Animal Spirits is an artist’s book by Michael Stevenson and Jan Verwoert which expands on Stevenson’s book Fables, self-published in 2008 to accompany his project Lender of Last Resort at the Kröller-Müller Museum, and re-examines them more specifically in the light of our current times.

It is based on collaborative process, a process that resembles a game. Stevenson and Verwoert developed a working method in which plot structure remains open, a kind of partial exquisite corpse, i.e., text fragments passed back and forth without prior discussion as to any through line.

These stories were then co-illustrated in a similar way by the artist and Margaret Stevenson, his mother – the moral guide; the results were then made into a publication by Christoph Keller. A page at the end of the book announces the contributors thus: artist, mother, critic, and spirit maker.

The publication is part of the series of artists’ projects edited by Christoph Keller.