Brice Marden at Casa Malaparte

This book was published on the occasion of Brice Marden at Casa Malaparte, a one-night-only exhibition in July 2018 at Casa Malaparte, the famous cliffside house built on the Italian island of Capri by Curzio Malaparte (the pseudonym of Kurt Erich Suckert), a provocative writer, editor, and intellectual active in the Italian literary and artistic avant-garde. It features six paintings—including the ten-panel Summation (2018) illustrated on a gatefold—and five calligraphic ink drawings together with installation photography that captures the interplay between Marden’s works and the unique site as well as highlights their relationship with nature and landscape.

The book also includes “Brice Marden, Jean-Luc Godard, and Casa Malaparte,” an essay by poet and critic John Yau. In his text, Yau uncovers the relationship between the architecturally remarkable house and Godard’s 1963 film Le Mépris (Contempt), in which it features as a key location; he also explores the evolution of Marden’s work, focusing on the painter’s use of terre verte (green earth) in the canvases on view, and exploring his singularly deft combination of “ascetic purity and the hedonist’s commitment to earthy sensuality.”