Berkeley, California. University of California Press. 1982. First edition. Hardcover, clothbound with embossed graphic and pictorial dust jacket. Book condition: Fine, with very minor shelf wear and some sunning on front free endpaper. Jacket condition: Fine. 212 pp. (ill. in b/w). 

When this book first appeared in 1982, it introduced readers to Robert Irwin, the Los Angeles artist "who one day got hooked on his own curiosity and decided to live it." Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees chronicles hundreds of hours of conversation between Lawrence Weschler and light and space master Irwin. As the artist recalls hot rods and horse races, compares the art scenes of New York and L.A., and discusses the phenomenology of perception, readers are offered a rare understanding of the influences that have shaped modern art.