Dan Graham | Two Parallel Essays

Dan Graham

Two Parallel Essays: Photographs of Motion / Two Related Projects for Slide Projectors

New York City, USA: Multiples, Inc., 1970

12 pp., 27.9 x 17.8 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 1200

An Artists' Book containing writings and diagrams, this slim pamphlet

The two essays included in this slim pamphlet are “Photographs of Motion” and “Two Related Projects for Slide Projectors.” The former is an historical overview on the history of still photography depicting moving subjects, and the latter looks at two of Graham’s own works involving motion photography. 

The booklet was produced for the Artists & Photographs box, which also included works by Christo, Joseph Kosuth, Sol Lewitt, Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol and many others. 

Two Parallel Essays is available from the publisher for $100 US, here. 

Jonathan Monk | Restaurant Drawings exhibition

 

"In the month of July, Further Down the Line will present eight drawings by Jonathan Monk. Each drawing is part of the artist’s ongoing series of work titled ‘Restaurant Drawings’.

The works will be introduced at an irregular schedule through the month, in Further Down the Line’s exhibition space, located in the public waiting room of Aigburth Station, Liverpool and subsequently on its Instagram account @furtherdowntheline_ – at some time between the departure of the first train from the station at 6:14am and the last train at 23:44pm.

Starting in 2015, ‘Restaurant Drawings’ involves Monk collecting a receipt after a meal and later drawing a seminal artwork by an artist directly onto the thermal or paper receipt, often in graphite, pastel or watercolour. Artworks have included those by Donald Judd, Daniel Buren, David Hammons, Sol LeWitt, Christopher Wool, Barbara Kruger and Alighiero Boetti among many other iconic artists. The drawings are posted @monkpictures and are available for sale at the same price featured on the receipt – the cost of Monk’s meal – plus postage and packaging.

The works included in this exhibition depict different paintings from On Kawara’s ’Today’ series, known collectively as ‘Date Paintings’. As with other drawings in the series, they will be available for sale and buyers will be selected at random. Proceeds will help support Further Down the Line’s programme of exhibitions and engagement activities for 2025 and 2026."

- Further Down the Line press release

Poems by John Giorno

John Giorno

Poems by John Giorno

New York City, USA: Mother Press, 1967

64 pp., 8 × 6 1⁄4”, softcover

Edition of 1000

Giorno’s first book, edited by Peter Schjeldahl, features new poems, and pieces that had previously been published in Mother, Spice and C magazines. Titles include Paratrooper, Alone on a Beam, Leather, She Tasted Death and Pornographic Poem. 

The book’s cover are frontispiece are by Robert Rauschenberg and Les Levine, respectively. Both were close friends with Giorno. Of the thousand copies produced, fifty were signed and numbered by all three. 

The trade edition can be purchased by Giorno Poetry Systems, here, for $250 US. Granary Books has a copy of the edition signed by Giorno, Rauschenberg and Levine for $1000 US, here. 

Raymond Pettibon

Raymond Pettibon turns 68 today. 

My book on his album cover for Sonic Youth’s Goo and the subsequent memes, is available from the publisher, here. 

Jan J. Schoonhoven

Jan J. Schoonhoven

Schoonhoven

Mönchengladbach, Germany: Städtisches Museum, 1972

21 x 17 x 2.5 cm.

Edition of 300 numbered copies

An exhibition catalogue for a show which ran from October 27th to - November 26th, 1972. The white cardboard box contains 33 items including leaflets and printed cards. With texts by Schoonhoven, curator Johannes Cladders, Hans van der Griten, Klaus Honnef, Walter Kambartel, and Jean Leering, in German.

The publication is part of the influential Stadtisches Museum Mönchengladbach publications, which were published between 1967 and 1985. Rather than illustrate the exhibitions, the boxed works were typically an independent artistic project, some without any reference to the accompanying show at all. Most included essays and exhibition check lists, but they might also contain found objects, an artists’ production or other interventions into the format.

Other artists included in the series 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, and Lawrence Weiner.

Documenta 5

[Harald Szeemann, Ed Ruscha, etc.]

Documenta 5

Kassel, Germany: Documenta, 1972

[776] pp., 26.7 × 31.8 × 8.3 cm., ring binding and acetate slipcase

Edition size uknown

The fifth edition of Documenta was held between the 30th of June and the 8th of October, 1972 in Kassel, West Germany. Curated by Harald Szeemann, the title of the exhibition was: Befragung der Realität – Bildwelten heute [Questioning Reality – Pictorial worlds today]. 

