Maddie Lychek | You Spent Thousand of Dollars to Draw Vaginas and Make Soft-Core Porn

Maddie Lychek
You Spent Thousand of Dollars to Draw Vaginas and Make Soft-Core Porn
Guelph, Canada: Self-published, 2018
40 pp., 14 x 21.5 cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

An effective bookwork comprised of a series of text messages and drawings of dick pics. The hand-scrawled texts document a recent break-up precipitated by the artist's practice, which the author deems pornographic.

His passive-aggressive missives drip with narcissism, dismissing Lychek as "just a product of the times", but himself as "a jewel of the past" who is seeking a more "old-fashioned, modest girl". Whilst obnoxiously trying to signal his virtue, he announces that he is looking for more than a "boner garage". "Laugh with your feminist friends all you want," he says, "it's something I value."

If the inconsiderable penises in the drawings belong to him, the notion of 'revenge porn' feels somewhat justified, not only for their ability to form a portrait of the sanctimonious little prick.

You Spent Thousand of Dollars to Draw Vaginas and Make Soft-Core Porn is part of the exhibition Feelings, curated by Samantha Jessica Jones and Leonard Jessica Walsh at the Vs Studio (25 Polson Street, Toronto), which closes today at 5pm. The publication is accompanied by one of the video works the ex took offence to, and an audio reading of his texts.

Ulrich Rückriem | Rückriem Skulpturen

Ulrich Rückriem
Rückriem Skulpturen
Monchengladbach, Germany: Stadtisches Museum Monchengladbach, 1973
20.5 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm.
Edition size unknown

A cardboard box containing a pencil drawing on smooth cardboard (20.4 x 15.0 cm) and the publication Ulrich Rückriem Sculptures 1968 - 1973, Cologne DuMont Schauburg, 1973.

Other artists included in the boxed catalogue series (above, bottom) include Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, George Brecht & Robert Filliou, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Hanne Darboven, Braco Dimitrijevic, Joel Fisher, Jonas Hafner, Jasper Johns, Jannis Kounellis, Richard Long, Piero Manzoni, Panamarenko, Gerhard Richter, Lawrence Weiner and Stanley Brouwn (whose box only exists conceptually, in keeping with his long standing practice of not documenting his works in catalogues).

David Platzker talk tomorrow

David Platzker will be giving a talk tomorrow at the at the St Louis Museum of Art about editions, multiples, artists' books and other printed matter of the 1960s to the present in conjunction with Elizabeth Wyckoff and Gretchen Wagner's show "Graphic Revolution: American Prints 1960 to Now." The talk begins at 2pm and admission is five dollars (free to members).

Click here for more information.

Stanley Brouwn | 100 this-way-brouwn-problems for computer I. B. M. 360 model 95

Stanley Brouwn
100 this-way-brouwn-problems for computer I. B. M. 360 model 95
Köln/New York, Germany/USA: Verlag Gebr. König, 1970
[208] pp., 23 x 23 cm., softcover
Edition of 300

"Stanley Brouwn began working with distance and direction in the early 1960s. During this period he made work by asking random pedestrians to describe a route to another point in town. The resulting sketch or unmarked piece of paper if the description were entirely verbal, would then be stamped This way Brouwn. In the early 70s, Brouwn began to make books. In one of his first publications, 100 this-way-brouwn problems for computer IBM 360 model 95, Brouwn lists This Way Brouwn questions to be posed to a computer beginning with: "show Brouwn the way in all cities, villages, etc. on earth from point x to all other points in that cities, villages etc." Too complex for even a computer to solve, this list of questions is designed to reveal the infinitely complex possibilities implicit in the idea of a This Way Brouwn."

- Christine Burgin Gallery

Joseph Beuys | Objekt zum Schmieren und Drehen

Joseph Beuys
Objekt zum Schmieren und Drehen 
Mönchengladbach, Germany: Museumverein Mönchengladbach, 1972
3.5 x 5.5 x 5.5 cm. (can) 13 cm. (screwdriver)
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

Objekt zum Schmieren und Drehen, or Object to Smear and Turn, is a can of grease painted with Beuys' signature red cross and a screwdriver, accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate. In addition to the 100 copies of the edition, there were reportedly a few unnumbered artist proof copies.

The work has a value of approximately $9000 US.

Vanessa Maltese Book Launch

Vanessa Maltese
CLUES
Toronto, Canada: Self-published, 2018
96 pp., 12.7cm x 20.32 cm., softcover
Edition of 90 [+ 10 AP]


Tomorrow night at Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto, Vanessa Maltese launches her new risograph book CLUES, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

"CLUES is a new editioned bookwork by Vanessa Maltese containing 90 photographs of peculiar cloud formations and subsequent overlaid drawings. Captured over the course of a three-month residency at Glenfiddich in Dufftown, Scotland, CLUES examines the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia, a circumstance in which the brain perceives recognizable and meaningful patterns in random visuals where no patterns actually exist."

In addition to the book launch, there will be cocktails provided by Barchef and an exclusive pre-release sample of Glenfiddich Experiment #04 Fire & Cane.

The artist will be in attendance, as will Glenfiddich Artist-in-Residence program curator Andy Fairgrieve, and Canadian Brand Ambassador Beth Havers.

Artists interested in applying for the 2019 Artist in Residence program should attend an information session with Fairgrieve at Erin Stump Projects on Thursday November 9th, at 6:30 pm. There will be a whiskey tasting there, also.

Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press launch at Printed Matter

Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins launches at Printed Matter on Thursday, November 8th, from 6 to 8 p.m. There will be a wide-ranging conversation (beginning at 6:30) about Dick Higgins's writings and legacy with curator/art historian Alice Centamore, Higgins editor and Granary Books publisher Steve Clay, Siglio publisher Lisa Pearson, and Emily Harvey Foundation director Christian Xatrec.

A review of this title is in the works and will be posted shortly.

"[On] Thursday, just two days after the election, Siglio is launching Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins at Printed Matter in New York. While the book is certainly a reclamation project of sorts, Higgins was deeply forward thinking. Not only his writings and the radical project of the Something Else Press, but also his humanity, sense of humor, and his omnivorous intellectual appetite serve as a beacon for many of us committed to independent publishing and the place for culture in our world—a world that I hope we will change for the better on November 6."

- Lisa Pearson, Siglio publisher