Published on the occasion of Matthew Metzger's exhibition Heirloom at the Renaissance Society, this is the first book dedicated to the artist's paintings, which echo and explore various kinds of abstraction. Anchored by the new paintings Metzger made for this exhibition--a set of works conceived as an installation for the Renaissance Society's space that also serve as the subject of an essay by curator Karsten Lund--the book also features four other series of paintings by the artist, each of which further charts his evolving aesthetic and conceptual strategies.

For this publication, Metzger has also invited six writers--including Kris Cohen, Fumi Okiji, Hamza Walker, Jan Verwoert, and Anna Zett--to reflect on how abstraction functions more broadly, whether as a psychological tendency, a social phenomenon, or a technological side effect, among many other possibilities.