Book Release: ‘Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck’

To be released on 22 July

“In Nicole Eisenman’s Maker’s Muck, where an oversize plaster figure is seated at a potter’s wheel, surrounded by a symphony of sculptures in various generative states, muck is the color of production and dream logic and insides… Muck is the excess that can’t be forced back in. Muck is extremely satisfying smoothness. Muck is a test color, the prototype of a vision meant to exist much bigger, like ten times the size. But muck is also a turd. Or leftovers. Muck is there for playing with, unconsciously; for those of us who need to be doing something with our hands.”—Durga Chew-Bose, ‘Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck’

Nicole Eisenman’s dynamic installation ‘Maker’s Muck’ is the focus of a new publication by Hauser & Wirth Publishers. The mixed-media, kinetic installation was the heart of the artist’s first solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in 2022 in New York and recently featured in the major UK retrospective ‘Nicole Eisenman: What Happened’ at Whitechapel Gallery in 2023. Depicting an artist at work, ‘Makers’ Muck’ places an outsized plaster figure hunched over a potter’s wheel at its center, on which a mound of ersatz clay interminably spins. ​

For the new publication ‘Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck’, the artist has invited 17 contributors to follow the trajectories of the various objects in ‘Maker’s Muck’ through essays, metafictional reflections and other experiments in writing. ​ Selected by Eisenman in collaboration with editor Sarah Nicole Prickett, who also contributed a text, the writers in the book embody a cross-section of important voices in contemporary literature and art: hannah baer, Caren Beilin, Hannah Black, Durga Chew-Bose, Cyrus Dunham, Sheila Heti, Shiv Kotecha, Matt Longabucco, Sam McKinniss, Ryan McNamara, Alhena Katsof, Tess Pollok, Sam Roeck, Jasmine Sanders, Lynne Tillman, Janique Vigier. In addition to photography of the full installation, the book features new, individual documentation of the work’s individual components, allowing for an independent dialogue with some of the contributing texts. ​

The publication will be released in two editions – a trade edition and a special edition – conceived in close collaboration with the artist and produced in a limited print run of 500 numbered copies, featuring a silkscreened linen jacket with a tipped-in image on the inside flap and a line of ‘muck’ hand-piped onto the spine of each book.

‘Nicole Eisenman. with, and, of, on Sculpture’ at Hauser & Wirth Paris
​‘Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck’ will be released shortly after the opening of the artist’s forthcoming exhibition ‘Nicole Eisenman. with, and, of, on Sculpture’ at Hauser & Wirth in Paris, on view from 5 June through 22 September 2024. For this exhibition, Eisenman celebrates the medium of sculpture, which has been an integral aspect of the artist’s practice over the last decade. Having established herself as a central figure in American painting throughout the 1990s, Eisenman has since expanded her practice into the third dimension with international acclaim. This show brings together a diverse multidisciplinary language comprised of sculpture, two-dimensional work from the sculpture studio and paintings that relate to sculpture. ​

About the Artist
​Nicole Eisenman lives and works in Brooklyn NY. She is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018. Her work was included in the 2019 Venice Biennale, 2019 Whitney Biennial and 2017 Skulptur Projekte Münster in Münster, Germany. The artist’s first major museum survey exhibition, ‘Nicole Eisenman: What Happened,’ organized by Museum Brandhorst and Whitechapel Gallery, London, is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago until 22 September 2024.

Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck ​
​Release date: 22 July 2024 ​
​Edited by Sarah Nicole Prickett. Text by hannah baer, Hannah Black, Durga Chew-Bose, Cyrus Dunham, Sheila Heti, Alhena Katsof, Shiv Kotecha, Matt Longabucco, Sam McKinniss, Ryan McNamara, Tess Pollok, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Sam Roeck, Jasmine Sanders, Lynne Tillman and Janique Vigier

English, two editions ​
​29.25 x 23.5 cm, 168 pages ​
​Trade edition: Softcover; 978-3-906915-78-4; ​
​$45 / £38 / €42 / HKD 375 / CHF 42 ​
​Special edition: Softcover with jacket and acrylic muck spine; 978-3-906915-91-3; ​
​$125 / £100 / €110 / HKD 1050 / CHF 120

About Hauser & Wirth Publishers
​In keeping with Hauser & Wirth’s artist-centric vision, Hauser & Wirth Publishers works to bring readers into the universe of artists and behind the scenes of their practices. From publishing artists’ writings and exceptional exhibition-related books to commissioning new scholarship and pursuing the highest levels of craft in design and bookmaking, Hauser & Wirth Publishers creates vital, lasting records of artists’ work and ideas, forging critical gateways to the cultural discourse they inspire. ​
​Through its Oral History Initiative, Hauser & Wirth Publishers is building an enduring record of artists’ voices for future generations. Additionally, the imprint publishes Ursula magazine, a bi-annual print and digital periodical that features essays, profiles, interviews, original portfolios, films and photography by thought-provoking writers and artists from around the world. ​ ​
​Across its dedicated bookstores in the U.S. and Europe, Hauser & Wirth Publishers complements and amplifies the artist’s voice by hosting a robust slate of special programs, including talks, panels, readings and learning initiatives that engage a variety of audiences and communities. ​ ​
​Publishing has been a cornerstone of Hauser & Wirth’s activity since the gallery’s founding in 1992. Its publishing activities steadily flourished through partnerships with imprints such as Hatje Cantz, JRP|Ringier, Snoeck, Steidl, Thames & Hudson and Yale University Press before the establishment of Hauser & Wirth Publishers, with headquarters in New York and Zurich. Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ titles are distributed worldwide via Distributed Art Publishers, Interart and Buchhandlung Walther König.

For additional information, please contact:

Francesca Cosslett, Hauser & Wirth ​
​francescacosslett@hauserwirth.com

Caption and courtesy information:
​Cover: ‘Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck’
​Photo: Billy Tuttle, Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers
​Book photography: ‘Nicole Eisenman: Maker’s Muck,’ Photo: Billy Tuttle, Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Publishers