This array of materials brings readers close to Stephen Kaltenbach himself, both as a young artist embarking on a major work and as he is now, at the end of his career, looking back. This intimate proximity generates surprising lines of inquiry, which Jordan Stein develops in short, italicized commentaries distributed throughout the book.

This book demonstrates the unreasonable burden the logics of coherence and empathy place on victims of injustice to perform their suffering. It considers a hopeful, if daunting, question: “What would it mean if our politics were based not on our ability to empathize with people whose experiences are distant from our own, but on our willingness to care for others just by virtue of their being beings?”

The monograph combines the artist’s improvisational writings, transcripts of interviews she conducted with scientist-collaborators, and critical responses by curators with full-color documentation of her installations and performance work.  The casual intimacy that the book design suggests heightens the immersive power of the photographs and video stills that stretch across two-page spreads in its middle section.