XXL Art : When Artists Think Big

From countryside to desert, city streets to museum and gallery spaces, the oversize artworks featured in this volume present the dazzling variety of large-scale art throughout the world. When artists think big, big things happen. In Chicago’s Millennium Park, thousands of visitors flock daily to Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate to see their wondrously distorted reflections. Christo’s The Gates mesmerized the citizens of New York City with its bright orange fabric draped throughout Central Park. In Prague, artist David Cerny’s Gesture either infuriated or delighted its many viewers during the city’s recent elections, while Stuart Murdoch’s Pimms Deckchair brilliantly celebrated the traditional English seaside. Political or whimsical, permanent or fleeting, magical or disturbing—each of these monumental works surprises the viewer by its sheer scale. Captured in double-page spreads with brief introductions, these works are organized by location: outdoors, in the streets, indoor, and museum installations. From Niki de Saint-Phalle’s magical Tarot Garden to Robert Smithson’s intermittently visible Spiral Jetty; from Daniel Firman’s enormous stuffed elephant displayed at the Fontainebleau Palace to Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, an enormous fissure she built in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall—each of the works featured in this unique book reminds viewers of the immense power of art.