What is Visible and What is Not. Mischa Kuball (b. 1959, Du¨sseldorf; lives and works in Du¨sseldorf) investigates public and institutional spaces and the social and political discourses that shape them. At the invitation of the Draiflessen Collection and with support from the Nolde Stiftung, the conceptual artist grappled with the life and oeuvre of the painter Emil Nolde (1867–1956) and created a body of work titled Nolde/critique/Kuball. In piece after piece, Kuball drains Nolde's works of the colours that made the Expressionist famous, challenging the beholder's preconceptions and examining perception and its constituent processes.

Laid out in black and white, the book accordingly directs our attention not only to what a picture shows, but also to how structures and organizing principles emerge into view. Mischa Kuball has been professor of public art at the Kunsthochschule fu¨r Medien Köln, and associate professor of media art at the Staatliche Hochschule fu¨r Gestaltung/ZKM Karlsruhe since 2007.