Kirsty Bell’s series of essays is based on interviews with contemporary artists about the role their houses play in relation to their work. She examines the interrelation of domestic space and sculptural development, contextualized with examples from Schwitters Merzbau and Judd’s studio to Florine Stettheimer’s Manhattan salon. While considering architecture as a sculptural surrogate, she is also interested in the house as a site of production and the effect this may have on both home and work, as well as cases where the domestic interior takes on a set-like quality on which to stage a version of identity. Having completed interviews with artists in the United States, Mexico, and the UK, she continues her research with interviews and site visits to artists in Poland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. A compendium of the essays will be published as The Artist’s House by Sternberg Press in 2013.
Kirsty Bell studied art history at Cambridge University before pursuing her interest in contemporary art as an exhibitions assistant at Anthony d’Offay Gallery in London. She has developed close working relationships with artists through her work as an artist’s assistant, as an independent curator, and as gallery director of Gavin Brown’s enterprise in New York. Since arriving in Berlin in 2001, her art criticism—published in such magazines as frieze (of which she is a contributing editor), Mousse, Afterall, Art Agenda,and Art Review, as well as in numerous exhibition catalogues—has focused on the young art community in Berlin.