Jene Highstein

de Laura Mattioli Rossi

"This book, published in close collaboration between the artist and the editor, offers a historical rereading and critical revaluation of a unified group of works, entitled Pipe Pieces, created by Jene Highstein (born in Baltimore in 1942) in the early 1970s: it includes collages, drawings, and sculptures/installations issuing from the encounter between the American minimalist vocabulary, land art, and Italian Renaissance theories on perspective and philosophy. The fundamental facets of the Pipe Pieces are the importance attributed to the expressive force of given materials and the direct relationship between the work and the viewer: invariably powerful, these works establish themselves in a specifically chosen 1:1 relationship with the human body; careful attention is paid to the environment-be it natural or architecturalwhich is ultimately redesigned by an approach hinged upon perception and mathematics." "The creation of this book was enriched by the fact that Highstein made all his extant documentation available, in addition to his personal memories and experiences-including the extraordinary period he spent at the experimental artist's space at 112 Greene St."--Jacket.