Endangered Sky

A page from a book showing a table of contents next to a hand-drawn illustration. The illustration on the left is a vertical stack of five colored blocks in yellow, blue, red, green, and orange, beside a column of horizontal black lines. The table of contents on the right lists various bird species, including Sun Parakeet, Kākāpō, and Resplendent Quetzal, with their page numbers.

A two-page book spread. On the left is a table of contents listing various bird species and their page numbers. On the right is a colorful, abstract drawing of stacked horizontal blocks of color, including dark green, yellow, green, orange, and black, with a multi-colored plaid pattern in the center.

A two-page spread from a book. On the left is a poem titled Kākāpō, which is about the critically endangered bird and questions why it did not foresee the threat from humans. On the right is a simple, abstract drawing with green, black, and gray block shapes on a white background, suggesting a stylized representation of the kākāpō.

A page from a book, numbered 32. On the left is the text of a poem titled Resplendent Quetzal. On the right is an abstract illustration with two small, colorful block patterns above a larger, loosely drawn plaid pattern in red, black, and grey.

A hand-drawn, abstract composition on a white background, featuring a grid of scribbled, colorful rectangles in shades of red, yellow, orange, and blue, resembling a child's crayon drawing.

A page from a book with the number 40 at the bottom. On the left is a poem titled Stresemann's Bristlefront, with a note that it is a critically endangered species. On the right is a crayon-like abstract drawing of a rectangle with five horizontal stripes in shades of blue, reddish-brown, and dark purple.

A page from a book, numbered 56 at the bottom. On the left is a poem titled Hawaiʻi ʻakepa. On the right is an abstract drawing of a vertical stack of rectangular shapes. The shapes are drawn with sketchy black outlines and colored with swaths of red, orange, yellow, green, and white.

An open book spread. The left page features a poem titled Black Robin, which describes the bird as endangered and laments the resulting silence and emptiness. The right page displays an abstract, blocky illustration in a sketchy style with a central black square framed by grey, white, and dark blue rectangles.

A page from a book with text on the left and an abstract illustration on the right. The text is titled Rufous Hummingbird and states its status is Near threatened. It is followed by a poem about the bird's heart falling out of sync with nature. The illustration is a stack of horizontal, crayon-textured bars of color, including yellow, dark red, peach, green, blue, and orange.

A page from a book, numbered 104. On the left is a poem titled Black-Winged Lory, which notes the bird's status as Near threatened. On the right is an abstract, hand-drawn illustration with horizontal color blocks of orange, blue, and reddish-orange above a large, scribbled black square on a white background.

Endangered Sky

Sean Scully & Kelly Grovier

€ 70.00

VAT included. Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout

Amount

Author: Kelly Grovier

By (artist): Sean Scully

July 2023, 128 Pages, 52 Photos

Book signed by Sean Scully and Kelly Grovier

152mm x 226mm

ISBN: 978-3-7757-5505-4

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de

According to Article 9(7) of the GPSR Regulation, no additional security information is required for books without supplements or special functions.

Press download

| An Ode to Vanishing Beauty

It is estimated that, as a result of climate change, illegal trade, and habitat loss from the encroachments of technology and industrialization, as many as one in eight species of birds is heading towards extinction. Created in close collaboration between Sean Scully and Kelly Grovier, each pairing of poem and drawing is devoted to the beauty and mystery of an individual species of bird. Scully's visual language, at once measured and impassioned, geometric and free-flowing, captures the essence of creatures that are, themselves, on the brink of becoming mere abstractions. Though his first series of iPhone drawings are consistent with his signature style, they reveal a fresh intimacy, playfulness, and exhilaration of gesture, color, and form that is in accord with the wonder of feathered flight. Created on a digital device, the drawings are, as Scully remarked, the ironic embodiment of "technology which is ruining nature turned inside out to protest its demise." Yet taken together, these duets aim to offer something uplifting in the face of an accelerating tragedy. "Hope" is, after all as Emily Dickinson famously wrote, "the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul."

Having developed a style over the past five decades that is uniquely his own, SEAN SCULLY (*1945, Dublin) is one of the world's most acclaimed contemporary artists. He is known for his large-scale abstract sculptures, installations and paintings, comprised of vertical and horizontal color bands, blocks and geometrical forms as well as his intellectually engaging writings and lectures.

KELLY GROVIER is a poet and cultural critic. Educated at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the University of Oxford, he is a feature writer for BBC Culture and co-founder of the international scholarly journal European Romantic Review.