Max Dean | The Thumb Chair

Max Dean

The Thumb Chair

Toronto, Canada: Runaway Bunny, 2007

7.6 cm

Edition of 300 signed and numbered copies

A pocket-sized version of Dean's Robotic Chair, that is thumb-activated, causing the chair to collapse and spring back.

Dean celebrates his 72nd birthday today. 

Roula Partheniou | Strange Objects

Roula Partheniou

Strange Objects

Los Angeles, USA: Marta, 2022

[16] pp., 48 × 10" (Unfolded) 6 × 10" (Folded)

Edition of 100

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Two and Two Together (March 11 to April 23rd, 2022), Strange Objects is a limited edition exhibition brochure/artists' book/framable artwork. It features a panorama of post-it note paintings made specifically for publication. The eight images reproduce hard-edge acrylic paintings on canvas, which remove the third dimension of the artist's sculptural post-it note works. 

Designed by Benjamin Critton, the verso features an essay by Partheniou on early childhood development and the mapping of meaning onto form - the artist's first published writing on her own work. 

Strange Objects is available from the publisher for $40.00, here. 

For a full monograph on Partheniou's work, see earlier post, here. 

Today is also the final day to visit her Toronto exhibition, Stationery Object at MKG127. 

 

ACBA: The Alps/Tauba Auerbach Easy Action LP

The Alps/Tauba Auerbach
Easy Action LP
Brooklyn, USA: Mexican Summer, 2011
31 × 31 cm.
Edition of 1000 copies

Erwin Wurm | Den Schmutz der Welt abwaschen

Erwin Wurm
Den Schmutz der Welt abwaschen
Cologne, Germany: Edition Koenig, 2019
15 x 25 x 5 cm.
Edition of 30 signed copies [+ 5 AP]

"Wurm’s "Den Schmutz der Welt abwaschen (To Wash Away The Dirt Of Our Time)," 2019, is a washing sculpture made of soap. The cucumber as a self-portrait is a recurrent motif in Erwin Wurm's work. He believes they somewhat resemble humans—each cucumber is distinct, but nonetheless distinguishable as a cucumber belonging to a greater whole."

- press release

John Peel Auction

The other somewhat relevant material from the John Peel Collection auction (see previous post) is a series of music zines and counter-culture publications, including the legendary OZ magazine (which was the subject of a high-profile anti-obscenity court case in the mid-seventies). 

To view the full collection, click here. 

Yoko Ono in John Peel's collection

Several friends have been kind enough to alert me to the Bonham’s auction of John Peel’s collection, which closed yesterday. 

John Peel was arguably one of the most influential radio DJs of all time, and the longest serving presenter on BBC Radio (1967 to 2004). He is of particular note here, for playing Laurie Anderson’s eight and a half minute experimental song O Superman, sending the performance artist  to the top of the charts briefly in 1981. 

I wasn’t aware that he was a big Yoko Ono fan, but the collection features a large number of materials sent by her and Lennon. It consists of their collaborative material and her solo work, but not solo material for her husband, and certainly no Beatle items. 

When the collection turns to works by other bands (almost all of them good - The Smiths, The Specials, PJ Harvey, Belle & Sebastian, The Fugees, Kate Bush, etc.)  I like to see it as a lineage from Ono’s proto-punk to the punk of the Pistols and the post-punk of Joy Division. 

The material includes promotional ephemera, personal postcards, vinyl test pressings, t-shirts, greeting cards, Ono's artist book Grapefruit and her classic artist Fluxus multiple Box of Smile. 

Scroll through the collection at the auction house site, here:

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/27992/live-in-session-property-from-the-john-peel-archive/?page=5

"Around the time of the dissolution of the Beatles, when he was living with Yoko, I met them then, and you know, I used to see them from time to time. And one of those things, there are very few people actually in the whole of this history that I rather wished weren’t famous people, because I enjoyed their company a lot. But you realized you couldn’t go to the match with them or go around and have breakfast with them at the café, just because they were such celebrities life would be intolerable if you tried to do that."

- John Peel