Minus Equals Plus
A gifted writer writes the way life feels. Istvan Banyai is one of the very few people who draw that way. This book is a gift, because it offers page after uninterrupted page of his drawings and his entropic world. There is a gracefully short and moving introduction by Kurt Andersen, and then it is clear sailing until the end, where Banyai offers a winding life story disguised as a curriculum vitae. His famous sleight of hand with scale and representation win him a place between art, illustration, and design, one that has made him the reigning master of visual narrative.Minus Equals Plusis his first retrospective monograph, and it has one drawback: the binding is flimsy and awkward even for a paperback. This is a shame, because it's a book that one could "read" backwards and forwards for months and years.--Juliette Cezzar