"Thy Fearful Dissymmetry," Parkett 94 (2014): 80-85.

All True No. 1 (2005) is a humble book, pocket-sized and accordion-folded, with seams held together by tape, and little other ornament—a simple book, plain as a primer or an elegant proof. Each page has only one word, beginning with Yes, whose synonym appears on the next. Thus, CONSENT follow YES, PERMISSION follows CONSENT, all the way through the thesaurus until the final page inevitably, preposterously, concludes with NO. And so a tidy stack of truths amounts to a violation of first principles.

Tauba Auerbach has made a practice of ferreting out ambiguities. Her paintings have received the lion’s share of critical attention to date, but her books and sculptures are where this practice finds its surest footing: in a hunt for the limits of intelligibility couched in the algorithms and alphabets underlying all her work. ALL TRUE No.1 is both prelude and summa, first and ultimate demonstration of this antinomic art. You could call it the opening salvo in a campaign to dilate rather than transcend opposition. For all their seductive beauty, the sculptures, objects, and books that have followed challenge our way of thinking. They are, in fact, exercises in intractability. ...

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