Holiday Mail

 

As one of the Christmas Cards that arrived today noted, an upshot of the lengthy Canada Post strike in November and December of last year is that the holidays are now somewhat extended. I was going to save some of these until December of next year, but I think I’ll post them this week, like the overly enthusiastic friend who wishes everyone Happy New Year well into March. 

Sylvie Fleury | Vital Perfection

Sylvie Fleury

Vital Perfection

Paris, France: Edition Herve Mikaeloff, 1993

10 x 28 x 17 cm.

Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

Sylvie Fleury staged three exhibitions titled Vital Perfection: at the Galerie Philomene Magers, Bonn, and at Galerie Rivolta, Lausanne in 1991, and at Galerie Emanuel Perrotin, Paris two years later in 1993. The first two featured installations of shopping bags (see previous post) and the third shoe-boxes.

 

This multiple is a printed cardboard box, lined with faux-fur, a material often employed by the artist. 

Examples of the work appear in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, the London Arts Council and the National Gallery of Australia. 

Mahoro Seward: The point you make about the dualistic relationship so many of us have with fashion is important. These days, having a critical perspective on fashion is quite common, but that quickly melts away when you see, I dunno, a pair of Prada boots and you just want them. With your work, what’s interesting is that your commentary isn’t just limited to the objects themselves, but it also extends to the paraphernalia, too. Shopping bags and shoe boxes exert the same aura as a handbag. Could you tell us a bit about when you first felt the pull of fashion yourself? 

Sylvie Fleury: It’s something I actually forgot about for a long time, but a few years ago, I was invited to be part of an exhibition of drawings that artists had done as kids. So I asked my mom if she had any stashed away somewhere, and she found some. When I was a kid, she used to read this fashion magazine called Jour de France — it was a bit old-fashioned and bourgeois — but at the end, there were these pages that would describe the images. Funnily enough, I’d done these drawings that were exactly that — a model wearing an outfit, and next to it I’d write what they were wearing and who it was by.

Sylvie Fleury | Vital Perfection

Sylvie Fleury

Vital Perfection

Bonn, Germany: Galerie Philomene Magers, 1991

12 pp., 15,5 x 13 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

While people-watching in a hotel lobby decades ago, Sylvie Fleury observed that the upscale shopping bags carried by hotel guests prominently featured the boutique location as well as the store name and logo. The suggestion being that the glamour of Paris, London or Milan (and their status as Fashion capitals) is inextricably linked to the store that rents space there. 

This led to her first bookwork - a kind of catalogue/artist book hybrid that documented many of her early shopping bag pieces. 

The cover design mimics the style of Chanel packaging and advertising and the title "Vital Perfection” is taken from a line of Shiseido cosmetics. The title was used for two exhibitions in 1991, and another in 1993, accompanied by a box multiple (see next post). 

Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis | The Feather and the Meteorite

Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis

The Feather and the Meteorite

Toronto, Canada: Paul+Wendy Projects, 2024

13.5"

Edition of 50 signed copies [+3 AP]

The 79th Paul+Wendy Projects project is by Pittsburgh-based artists Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, and was launched last month at the Pop-Up event at Art Metropole that P+W hosted with Micah Lexier, Guy Guy Guy, Slow Editions, Alicia’s Klassic Kool Shoppe, Onion Ceramics and Maggie Groat. 

The work is a mobile anchored by a piece of meteorite, around which a white feather orbits. See a video of the piece and purchase it here, for $190 CDN:  

http://www.paulandwendyprojects.com/feather_meteorite_mobile.html

Fluxus

George Maciunas, Fluxus

Fluxus

Köln, Germany: Galerie und Edition Hundertmark, 1992

16.5 x 17.5 cm.

Edition of 300

Other than the Reflux editions (which were more continuations than reprints) this is probably the most authentic of the various collections of Fluxus facsimiles reprints. 

Housed in a hinged plastic box, this collection features nineteen items by various artists, all designed by George Maciunas.

Highlights include the brilliant "Flux Post Card" by Ben Vautier, "Compositions" by La Monte Young and  "La Strada" by Giuseppe Chiari. 

Other items include Flux Mailing List, Not for Publication Biographical Data, Fluxus Festspiele Prrogramm, Fluxus-Broschüre, Collage aus Zeitungsausschnittten, Collage aus Zeitungsausschnittten, In Memoriam to Adriano Olivettti, Fluxus (Its Historical Developments and Relationship to Avant-Garde Movements), Fluxshop, Games, Jokes, Kits..., Fluxus-Karte, Pancake Event, Flux Paper Events, Fluxus-Boxen, Fluxpost, Smiles, and "No Smoking" Wallpaper Poster by George Brecht and George Maciunas. 

As a reprint, the work has not increased in value much. It was about a hundred dollars two decades ago and now twice that, which has barely kept up with inflation. 

Vito Acconci | Park up a Building/House up a Building

Vito Acconci

Park up a Building/House up a Building

Cologne, Germany: Texte zur Kunst, 1996

26 x 35 x 3.5 cm.

Edition of 100 signed, numbered and dated copies [+ 20 AP]

A 264-piece photographic jigsaw puzzle housed in a clear plastic box bearing the imprint of the image which is in turn, inside a card box with paper label.

Rodney Graham

Rodney Graham was born on this day in 1949.