Paper Works

Using bold colours and the gutsy, great gesture, the Cologne artist Andreas Plum (b. 1977) sticks ­coloured strips of paper onto the canvas and then applies more ­colour or groups them to bring about an expressionistic, emotional discharge. He adopts the trivial motifs of Pop Art as well as the abstract thrust of hard-edge ­painting in order to blend the two with the lingering resonance of arte povera. The press response is enthusiastic, observing that ­Andreas Plum has not only ­drained tradition but has, more­over, managed to breathe new life into it with his visual and ­material paradoxes. He redeems conceptual art of its material ­fatigue and places it in the middle of an unabatedly material world of images. This book follows his choice of materials in keeping with the paper streamers by using them across a spread of pages. It is pos­sible to see the colourful ­eruption of a psychedelic vision shortly ­before it bursts as an ­illusion.