Mark Pawson, RIP

Sad to hear about the passing of Mark Pawson. 

I only met him once, at the London Art Book Fair where we were both tabling, but he has sent me some great things over the years, and was kind enough to write a guest post here several years ago. 

I was slow to appreciate his larger practice, but always loved his dedication to ephemeral media like stickers and buttons. Later I began to realize his work used the vernacular language of fan clubs to explore figures of influence (Johns Peel and Cage, above) and everyday enjoyments like Peace & Quiet and Fresh Air. The latter reminds me of Ross Sinclair’s excellent I LOVE REAL LIFE project and the former the many fan clubs of Cary Leibowitz. 

Below is a tribute from Robin Rimbaud (who also once contributed a Christmas guest post here) complete with a discreet nod to Henry Flynt. 

"Absolutely heartbroken to learn of the passing of my very old friend Mark Pawson, British based artist and publisher. We first met in the 1980s when I was hand making books and selling them at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery in London. We would bump into each other in photocopy shops in King’s Cross, book fairs, and especially the local supermarket in Bethnal Green, where we lived just round the corner from each other for 18 years. Mark was an absolutely good egg. A true demolisher of serious culture. He was an absolutely champion of small press book making, selling and publishing. In my earliest days of engaging in mail art, sending letters and packages across the world to strangers, who’d then send equally magical packages back, I would gleefully apply the wonderful stickers he produced to every single item. Who else would produce an entire little book focusing on images of Die-Cut Plug Wiring Diagrams. Mark was a champion of counterculture, celebrating the underground zine and music world, and his presence will be very much missed. The @smallpublishers won’t be the same without him standing at his table, chatting to everyone!I know for sure I will miss him, a lot. Farewell Mark - keep stickering wherever you are in the universe!!”

- Robin Rimbaud/Scanner

Kelly Mark

A couple of days after Kelly Mark’s death last month I received an email from Chris Hampton at the CBC: 

Good afternoon, Dave. 

I saw your post about Kelly. I am terribly sorry for your loss. She was so clearly a brilliant mind, and by the many remembrances I've read in the last few days, an even more remarkable friend.

Dave, I understand if this is too fresh or if you feel that it's inappropriate, but I'm wondering if you would like to write about Kelly and her significance to Canadian art for CBC Arts. Your instagram message reminded me about the maddening clock debacle. I'd love if you shared that story — or others as you see fit — to help our readers appreciate something of Kelly and her work. 

Let me know. 

Best,

Chris

It’s difficult to summarize someone’s life and work in 1500 words (which I was writing from a tiny hotel room in rural Quebec, where Roula was installing a show), especially someone as complicated as Kelly Mark. I hope I get the chance to write something less rushed in the future. She was certainly one-of-a-kind. 

https://www.cbc.ca/arts/remembering-canadian-artist-kelly-mark-the-working-class-conceptualist-1.7475062

Jonathan Monk

 

Jenny Holzer | Untitled (from the survival series)

Jenny Holzer

Untitled (from the survival series)

New York City, USA: Self-published, 1983

7.6 x 25.5 cm 

Edition of 10

A cast aluminium plaque with a current estimated value of around ten grand. 

Illegal America

[Papo Colo & Jeanette Ingberman, Editors]

Illegal America

New York City, USA; Exit Art, 1982

[27], 28 x 21.5 cm., boxed loose leaves

Edition size unknown

Artists Papo Colo and Jeanette Ingberman founded Exit Art in 1982 as a space for “unusual” art. A few months prior, they curated an exhibition at Franklin Furnace on the theme of art that had run afoul of the law. The works ranged from so-called desecrations of the American flag to Charlotte Moorman playing the cello topless to Chris Burden having his assistant shoot him in the arm with a rifle to the occupation of abandoned buildings by the Real Estate Show.

The catalogue consists of 27 folded sheets in a brown cardboard box, mostly artists' statements and documentation. The box is sealed shut with an American dollar bill. To open it you had to slice through the bill, itself an illegal act.  (A 1948 law states that "Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.")

The catalogue features contributions byVito Acconci, Gempei Akasegawa, Louis Aragon, Scott Billingsley, Marc Blane, Gunther Brus, Barry Bryant, Chris Burden, Papo Colo, Bogomir Ecker, William Farley, John Fekner, Lou Forgione, John Giorno, GAAG, John Halpern, Abbie Hoffman, Sam Hsieh, Jay Jaroslov, Komar & Melamid, George Maciunas, Gordon Matta Clark, Ann Messner, Richard Mock, Peter Monnig, Charlotte Moorman, Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch, Dennis Oppenheim, People's Flag Show, Jan Van Ray and Real Estate Show.

Responding to the social and political climate of the time, the curators re-staged the exhibition eight years later, in 1990. 

"The only disappointment to the show was that of the 36 artists and groups featured, though only for women artists. More unfortunate was that two of the women artists featured – Charlotte Moorman and Carolee Schneerman – figured as signifiers of transgressive sexuality. Undoubtedly, it is the political task of women artists to address issues of the body and sexuality, but retaining half of the female participants primarily in the realm of sexuality – and two other pieces by women dealt with animal rights and stealing – problematically reiterates already existing social patterns of sexual inequality.

Regardless of this inequality, this show was an important and voluminous one; the strongest work seems to be that which elicits the strongest reactions and forces public involvement. Like the flag in Dread Scott’s piece, which was alternatively taken off the floor and folded by those who believe in it as something to regard with total reverence, and then trampled upon by those who believe it is to be a more debatable symbol, strong work allows itself to go through whatever mutations are necessary to force an issue into the public arena.”

- Tina Wasserman

Matchbooks

Matchboxes and matchbooks by Arthur Koepcke, Ben Vautier, Daniel Olson, George Brecht & Robert Filliou, David Shrigley, Joyce Holland (editor), Louise Lawler, Barbara Kruger, Ryan McGinness, Rasah Subtler and Red Seifer.