Text by Stefano Cernuschi for Mousse:

Works of James Beckett with constant interjections by Frank Key.

Westreich Wagner Publications, New York, 2013

There is one thing that makes this voluminous tome special. It’s easy to predict you may want it, because it look amazing; designed, printed and bound with great care. And of course you may want it because you like James Beckett. His work is all here, in lavish chapters, with a wealth of accompanying contributions. (The chapter format here is not a forced upon structure as often with art books. It actually works very well for Beckett’s art, which develops bodies of works – species, almost – originating from particular objects, occasions, or findings.) But it would be just too bad to overlook the second part of the plainly descriptive title, those “constant interjections by Frank Key,” a British radio commentator, whose absurd notes, infused with skepticism, irony, and nonsense, (or given the sometimes cryptic turns of the work they share the page with, commonsense) are an exhilarating ingredient to the whole. The book truly comes to life through this tension.