Michael Elmgreen Knihy

Throughout their careers, the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset (Michael Elmgreen, b. Copenhagen, Denmark, 1961, and Ingar Dragset, b. Trondheim, Norway, 1969, live and work in Berlin) have eschewed the traditional " White Cube" exhibition format by creating large-scale installations and staging narrative situations in which autobiographical quotes blend with fictional stories and cultural references. For the solo exhibition READ, Elmgreen & Dragset have transformed Kunsthalle Praha into a minimalist version of a modern public library to prompt reflections on our relationship with physical books and knowledge in the age of digital media. With new works by Elmgreen & Dragset as well as performances, videos, collages, paintings, and sculptures by other artists, READ also probes the relation between books and the making of art. This richly illustrated publication documents the dynamic interaction between language, books, and art. With contributions from renowned scholars and a curatorial text by Elmgreen & Dragset.

"Some people find a certain cruelty in parts of our work," say the rising conceptualist-collaborators Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, "but they are definitely not more vicious than any real life experiences." Since 1995, Elmgreen and Dragset have tackled issues of privatization, gentrification, social alienation and the dismantling of social welfare. For their first show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in 2001 they papered over the windows with the announcement "Opening Soon Prada." Pursuing and inverting this theme, in 2005 they installed a mocked-up Prada store on a deserted road near Marfa, Texas. They have recreated hospitals and prison cells, and have reconfigured gallery spaces to spatially deter their would-be audience. "Our aim is to investigate some of the power structures that these spaces derive from, and by exchanging and replacing some of these structures, show how fragile they actually are." This monograph is the first extensive survey of their work to date.