Christopher Wool

Published on the occasion of Christopher Wool's 2008 exhibition at New York's Skarstedt Gallery, this concise collection of 17 black-and-white pattern paintings made between 1987 and 2000, set alongside 10 installation shots, serves as historic documentation of works that have rarely been shown or published, but which remain perennially influential. Born in Chicago in 1955, Wool came to prominence in New York in the 1980s with his graffiti-like text paintings, which are full of slang, song lyrics and action painting drips. Loved and loathed by critics, Wool has been described by the Village Voice's Jerry Saltz as, "a very pure version of something dissonant and poignant. His all-or-nothing, caustic-cerebral, ambivalent-belligerent gambit is riveting and even a little thrilling. It's what makes him one of the more optically alive painters out there.