Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni has played a leading role in performance and installation art during the past decade. She had placed her own body at the center of her work, exploring how the body is both absent and present, visible and invisible. Part of Antoni's groundbreaking method has been to use her body both as an art object and as a functioning tool, as canvas, palette and paintbrush--she ''draws'' with a twitch of her eyelashes, ''paints'' with her hair, and ''sculpts'' blocks of fat with her teeth. On the other hand, Antoni just as often takes as her point of departure the sleeping, resting, more or less prenatal body. In Slumber, an electric encephalograph is used to record the instinctive movements of her pupils, and the resulting graphic pattern is integrated into a weaving piece the day after, which, in turn, serves as her blanket at night. The first monograph devoted to Antoni, this brilliant new volume documents the artist's major works in full color, alongside insightful essays.