PAOLOZZI, Eduardo; CRAGG, Anthony (ed.); WOOD, Jon (ed.)
Z.E.E.P. Zero Energy Experiment Pile

Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) was one of the most idiosyncratic and versatile British artists of the post-war period. He came to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s with a series of collages in which he combined images from popular culture and advertising. Under the influence of Dada and Surrealism, he developed a visual language that anticipated the development of British Pop Art. In doing so, “he recognized very early on in the illustrations of mass culture the possibility of being able to develop a new aesthetic that sets itself apart from the traditional one” (Winfried Konnertz).

His powerful sculptures and prints, which established Paolozzi’s lasting international success in the 1960s and 1970s, explore the relationship between man and science, searching for a substantive and formal correspondence to the new myths of the emerging mass society. In his sculptures, Paolozzi also uses a collage technique that integrates the relics of a culture determined by technology and media into new fields of meaning and association. [publishers’ note]

[Titled after a nuclear reactor, Zero Energy Experimental Pile or Z.E.E.P. was the title of a series of screenprints Paolozzi made in 1970), based on collages of magazine cutouts.]

The catalogue accompanies a retrospective exhibition at the Waldfrieden Sculpture Park in 2024–25, and gathers documents of Paolozzi’s works and several essays!

Published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2024
Design by probsteibooks
Exhibition Catalogues