Parachute was founded in 1975 by Chantal Pontbriand and France Morin. Following the previous three Parachute volumes, this last title of the Parachute anthology focuses on painting, sculpture, installation and architecture. These topics are approached from several perspectives: from new theories of aesthetic production, especially painting, to the expansion of the art world to other artistic territories during the 1980s and 1990s (Russia and South America, for instance), from the "lessons" of postmodernism to the proliferation of installation art. The essays discuss works by artists such as Lothar Baumgarten, Mona Hatoum, Guillermo Kuitca, Louise Lawler, Reinhard Mucha, Jackson Pollock, Robert Ryman, Michael Snow and Sots Art artists, and include two particularly seminal artist's essays: Dan Graham on Gordon Matta-Clark, and Jeff Wall on Édouard Manet
