Iain Baxter‪&‬

An artist of unusual brilliance, IAIN BAXTER& has demonstrated a radially open creativity and questioned the role of art both as consumer commodity and as a medium for cultural commentary. In 1966, he formed the N.E. Thing Company with his wife Ingrid as co-president to explore a new model of art making. Allowing artists to remain anonymous and masquerade as business people, the N.E. Thing Company produced art that encompassed conceptually based photography, pioneering works of appropriation art, and gallery-transforming installations. By the late 1970s, BAXTER& was exploring a diverse range of media — Polaroid film, installations that blended painting and sculpture — and themes that would later become his creative credo, that “art is all over.” In 2005, he legally changed his name to IAIN BAXTER&, appending an ampersand to his name to underscore that art is about connectivity— about contingency and collaboration with a viewer. This comprehensive book reviews BAXTER&’s remarkable career in all forms of media, including conceptual art, photography, and installation art. It accompanies a major international touring exhibition, that opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in November 2011, and will open at the Art Gallery of Ontario in march 2012. Featuring more than 200 reproductions, it also includes essays by David Moos, Michael Darling, Alexander Alberro, and Lucy R. Lippard, and incorporates a comprehensive bibliography compiled by Adam Lauder of York University.