Focus & Field exquisitely documents Daniel von Sturmer’s 2014 show at Young Projects Gallery, Los Angeles. This exhibition, by one of Australia’s most unwavering contemporary artists, comprises a major survey of works accompanied by a 9-screen video installation, Camera Ready Actions. Created in the years following his presentation at the Australian Pavilion in the 52nd Venice Biennale, this exhibition and book trace von Sturmer’s conceptually determined and visually impactful practice. The book opens with an essay by former curator of SFMoMA and the CCA Wattis Institute, Tara McDowell, followed by 175 pages of large full-colour plates documenting von Sturmer’s Focus & Field video works.

Using video, photography, installation and architectural interventions, von Sturmer’s work draws on more traditional mediums of painting and sculpture, making direct and often humorous references to still life, modernism and minimalism. Drawing connections between psychology and philosophy, von Sturmer interrogates the modes of perception at play when a viewer encounters an artwork, and how they are influenced by presentation and context.