Original Ghost Compendium, Andrew Bick (hbck, Hanej Cantz/Haus Konstruktiv)
This is a long overdue and very welcome monograph about the London-based artist Andrew Bick, who is represented by Hales Gallery, London but is a major presence at Gallerie Von Bartha in Basel. This book is published on the back of an important solo exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich back in 2017, and also includes reproductions of and discussion about work exhibited in subsequent exhibitions at Von Bartha in 2018 and Hales in 2019.
Bick is both an artist and a curator, and his work has included artist’s books, sculpture, gallery and architectural installations, drawings, prints and paintings. These paintings often blur the lines between three-dimensional reliefs and more traditionally flat painted canvasses, with Bick often partially obscuring areas of his work with wax or Perspex layers, and interrupting his apparently formal grids with gesture, scribble and line.