Brooklyn-based painter and installation artist Roxy Paine (born 1966) conceived his Dioramas in the 1990s, but only began to produce these technically ambitious works in 2012. Brilliantly reinventing the 19th-century diorama form, these works—of which he has created seven, the last completed in 2017—deepen Paine’s engagement with altered realities and the psychogeography of American life and modern culture.

Edited by Saul Anton, the volume includes an extended conversation between Paine and Wexner Center of the Arts curator Michael Goodson, who organized Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, a 2016 exhibition of the Dioramas at the Beeler Gallery of the Columbus College of Art & Design. It also includes essays by Blaffer Museum director Steven Matijcio and critics Saul Anton and Mia Kang that explore their rich historical and social resonance, and reflect on their place in the landscape of contemporary art and art history.