Dora García | Steal this book

Dora García
Steal this book
Paris, France: Paraguay Press, 2000
136 pp., 11 x 18 cm., softcover
Edition of 15000

Activist Abbie Hoffman published Steal This Book (pictured below) in April of 1971. By November of that year, the book - intended as a manual for survival in the counter culture and a guidebook for battling the government and large corporations  - had already sold a quarter of a million copies.

The title, initially off-putting to both publishers and booksellers who feared their customers would take it at face value, has become iconic. Several tribes and parodies exist, including Steal this Album (by the band System of a Down), Steal this Episode (the ninth episode of the 25th season of The Simpsons) and Steal This Film, a documentary about piracy. Hoffman himself revisited the title with Steal This Urine Test, sixteen years later. Steal This Movie! is a biopic starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Janeane Garofalo as Abbie and Anita Hoffman.

Dora García's book pays tribute to Hoffmann’s, and documents eleven of her then-recent performative projects. The title presents the private correspondence of the artist with the various interpreters of the situations she sets up in public spaces. Questions, misunderstandings and even arguments arise, giving voice to the collaborative nature of her practice. It functions as s record of a body of work, but without the authoritative voice of the artist, curator or critic.

The book is presented in exhibitions as a cross between the free take-away posters of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and the proposed theft of Hoffman's original. It is also available in bookstores, and can be purchased from Printed Matter for $18.000 US, here.

Dora Garcia | News from Second Home

Dora Garcia
News from Second Home
Brussels, Belgium: MOREpublishers, 2017
dimensions vary
Edition of 20 signed and numbered copies [+ 10 H.C.]

A facsimile of a series of letters, which also reproduces the rhythm of the original exchange. Buyers subscribe to the project and receive fifteen envelopes over the course of the year. The correspondence
documents a conversation between Garcia and Agnieszka Gratza a resident of Second Home, London. Second Home is a "creative workspace and cultural venue, bringing together diverse industries, disciplines and types of social businesses."

The facsimile letters will periodically be accompanied by additional items, such as postcards or clippings. The suite of letters constitutes the complete work.

The project is the 85th in the hors série, and follows a similar format to Jonathan Monk's postcard project A copy of Richard Hamilton Whitley Bay, 1965 (#43), and Liam Gillick’s A Question of Development (#66).

The subscription price is 350 €. For more info, please contact info@morepublishers.be

Holiday Recommendations Guest Post #1: Dora García

Maria Fusco
Master Rock
London, UK: Bookworks, 2015
92 pp., 21 x 13.5 cm., hardcover
Edition of 1250

"I have been interested in Maria Fusco's work for many years, since she is an author who is also an artist, or an artist who writes, or a writer who knows contemporary art, or an art writer; embodying what we should really mean by artistic research. I have always enjoyed her texts, and her position, and her projects, in very recent times with the periodic publication The Happy Hypocrite.

The present book is a reader for her project of the same name, Master Rock, portraying the shaping of a mountain by the industrial age, a mountain with a gaelic name: Ben Cruachan. The project puts together "geology, mythology, and technology" - a performance who is also a radio play is also part of the overall project."

- Dora García

Master Rock is available from the publisher, here, for £12.00. Visit Fusco's website, here.

Dora García (born in Valladolid, Spain, 1965) lives and works in Barcelona and Oslo. She currently teaches at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Norway, and HEAD, Geneva. She is Co-Director for Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris. Her work is largely performative and deals with issues related to community and individuality in contemporary society, exploring the political potential of marginal positions and paying homage to eccentric characters and anti-heroes. She has exhibited her work at numerous international events such as the 54th, 55th and 56th Venice Biennale (2011, 2013 and 2015), the 29th São Paulo Biennale (2010), the 16th Sydney Biennale (2008), Documenta 12 (2007) and Münster Sculpture Projects (2007).

García's exhibition I See Words, I Hear Voices, closes at Toronto's Power Plant on January 3rd, 2016. Visit García's site, here.

Bring The Dead Back To Life

Gavin Everall and Jane Rolo [editors]
Bring The Dead Back To Life
London, UK: Bookworks, 2012
224 pp., 38 x 25.5 cm., softcover
Edition size unknown


"Specifically engaging with the circuits of practice that have materialised in the form of books, writing, magazines, language, spoken word, performative research and archival practice, contributors include: A Estante, An Endless Supply, AND, Banner Repeater, Claire Makhlouf Carter, Eastside Projects, Maria Fusco, Dora García, Melissa Gronlund, Sam Hasler, Stewart Home, Ian Hunt, Jonathan Monk, Apexa Patel, Mark Pawson, Bridget Penney, Pil & Galia Kollectiv, Plastique Fantastique, Sarah Pierce, Laure Prouvost and Rory Macbeth, Publish And Be Damned, John Russell, Slavs and Tatars, Spike Island, Barry Sykes, The Serving Library, The Showroom, Torpedo, Ubuweb, Marina Vischmidt, McKenzie Wark, White Columns and X Marks the Bökship – in the form of: artists’ pages, exploratory interviews, new writing, and a range of publisher and project space responses to the questions: Why Distribute? Why Archive?"

- cover blurb

Dora García | All The Stories

Dora García
All The Stories
London, UK: Bookworks, 2013
526 pp., 21.5 x 14 cm., softcover
Unlimited Edition

All of the stories (which must be four lines or less) collected by the artist up until 2011 are included in this second, updated edition of the ongoing project.

Available from Tenderbooks, for £17.50, here.



García gave a presentation last week in Mississauga, while in town for a site visit for a forthcoming exhibition at Toronto's Power Plant.