Anne Walsh | Issue 2

Anne Walsh

Issue 2

San Francisco, USA: The Thing Quarterly, 2008

4” x 6”

Edition size unknown

The second (of thirty-four) issue of The Thing Quarterly is a doorstop, or wedge, by Anne Walsh. Set into the surface of the orange rubber wedge is a fan letter that a very young Walsh wrote to Billie Jean King in 1973, after she had beaten Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match.

It reads: 

Sept 20, 1973

Dear Billie Jean King,

I hope you get this letter. I think you are really great.

My family and I watched you play on tv tonight. We saw you beat Bobby Riggs in 3 sets. WOW. You won! I am really, really excited.

I am not an aspiring tennis player, But you are my inspiration because you are so strong. You are so passionate about equality for girls and women. You won that match for me and for everyone who cares about women's lib.'Thank.ou. You are so great.

Keep on fighting!

Les Levine: Media Projects and Public Advertisements

John Yau & Ted Greenwald

Les Levine: Media Projects and Public Advertisements

Luzern, Switzerland: MAI 36 Galerie, 1988

16 pp., 21 x 28 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

A slim catalogue published to accompany an exhibition held February 27th to April 3rd, in 1988, looking at the artist’s use of public billboards in his practice. 

The booklet includes an introductory essay by John Yau, an interview with Levin by Ted Greenwald, a checklist, chronology, and biography. The texts are in English and German.

Available from D&E Lake, here, for $40.00 CDN. 

Air Made Visible: A Visual Reader on Bruno Munari

[Claude Lichtenstein, Alfredo Häberli, des]

Air Made Visible: A Visual Reader on Bruno Munari

Zürich, Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers, 2000

288 pp., 24.5 x 16.7 x 2.9 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

Issued on the occasion of the exhibition Air Made Visible at the Museum for Gestaltung in Zürich, this  profusely illustrated volume - with a die-cut cover - profiles the life and work of artist and designer Bruno Munari, including drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and designs. 

Available from TheIdeaOfTheBook, here, for $300.00 US. 

 

 

Louise Nevelson | Collegiate School

Louise Nevelson

Collegiate School

New York City, USA: Pace Edition, 1972

8.5" x 8.5" x 4.25"

Edition of 150 signed, dated and numbered copies

To create her signature relief collage sculptures, Nevelson would roam the streets of New York searching for cast off wood, from chair legs to balusters. The found objects would be arranged and spray painted a monochrome black, to disguise their original function and create abstract compositions. 

Black, Nevelson stated, "means totality. It means: contains all. It contained all color. It wasn't a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all. The only aristocratic color ... I have seen things that were transformed into black that took on greatness. I don't want to use a lesser word.”

This table-top sculpture casts a wooden assemblage in resin, and is mounted on a smoked acrylic stand. 

The works are signed, dated and numbered on the reverse, and have a current value of approximately five thousand US dollars. 

Archives by Artists

ARCHIVES BY ARTISTS, curated by my old friends Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher (under the banner name DisplayCult) opens tonight at Galerie UQO in Gatineau, Quebec. 

The opening begins at 5pm, and the exhibition continues until April 12th, 2025. It features multiples by Joseph Beuys, Ilya Kabakov, Charlette Moorman, and others. 

Here’s the press release: 

 

 

"Institutions commonly act as the repository for documents, images and archives. What happens when artists assume that role, and turn the archive into a creative medium? Archives by Artists presents a diverse range of strategies used by artists to explore and imaginatively reconceive the archive. Their works contain items typically found in an archive, such as photos, postcards, letters, maps and newsclippings, but also unconventional items such as smells and sounds. These eclectic archives illuminate the artists' own art and practice, reflect upon the notions of community and social networks, revisit historical events, examine timely themes about memory and preservation, as well as question the nature and dynamics of the archive itself. Archives by Artists presents not only visual artists who have deployed the archive as a medium in their practice, but also printmakers, poets, performance artists, dancers, musicians and filmmakers. 

 

At Galerie UQO, ten vitrines reveal different aspects of artist-based archives. These works appropriate the look and feel of the archive to make it a capacious platform for reflection, expression and critique. The exhibition's roster includes Canadian and international artists, with works from the 1960s to today: Ioannis Anastasiou & Majka Dokudowicz, Aiden Bettine, Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Nick Cave & Bob Faust, Amanda Chestnut, William N. Copley, Camila Estrella, Dora García, Ilya Kabakov, Joseph Kosuth, Kiran Kumār, Lefevre Jean Claude, Kiwi Menrath, Charlotte Moorman, Tammy Nguyen, Sophie Nys, Jürgen O. Olbrich, Bárbara Oettinger, Carlos Soto Román, Dieter Roth, Vicky Sabourin, Vilma Samulionytė, Camille Turner & Yaniya Lee, Danh Vō, and Laurie Young. Besides artists' multiples, the exhibition features videos, wallworks, and an installation with a free take-away. Each week selected multiples will be available for visitors to examine, providing the opportunity for personal, hands-on engagement. 

