Defying Gravity

From Icarus's tragic flight and the cumbersome contraptions of early aviation to the gleaming might of contemporary bombers and the sobering anxiety with which many regard aircraft since the World Trade Center attacks of 2001, the images collected in this book are both arresting and provocative, comical and dreamlike. Together with commentary by the curators - including entries on each artist in the exhibition - and an essay by the highly regarded cultural historian Robert Wohl, this book leads to an understanding of the distinctly human impulse to defy limitation, and the wondrous and terrible results that impulse can yield.