Casey Kaplan
Kevin Beasley’s New Book & LP Set Surveys Art Suited for Sight and Sound
By Andy Battaglia | March 23, 2023 8:00am
Kevin Beasley’s new publication A View of a Landscape is a monograph paired with a 2-record set of vinyl LPs expanding on the artist’s work with sculpture and sound. The title relates to a 2018–19 exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York, to which Beasley transplanted a vintage cotton-gin motor whose whirring sounds he captured with microphones and broadcast in the museum. But the publication also looks back to survey the evolution of Beasley’s various bodies of work, much of it engaged with his childhood in rural Virginia and his pathways through Detroit, New Haven, and New York.
The book part of A View of a Landscape includes essays by writers including Fred Moten, Adrienne Edwards, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Thomas Lax (as well as this author, who first wrote about Beasley in 2015). The sound part of the project includes new recordings created by L’Rain, Moor Mother, Jlin, Jason Moran, and more. To all involved, Beasley granted access to an extensive image bank featuring photographs, videos, and other materials related to his work, with an invitation to draw on them however much or little made sense.
To read the full article, visit the ARTnews website here