Ways of Attaching

Ways of Attaching – A comprehensive catalogue on the work of New York artist Rosemary Mayer (1943–2014), Ways of Attaching provides an overview of the artist’s work, featuring early conceptual experiments of the late 1960s, textile sculptures and drawings made in the early 1970s, and durational performances and temporary monuments made from 1977 to 1982.

Highlighting Mayer’s formal interest in draping, knotting and tethering, Ways of Attaching focuses on the artist’s process of constructing real and imagined constellations, in which friends and historical figures feature in expressions of affinity and attachment.

The catalogue includes reproductions of Mayer’s writings and newly commissioned essays from Laura McLean-Ferris, Jenny Nachtigall and Jenni Sorkin, reflecting on Mayer’s work and the influences of astronomy, feminism, poetry, religion, Renaissance painting and the New York art scene in the 1960s and ’70s.

Edited by Eva Birkenstock (Director, Ludwig Forum), Laura McLean-Ferris (Curator at large, Swiss Institute), Robert Leckie (Director, Spike Island) and Stephanie Weber (Curator, Lenbachhaus).

This book was made possible through generous support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.