ISBN : 9781932476583

ENDURE: AN INTIMATE JOURNEY WITH THE CHINESE GYMNASTS LIMITED ART EDITION
Anderson & Low

ENDURE is the latest work by Anderson & Low, whose photographic oeuvres on the subject of sports and athletes are recognized worldwide. With over fifteen years of outstanding art projects based around sport on the record, their works were included in the 2011 Venice Biennale and are in museums worldwide and numerous private collections. Anderson & Low are official artists for the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad Festival: for an exhibition opening July 19, the National Portrait Gallery commissioned them to depict the dreams and aspirations of athletes and support staff associated with this summer's Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In ENDURE, Anderson & Low present a new body of work that is truly groundbreaking and without precedent. For the first time ever, Beijing opens its elite gymnastics training facility to the world: Anderson & Low, the only artists to be allowed such access, have responded and the results are stunning - with this project these renowned artists truly deliver. The art of their photography renders the idealism and the quest for perfection in sports by the devoted Chinese athletes in graphic, intimate and touching detail and candour. There are no secrets here, only effort, physical and mental power, determination and talent, and dreams of perfection, and one cannot fail to be spellbound by the results.

Sports implies the intrinsic idea of the body. Systematic programmes of weights, twists, bends, leaps and poses transform their bodies into Classical art. Anderson & Low's works explore the tension between the real and the ideal of the body, between the actual and the artificial. The truth is told in every image of this body of work, and the viewer is held in awe.

This volume is produced in LIMITED ART EDITION with specially encased Chinese binding, only 750 copies made.