NEW YORK.- Amy Sillman: Works on Paper marks the first major publication of noted New York artist, Amy Sillman. This beautiful book pairs Sillman’s drawings with an original text by Wayne Koestenbaum. Long celebrated for both his poetry and prose, Koestenbaum’s distinctive writing serves as the ideal complement to Sillman’s lyrical drawings, which are documented in brilliant full-color format.

Reminiscent of both film loops and long letters to her viewers, the presentation of the series of drawings in this book embodies the feeling of following, or participating in, an extended sequence of meandering events. As critic Peter Schjeldahl has written, Sillman’s unusual and uncannily familiar images convey “a sense of emotional occasion that is part poem, part short story and part memoir or diary.”

The Sexual Awkwardness of God, Koestenbaum’s inspired text written in response to Sillman’s work, brings to imaginative life the experience of looking at her art. Among the many illuminating aphorisms in his brilliant and witty text, Koestenbaum writes that Sillman’s drawings “portray a search for dwelling, whether in house, coffin, body, bed or situation,” and are “documents of a clan lacking castle—legends of a kingdom that has not yet found its historian.”

AMY SILLMAN has exhibited widely in galleries and museums in the U.S. and Europe. Recent exhibits include Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (New York, 2006), Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects (Los Angeles, 2005), the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 2004), and the Whitney Biennial (New York, 2004). Her work is included in many public collections, notably the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Baltimore Museum. She is represented in New York by Sikkema Jenkins & Co., and in Los Angeles by Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. Sillman is the Co-Chair of the Painting Department of Bard College’s interdisciplinary MFA Program and is an adjunct faculty member for MFA students at Columbia University.

WAYNE KOESTENBAUM has published five books of nonfiction prose: Andy Warhol (2001), Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics (2000), Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon (1995), The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (1993), and Double Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration (1989). He has also published a novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes (2004), and five books of poetry: Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films (2006), Model Homes (2004), The Milk of Inquiry (1999), Rhapsodies of a Repeat Offender (1994), and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems (1990). The Queen’s Throat was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Winner of a Whiting Writers Award, Koestenbaum is currently a Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Founded in 2004, Gregory R. Miller & Co. publishes high quality books about contemporary art and artists. These books aim not only to enhance our understanding and appreciation of art, but also to make a contribution to the broader cultural dialogue, of which contemporary art is an essential part. Gregory R. Miller & Co. has just published the first major collection of curator Lawrence Rinder’s critical writings, Art Life: Selected Writings 1991-2005. Other publications include Ellen Harvey’s New York Beautification Project, which documented Harvey’s experience “tagging” graffiti sites around New York City with her original classically-inspired oil landscapes, and Lyle Ashton Harris, which paired a major series of new self-portrait photographs by the artist with an essay by Anna Deavere Smith. Forthcoming publications include monographs of the artists Ann Hamilton (essay by Joan Simon), Dana Hoey (essay by Gretchen Rubin), and Marilyn Minter (essay by Johanna Burton). Gregory R. Miller & Co. books are distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers.