Publisher: Formist Editions, ISBN: 9780648596394, Format: Hardcover, 215 × 280 mm, 448pp
Ready-made Ruin is an immersive publication marking twenty years of collaboration by acclaimed Australian artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro. Covering two decades of work, the book features a fascinating essay from curator Felicity Fenner, while a visual inventory of the duo’s diverse practice is unveiled across more than 400 pages.
Accompanying the artworks is a personal and revealing set of process images, approximately one thousand behind-the-scenes photographs, printed in gold and concealed within the specially folded pages, like treasure buried within the publication.
Healy & Cordeiro’s practice reflects a preoccupation with the dynamics of global mobility, the fallout of consumer society, and the contemporary notion of home, always imbued with humour and insight. Combining a playful sense of humour and an engagement with art historical precedents, the duo’s work is characterised by the deconstruction and reinvention of prefabricated structures and objects into extraordinary sculptures and installations. Ready-made materials often feature in their work, including Lego, Ikea furniture, car and aircraft parts, dinosaur bones, and reconfigured architectural structures.