; longtime friends and fellow travellers for decades, Benjamin Buchloh and Lawrence Weiner recall 35 years of work in the definitive, career-long interview for this key conceptual artist; the late Sir Ernst Gombrich in a discussion with the UK’s pre-eminent sculptor Antony Gormley, who confesses that it was Gombrich’s Story of Art that first inspired him to become an artist; the taciturn, legendary Raymond Pettibon muses on the evolution of his work with noted novelist Dennis Cooper; musician-artist Christian Marclay discusses performance, music and art with Kim Gordon from the legendary rock band Sonic Youth .