FAILE: Works on Wood: Process, Paintings and Sculpture

A survey of the Brooklyn duo FAILE's decade-long work in wood, from salvaged window-frame paintings to carved prayer wheels and large-scale installations, published by Gestalten in 2014.

Edited by the curator and critic Ian Bourland, the book is organised as a visual timeline of the medium in FAILE's practice: early paintings on found lumber and doors, the stacked and painted blocks of their puzzle-box works, the carved and stencilled Prayer Wheels, and commissions including their 2013 installation for the New York City Ballet. Large photographs are paired with captions and process essays written by the artists themselves, and Bourland's text places their blend of digital design and analog assemblage in a line from Rauschenberg and Johns. The book was released to coincide with an exhibition at Allouche Gallery, New York, in November 2014.

Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller formed FAILE in 1999, moving from wheat-pasted street work in New York to gallery painting, sculpture and public projects, and were early in fusing pop, pulp and comic-book sources with fine-art technique. The volume follows Gestalten's earlier FAILE: Prints + Originals 1999–2009 and FAILE Temple.