A publishing career that spans over 30 years, critic and editor Susan Snodgrass writes about contemporary art, art criticism, material art practices, architecture, urbanism, and public art.
My book Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs published by Half Letter Press is currently out of stock; limited copies are available at select bookstores. It is my hope to print a second edition and I will keep you updated here.
The French edition Dans la matrice : le design radical de Ken Isaacs is still available at Sombres torrents.
Inside the Matrix surveys the highly individual practice of American architect and designer Ken Isaacs, whose populist, DIY designs created between the 1950s and 1970s challenged mainstream definitions of modernism. His experimental Living Structures, Microhouses, and Alpha Chambers provided alternative solutions to the spatial and ecological challenges of midcentury modern life and continue to shape the present and future of environmental design.
See reviews of the book below.
Recent Articles
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Artforum
Gary Cannone: Manet/Degas
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Artforum
Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s
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Artforum
Dala Nasser: Adonis River
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ARTMargins Online
Interview with Monika Fabijanska: Women at War
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Artforum
Edra Soto, Destination/El Destino: A Decade of GRAFT
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Artforum
Luftwerk: Exact Dutch Yellow
In/Site: Reflections on the art of place
In/Site: Reflections on the Art of Place is my blog devoted to art, architecture and urbanism, using Chicago as a vantage point for reflections on the work of contemporary artists, public art and urban projects that reinvent the spatial environment of the city.
Latest post:
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Flag Art: Raising New Symbols of Belonging
As the end to a most trying year draws near, hopes for a fairer and more equitable future are weighted against the injustices of the present that attempt to erode the very foundations of our democracy. Even in the wake of the U.S. election’s positive outcome, conservative politicians and right-wing extremists, cloaked in the guise…
News
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The conversation continues
A new dialogue with curator and scholar Alexandra Midal on Ken Isaacs’s Knowledge Box and his search for an experiential model for education.
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Thrilled with the following interviews!
Here I talk with Maria Kruglyak about my curatorial work and writing on Ken Isaacs, occasioned by the multiplatform mapping project Visual Natures: The Politics and Culture of Environmentalism in the 20th and 21st Centuries, organized by the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, which featured Isaacs’s Knowledge Box.
In this two-part interview, Paul Krainak and I discuss my research and writing on Isaacs, my role as an editor at ARTMargins Online, and my critical writing on public art and spatial art practices. Published in Sub-rural at Bad@Sports.
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Reviews of Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs are in!
Metropolis | Ken Isaacs Wanted to Retool the Way We Live by Justin Kamp • February 18, 2020
New City | Before the Tiny House: Inside the Matrix Dives Into the Design Legacy of Ken Isaacs by Michael Workman • April 14, 2020
Inland Art | Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs by Paul Krainak • December 28, 2019