Over a hundred and fifty artists participated, including Vito Acconci, Vincenzo Agnetti, Giovanni Anselmo, Archigram, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Georg Baselitz, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, Christian Boltanski, George Brecht, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Castelli, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Walter De Maria, Gino de Dominicis, Marcel Duchamp, Luciano Fabro, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George, Hans Haacke, Duane Hanson, Eva Hesse, Rebecca Horn, Rolf Iseli, Jasper Johns, Edward Kienholz, Imi Knoebel, Jannis Kounellis, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Ingeborg Luscher, Mario Merz, Gustav Metzger, Malcolm Morley, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Hermann Nitsch, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Robin Page, Blinky Palermo, Panamarenko, Giulio Paolini, A.R. Penck, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Posen, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Dorothea Rockburne, Edward Ruscha, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Lucas Samaras, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Allan Shields, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Klaus Staeck, Paul Staiger, Jorge Stever, Robert Strubin, Paul Thek, Wayne Thiebaud, Andre Thomkins, David Tremlett, Richard Tuttle, Ben Vautier, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Watts, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, John Wesley, William Wiley, Rolf Winnewisser, La Monte Young, Peter Young, and Gilberto Zorio.

Ed Ruscha designed the binder-format catalogue for with a bright orange cover featuring a screen-printed image of ants forming the number five, with a few that have wondered away to the verso of the binder. 

The publication includes entries for each individual artist, accessible via tab dividers. 

George Brecht | Book

George Brecht
Book
Cologne, Germany: Michael Werner, 1972
[28 pp.], 31 x 22 cm., hardcover
Edition of 50 numbered copies

I’ve always considered George Brecht to be one of the most significant and influential Fluxus artists, but weeks went by after his death before an obituary appeared. Posthumous retrospectives have been few and far between, and only a couple of monographs have been published about his work. 

Robin Page described him as the only artist who could walk without leaving footprints. 

Dick Higgins, Ben Vautier, Ken Friedman, Geoffrey Hendricks, Larry Miller and other Fluxus artists I have spoken with/interviewed all held him in the highest regard and considered him the originator of the  “Event Score”, something quintessential to both performance and publications within Fluxus. 

When I taught I would regularly show students a few examples from his brilliant Wateryam box and announce “We’ll look into this more in a future class”, and then never did. It was almost as if I needed to keep it mysterious, unresolved. Not to them, to myself. 

I have folders of images of every iteration of the work, which could become a week’s worth of content here, but haven’t gotten around to posting them yet. Even now, five paragraphs in, I have to fight the urge not to (re!)save this as draft and return to it later. 

Brecht was a scientist before becoming an artist, he attended John Cage’s legendary classes, and his work predates and anticipates “Conceptual Art”, yet it tends to hit at an intuitive level, rather than intellectual one.

When asked to distinguish Fluxus from Pop Art, he described how Lichtenstein would take a newspaper cartoon and blow it up a hundred times and paint it on an enormous canvas. He said he would be more inclined to fold the cartoon and keep it in his pocket. 

Book was conceived in 1964, but not published until 1972, after Brecht relocated to Cologne. It’s an almost blank, tautological object. 

 

The clothbound cover boldly proclaims THIS IS THE COVER OF THE BOOK in debossed uppercase letters (leading many to mistake this as the book’s title). Inside, a further eighteen descriptions of the format of the book become the project’s sole content:

THIS IS THE TITLE PAGE

THIS IS THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TITLE PAGE, THAT GIVES YOU INFORMATION LIKE WHO PUBLISHED IT AND WHEN

THIS IS THE FIRST PAGE OF THE BOOK

THESE ARE THE END PAGES OF THE BOOK

It’s a mostly sober self-narration, but occasionally some playfulness appears, such as THIS IS THE PAGE THAT RUSTLES WHEN YOU TURN IT (MAYBE) or a description that plays with tense: 

THIS IS THE PAGE BEFORE THE TITLE PAGE OF THE BOOK THAT TELLS YOU WHAT THE TITLE IS OR WAS, OR IS GOING TO BE. 

It brings to mind a book I was made to buy when first hired to work for an antiquarian bookseller, to ensure the listings I wrote would be accurate: John Carter's ABC For Book Collectors. It’s essentially a glossary of industry terms - the bibliophile’s dictionary - with entries for things like conjugate leaves, endpapers, half-title, recto-verso, etc.

I expected it to be a dull, dry read, but it was actually pretty spirited. Sample entry: 

ELSE FINE

A favourite phrase with the never-say-die type of cataloguer: used in

such contexts as ‘somewhat wormed and age-stained, piece torn from

title, headlines cut into, joints repaired, new lettering-piece, else fine’.

‘Second impression, else fine’, noted by Carter, is an extreme case.

Book was re-issued in 2017 in a decidedly more affordable format, but can’t compete with the presence of the original. There have been many other titles, before and since, that tackle this same territory, but Book remains a gold standard in simplicity and presentation. 

"In 1972, Brecht went to Cologne and exhibited at documenta 5 in Kassel. During this period, he published his “blank book” BOOK, which directly references the concepts of Zen. In an attempt to bring a blind spot of object perception into focus, Brecht presented the object of the physical book and its elements, such as cover, endpapers, individual pages and colophon, with his written comments." 

- Ulrike Pennewitz