Cary Leibowitz | GAIN! WAIT! NOW!

Cary Leibowitz

GAIN! WAIT! NOW!

New York City, USA: Self-published, 2001
49.8 × 25.8 cm.
Signed and numbered edition

Produced for an exhibition at the Andrew Kreps gallery in 2001, this printed metal can features an image of the artist at his Bar Mitzvah, circa 1976. On the verso is the title phrase in a pink and yellow western/circus typeface.

In his review of the exhibition for the New York Times, Holland Cotter wrote:

"Questions about appearance and identity are a running gag. Dozens of cylindrical metal umbrella stands -- also identified as garbage cans -- at the center of the gallery are decorated with a bar mitzvah photograph of Mr. Leibowitz looking plump, stunned and very 1970's in a bulky all-white suit. [...] Being perpetually out of step is a career move that makes [Leibowitz] an artist for all seasons."

Leibowitz has explained the work as an "hourly mantra to survive adolescence and start [his] fabulous life" and “The cans with the picture of Fatso also have the text GAIN! WAIT! NOW!, which is very much in keeping with my longstanding history of wanting/needing/hoping/praying for things to improve in my own impatient way.”

The end-use of the work dictated the price: the cans initially sold for $50 if the buyer requested a garbage can, but $52 if they asked to purchase an umbrella stand. The following year some were made into lamps. 

The work is available now for $175 US, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, where the retrospective exhibition Cary Leibowitz: Museum Show (pictured above) closes today. 

The Bill Burns Show (Part 3)

The third and final iteration of the The Bill Burns Show at MKG127 closes today. For more information, visit the gallery website, here.

Jenny Holzer | With all the holes in you already, ...

Jenny Holzer
With all the holes in you already, ...
New York City, USA: Edition Barbara Gladstone Gallery, [c1983/85]

15.7 x 28 cm.

Edition of 10

Aluminium cast sign from the Survival Series.

Günther Uecker | Kite

Günther Uecker
Kite
Germany: Self-published, 1967
117 x 83 cm.
Edition of 100 signed and dated copies

A self-portrait as a kite by the Zero Group member best known for his work with nails. The Serigraph on transparent PVC-foil, stretched on wooden struts is valued at approximately $1000 US.

Cary Leibowitz: Museum Show

Cary Leibowitz: Museum Show at the Contemporary Jewish Museum closes this Sunday, June 25th. The exhibition is the first comprehensive career survey and solo museum exhibition devoted to Leibowitz, who once (and sometimes still) uses the alias Candyass. I kick myself for missing it, but I will be there in February 2018, when the show travels to Philadelphia. 

For more information, visit the gallery website, here. Or read Wallpaper's review "Pathetic aesthetic: Cary Leibowitz’s zingers are more relevant now than ever", here. 

Off the Shelf: Modern & Contemporary Artists' Books

The Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition Off the Shelf: Modern & Contemporary Artists' Books closes this Sunday, June 25th.

Curated by Rena Hoisington, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs, the exhibition presents over than a hundred artists’ books and related prints by more than fifty artists, including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Andy Warhol, Grace Hartigan, Francesco Clemente, David Hockney, Barbara Kruger, Kiki Smith, Dieter Roth and Ed Ruscha. Thirty authors are featured, including Stephen King (pictured above, a collaboration with Barbara Kruger), Frank O’Hara, and Robert Creeley. More than half of the works have never been exhibited before at the BMA.

For more information visit the gallery website, here.

Isa Genzken | Glanzwasser

Isa Genzken

Glanzwasser

Cologne, Germany: Self-published, 1994.

26 x 8 cm.

Edition of 100 signed, dated and numbered copies

Glass bottle, foil, resin, funnel.