Nina Katchadourian

This catalogue of an exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin presents a mid-career survey of the work of Brooklyn-based artist Nina Katchadourian.

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Nina Katchadourian: Curiouser accompanies the Blanton Museum’s mid-career survey of the work of Brooklyn-based artist Nina Katchadourian, organized by Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art Veronica Roberts. The book reveals the artist’s humor, ingenuity, and ability to unearth the creative potential that “lurks within the mundane,” to use her words. The diverse range of art it highlights includes Mended Spiderwebs, a series of photographs documenting the artist’s attempts to weave red string into dilapidated spiderwebs, and Under Pressure, a recent video that Katchadourian took of herself lip-synching to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury’s duet using her mobile phone in the cramped quarters of an airplane lavatory. We learn about art projects she has made with the assistance not only of arachnids and rock stars, but also United Nations translators, birdcall experts, librarians, sports announcers, parking lot attendants, an accent elimination coach, and even her own parents.

This exhibition catalogue marks the first significant publication on Katchadourian’s work and features essays by Jeffrey Kastner and Veronica Roberts, as well as an interview between the artist and Stuart Horodner. In addition, it includes Katchadourian’s accounts of fourteen individual works paired with creative essays from a multidisciplinary team of contributors including artist Ann Hamilton, animal behavior expert Laurel Braitman, and sound art scholar Christoph Cox. Through these diverse perspectives, readers are introduced to Katchadourian’s unbridled curiosity and puckish wit.