Along with Robert Gober and Jeff Koons, New York-based Haim Steinbach is one of the most renowned exponents of the late 70s art movement which endeavored to revamp the post-Duchamp tradition of ready-mades in the face of a rising wave of neo-expressionism. Steinbach has become known for his "thing altars," carefully manufactured shelves containing borrowed or purchased objects that take on new meaning in the context of their surroundings, recalling Robert Smithson's notions of "site" and "non-site." This new book in the Cantz Series documents a Berlin-specific installation by the artist. Steinbach, born to German-Jewish parents in Israel, stayed in the former East Germany for the first time, visiting families all over Berlin and borrowing individual objects or arrangements which he then transferred to an art space. In doing so the artist became the curator of a sort of group exhibition of "collected collections" which interact in surprising ways in their new space.

"Every thing and object has a skin through which it speaks. We have feelings about these objects - we project through them, and communicate through them." Haim Steinbach. Waddington Galleries are pleased to announce an exhibition of ten works by the American artist Haim Steinbach. Steinbach's methodically ordered, almost ceremonial displays of common artefacts convey how our collective desires become organized and ritualized through objects - how communication and aspirations are exchanged through the language of design.

Haim Steinbach (born 1944) is a leading figure in American art. Since the 1970s he has been conceiving structures and framing devices for the presentation of objects. Steinbach displays already existing objects, carefully chosen and placed on shelves, ranging from the natural to the common, the artistic to the ethnographic, giving form to artworks which illuminate the aesthetic and social qualities of objects. By exploring the psychological, cultural and ritualistic context of the artwork, and its role in the production of meaning, Steinbach has radically redefined the status of the object in art. This book is the expanded and revised edition of the monograph published in 1995 and documents the artist's activity over the past 30 years.

Haim Steinbach's design for a limited edition, signed and numbered espresso cup collection for illy caffè.