This new publication, the third in the ongoing series of aica press / Les presses du réel’s publications, Art Critics of The World, is the first English-language anthology of writings by the Slovak critic, Tomáš Štrauss.

Tomáš Štrauss (Budapest, 1931–Bratislava, 2013) was a key theoretician of the post-war neo-avant-gardes in “socialist” Central and Eastern Europe. “A critical reading of his texts unavoidably demands that we situate them in the context of that theory that began to establish itself in the second half of the 1990s, and whose chief younger proponents included Boris Groys, Igor Zabel, Piotr Piotrowski and Edit András”—Daniel Grúň

In this artist’s book, Piero Gilardi reveals his working methods and explains how to create sculptures like those he has produced since the early 1960s. A pioneer of Arte Povera and a proud advocate of an ecologically concerned undertaking in the visual arts, Gilardi is also a political activist. The technique he developed for his sculptures has often been applied to produce masks, signs, and props for rallies and demonstrations, as this book and an interview with Andrea Bellini explains. For all this and for much more—his design and fashion creations, his social endeavors, etc.—Piero Gilardi is emblematic of the evolution of art and society over the last five decades. He is an artist whose works and theoretical research are still relevant to map what art might achieve and how art might be useful in the “real world.”