In his Traité de la vie élégante of 1854, Honoré de Balzac described and analyzed the essential qualities of the artist of his day. The modern artist is at work when he seems to be at rest; his labor is not labor at all but repose; and, most importantly, the works he produces come into being as if by magic; they are mediated rather than made, without actual work (labor) coming into the matter at all. The significance of Balzac's observation can hardly be overestimated, as it seems to provide a kind of model for the modern artist and his relationship to both his place of work — the studio — and what he does there, one which, as Bruce Nauman's famous and programmatic statement testifies, remains relevant far into the twentieth century, perhaps even until today. The complex relationship between process, product, artistic identity, and the artist's studio — in all its various manifestations — lies at the heart of the present volume, Hiding Making — Showing Creation. The Studio from Turner to Tacita Dean.

Hiding Making — Showing Creation takes as its starting point the theoretical dichotomy between the conceptual and material aspects of art production that resulted from the emancipation of the arts from the realm of craft and the transformation of the artist from craftsman to autonomous master in the early modern period. One of the effects of this process was the elevation of “thinking” over “making,” and by the nineteenth century the “hiding” of the latter — both literally and figuratively — had established itself as a multifaceted artistic trope. The artist was no longer a man who worked, but a man who conceptualized; his studio was no longer a workshop, but a private, even sacred, place — a place of inspiration rather than labor; and that which was produced there was produced by means other than with the hands.