“From Hand to Head and Back Again: Some Lines for Martin Puryear” was first published, in Italian and English, in Forma Lignea: Nunzio and Martin Puryear (Milan: Electa and the American Academy in Rome, 1997).
“Sculpture and Sanctuary” was published in a different form and under a different title in Art in America, February 1993.
“Laborare Est Orare” is previously unpublished. An earlier version of it was published in Polish under the title “Przejscia” in Pokaz: Pismo Krytyki Artystycznej (Warsaw, 1999).
“Reanimating Matter: Raoul Hague’s Sculptures and Robert Frank’s Photographs” was first published in an exhibition catalogue for the show of the same name curated by David Levi Strauss at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York, New Paltz, in 2002.
“Beuys in Ireland: 7,000 Oaks on the Hill of Uisneach” was first published in a flyer by The Academy of Everything Is Possible, Dublin, 2002. The flyer also included Peter Lamborn Wilson’s essay “Umbilicus Hiberniae.” Thanks to Gordon Campbell, who made it all possible.
“Between Two Worlds: The Haida Project” is previously unpublished. Many thanks to Ann Hatch for commissioning the original work.
“Signal to Noise: Between Image and Organizing Principle” was first published in the catalogue for a ten-year retrospective of Terry Winters’s paintings and drawings at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in 2009, published by Hatje Cantz. Thanks to Terry Winters and Raymond Foye.
“The Memory of the Fingers: A Conversation between Cecilia Vicuña and David Levi Strauss” was first published in Cloud-Net (New York: Art in General, 1999).
“In Praise of Darkness” was commissioned as an essay on a suite of drawings by Raquel Rabinovich and was printed in a small exhibition brochure by Trans Hudson Gallery in New York City in November 1998.
“Why Move On from Illuminations That Haven’t Yet Been Understood?” was first published under a different title, in Norwegian and English, in Mike Bidlo: NOT Picasso, NOT Pollock, NOT Warhol (Oslo, Norway: Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, 2002), a catalogue for a retrospective of Bidlo’s work in Oslo, Bergen, and Reykjavik.
“Her Plumbing and Her Bridges, in Sweet Assemblage: Donald Lipski’s Combinatory Art” was first published, in German and English, in the catalogue for an exhibition of Donald Lipski’s work at the Bawag Foundation, Vienna, in 2000.
“Reverie and Luck, Incarnate” was first published in On Ron Gorchov, a limited edition book edited by Phong Bui (New York: Black Square Editions and The Brooklyn Rail, 2008).
“The Fighting Is a Dance, Too” was first published in a limited-edition book (edition of 125, including five deluxe copies with original drawings by Leon Golub and Nancy Spero) by Roth Horowitz Gallery, New York, in April 2000. Many thanks to Andrew Roth for commissioning this work and for introducing me to Leon and Nancy.
“Fallen Figures and Heads: Leon Golub’s Lists” was first published in Cabinet, May 2004. Thanks to Jeffrey Kastner and Sina Najafi.
“Remembering Golub” and “Spero’s Heart” were first published in the Brooklyn Rail, in September 2004 and December 2005/January 2006, respectively. Thanks to Phong Bui.
“Hosephat and the Wooden Shoes: Duncan and Délire” was presented at the Robert Duncan conference “The Opening of the Field,” organized by Robert Creeley for the Poetry Collection at the State University of New York, Buffalo, April 20, 1996, and a version of it was published in the Edinburgh Review, Spring 1997, thanks to Eck Finlay.
“Radial Asymmetries: Robert Kelly and David Levi Strauss on Guy Davenport (1927–2005)” was first published in the Brooklyn Rail, July/August 2005.
“The Bias of the World: Curating after Szeemann and Hopps” was first published in Cautionary Tales: Critical Curating (New York: apexart, 2007). Many thanks to Steven Rand for the invitation and conversation.
“Father and Daughter: Flesh” was first published as “Correspondents: On Titian: Nymph and Shepherd, by John Berger and Katya Berger Andreadakis,” in The Nation, February 3, 1997.
“It Has to Be Danced to Be Known” was published in a modified form and under a different title in the Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1997, edited by Jay Tolson.
I am grateful to New Directions for allowing me to reproduce a portion of Robert Duncan’s “The Self in Postmodern Poetry” from Fictive Certainties: Essays by Robert Duncan (New York: New Directions, 1985), pp. 233–34.
And I also want to thank my editor at Oxford, Shannon McLachlan, who first asked for this book and was steadfast in her belief in it; her assistant, Brendan O’Neill; and all the other good people at Oxford University Press who did the hard hand work to bring it to fruition.