 

While curating and writing about the “archival turn” in contemporary art has covered installations, books, performances and videos, the medium of multiples has been generally overlooked. Archives by Artists positions multiples as a particularly apt vehicle to contemplate and mobilize conceptions of the archive. Each archive-multiple incorporates an assortment of rearrangable items, highlights the experience of tactile, sensory knowledge, and circumvents tendencies toward static placements or fixed meanings. Similar to delving into an actual archive, the multiples in this exhibition generate unpredictable encounters in a process that fosters complex associations between the items. The activity of sorting through and negotiating the components of the multiples endow the viewer with an intimate access and invites them to perform both as a researcher and artist’s collaborator.

 

In the space of this exhibition, the archive-multiple is presented as a platform to experiment with methods of documentation, collection and preservation to test alternatives and launch critiques. The works align with the ongoing discussion in public and institutional archives pertaining to issues of decolonization and inclusion. The artists’ archives here become vital sites for tracking transformations in the materiality of history, art and heritage. Archives by Artists underscores artistic agency in both research and creation, where the centrifugal function of archives and the centripetal practice of multiples meet in constructive tension. 

 

This exhibition is part of an overall research initiative by Mélanie Boucher and Marie-Hélène Leblanc on museums, exhibitions and collections. It is jointly produced by Galerie UQO, l’Équipe Art et musée (FRQ 2022-2026) and CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group’s New Uses of Collections in Art Museums Partnership (SSHRC 2021-2028). The exhibition is also supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Université du Québec en Outaouais, and York University. 

 

The installation PaperPolice (2025) by Jürgen O. Olbrich includes books from the library of Yves Lacroix (1939-2017). A founding member of UQAM, Yves Lacroix was a writer and professor in the Department of Literature, specializing in comic strips and the works of Pierre Perrault. He was one of the first professors to teach comics in Quebec. 

 

A parallel exhibition is presented at the library of the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Lucien-Brault pavilion, from March 12 to April 12, 2025.

 

* * *

Launch of Entretiens #7: Archives, Multiples and the Research Collection 

Edited by Galerie UQO, March 12, 5 p.m.  Launch price: $15 

 

Entretiens #7 is a publication that features an interview with Jim Drobnick and Jennifer Fisher on collecting as a form of research in the curating of Archives by Artists. Entretiens is a series that brings together partners from various disciplinary fields to discuss the institutional and artistic issues faced by Galerie UQO. Galerie UQO’s mandate is to contribute to the advancement and dissemination of art knowledge, and its publications directly supplement the discourse on contemporary art.

 

* * *

Curator biographies

 

Jim Drobnick (OCAD University) and Jennifer Fisher (York University) form the curatorial collaborative DisplayCult, a framework for creatively merging disciplines, media and audiences to propose prototypes for display and aesthetic engagement. Curatorial projects include Portraits as Portals (Art Windsor-Essex and Agnes Etherington Art Centre), NIGHTSENSE (Nuit Blanche, Toronto), MetroSonics (National Gallery of Canada), Aural Cultures (Walter Phillips Gallery), Odor Limits (Esther M. Klein Art Gallery) and Vital Signs (Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery), among others. They founded and edit the Journal of Curatorial Studies. www.displaycult.com

 

For more information:

Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Director/Curator, Galerie UQO 

Marie-Helene.Leblanc@uqo.ca

(819) 595-3900, poste 2677

 

Jessica Minier, Coordinator, Galerie UQO

jessica.minier@uqo.ca

(819) 595-3900, poste 2327

Galerie UQO

Université du Québec en Outaouais

Pavillon Lucien-Brault, 101 rue Saint-Jean-Bosco

Gatineau, QC, J8X 3X7 Canada

galerie.uqo.ca

Hours: Tuesday to Friday: 10 am to 6 pm, Saturday: 12 noon to 4 pm”.

David Shrigley | No Junk Mail

 

David Shrigley

No Junk Mail 

Toronto, Canada: Paul + Wendy Projects, 2014

13 x 13 cm.

Edition of 100 (+12 APs) signed and numbered copies

Yesterday I gave an artists’ talk to Liz Knox’s class on the subject of text in art. I spoke mostly about my own work, but also briefly showed some favourite examples from Kay Rosen, Maurizio Nannucci, Yoko Ono, Cary Leibowitz, Kelly Mark and David Shrigley. 

This one stands out for me because it is also one of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever received. 

I was complaining to my friends Paul and Wendy (of Paul+Wendy Projects) that I was sick of getting so much junk mail, but skeptical of hanging an ugly, earnest “No Junk Mail” sign on the front of my house. I casually mentioned that if David Shrigley made one, I would be interested. 

Without telling me, they contacted David and asked if they could commission him to make us one, as a gift. He agreed, and it turned out so well that they published it in an edition of a hundred copies. 

Sadly, we no longer get mail delivered to our door, so this now sits in our front foyer as a souvenir, alongside a house number that Micah Lexier made us for our previous address [see below]. 

No Junk Mail is a porcelain enamel on steel sign and the 23rd edition published by Paul+Wendy Projects. It is housed in a cardboard box and is accompanied by a letterpress card with the artists signature. It sold for $250 CDN, but is now long unavailable (as are the two book bags they later published with the artist). 

Erik Kessels

Happy Birthday to Erik Kessels!