James Croak

the long version

James Croak, one of America's most original artists, has produced an astonishing and idiosyncratic body of work during the past twenty years. Using a variety of innovative materials and techniques, including taxidermy, latex rubber, tar, and his trademark cast dirt, he has merged traditional allegiance to exacting craftsmanship with a late-twentieth-century sensibility, creating sculpture of presence and feeling. With more than 100 illustrations documenting the artist's development over the past two decades, the book follows his experiments with Minimalism - an approach that he revisited with his Window series - his examinations of American society in New Skins for the Coming Monstrosities, and the art of the figure that chiefly holds his attention today.