Annette Messager: the messengers

The full range of one of today s most versatile artists is on vivid display in this heavily illustrated, lavishly produced and comprehensive monograph on the art of Annette Messager. From her earliest works, in which she posed taxidermized sparrows in knitted garments, to her magnificent three-room installation, Casino, which won her the Golden Lion award at the 2005 Venice Biennale, Annette Messager has long tackled issues of femininity, prejudice, social mores, birth, and death. Illustrated with more than 600 images that track her entire career to date, this book designed by the artist herself includes interviews, texts by the artist, sketches, installations and photographs of her work.Messager s work encompasses the highly personal, such as ink blots made from her own signatures, diary entries, her children s drawings, to the political, for example effigies displaying acts of torture and abuse. She employs a wide range of materials, including fabric, wool, found objects, personal sketches and photography, through which she catalogs and mines these themes. As varied as its subject, this beautifully produced volume demonstrates Messager's powerful ability to transform the stuff of life into objects of potent expression.