Berlinde de Bruyckere. With contributions by Emmanuel Alloa, Gary Carrion-Murayari, J. M. Coetzee, Angela Mengoni, Caroline Lamarche and Philippe Van Cauteren.

Belgian artist Berlinde de Bruyckere (b. 1964) is a star of the contemporary art world whose innovative practice focuses on sculpture. This first-ever monograph on de Bruyckere offers a comprehensive look at the scope of her work over more than twenty years. The book includes de Bruyckere's first sculptures from the 1990s, mainly mediations on the human body in wax and wool, as well as her later sculptures with horses that earned her international acclaim. De Bruyckere's works are rife with astonishing contradictions - they are simultaneously inviting and discomforting, embodied and abstract. A deep meditation on the universal issues of bodily fragility and pain, her work also conveys a rich cultural memory in visual form, as shown by one of the standout wax pieces in the monograph, her monumental Kreupelhout - Cripplewood made for the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Biennale 55th International Art Exhibition, which exudes the vulnerability of the fallen, the humanity of a pietà.