Apparitions: Frottages and Rubbings from 1860 to Now (Menil Collection (YUP))

by Allegra Pesenti

Leslie Cozzi and Clare Elliott

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 0 shelved
Book cover for Apparitions

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

This fascinating publication sheds light on a medium that combines the qualities of drawing with those of sculpture, printmaking, and painting, and is the first to focus exclusively on the art technique known as frottage, derived from the French word frotter, meaning “to rub.” Over 100 pieces, ranging from contemporary conceptual works to rubbings recording tombs and inscriptions, are assembled and sumptuously reproduced in color. More than 50 artists--including the famous, like Max Ernst, inventor of the term “frottage," and the relatively unknown--are presented. Four thematic sections explore different aspects of frottage: its roots in Surrealism and the practice of automatic drawing; the notion of trace, of either a place or an idea left behind in a rubbing; the “apparitions” or ghostlike attributes that can appear on the surface of an artwork; and the associations between rubbings, death, and memory.  

Distributed for the Menil Collection


Exhibition Schedule:

Hammer Museum, UCLA
(02/08/15–05/31/15)

The Menil Collection
(09/11/15–01/03/16)

  • ISBN10 0300214693
  • ISBN13 9780300214697
  • Publish Date 29 October 2015
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 22 January 2021
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Yale University Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 132
  • Language English