Daisy Chain Fields

Olivia Rodrigo's inaugural all-female music festival, Daisy Chain Fields, took place Saturday in Irvine, California. Inspired by Sarah McLachlan's '90s festival Lilith Fair, the event featured musical acts such as Bikini Kill, the Breeders, Chappell Roan, Devon Again, Die Spitz, Doechii, Eli, Garbage, Mitski, Not for Radio, Quiet Light, Rachel Chinouriri, Santigold, and Rodrigo herself (with guest appearances from McLachlan, Alanis Morissette and Stevie Nicks). 

The fair also featured art projects by Yoko Ono, Jenny Holzer, The Guerrilla Girls and others. Ono’s Wish Tree project is above. 

Phaidon Press Protest

Five years ago this month, the Guerrilla Girls severed ties with Phaidon Press in protest of owner Leon Black’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, writing “In 2018, the Guerrilla Girls contracted with Phaidon Press to publish our dream book of all our work from 1985 to today: conceptualized, designed and written by us. In 2019, the world learned about Black’s extensive and shady dealings with shady pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, before and after Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking young girls. We decided we could not work with Phaidon” [see earlier post here].

The group also called for Black to step down as chairman of the board of the Museum of Modern Art, including phone booth ads across the street from the museum. When his term ended on July 1st, 2021, Black did not seek re-election.

Phaidon is a multi-national publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, based out of London and New York City, with additional offices in Paris and Berlin. 

Phaidon has over 1500 titles in print and has sold almost fifty million books worldwide. Founded in Vienna in 1923, the company was sold to Black in 2012. 

It was recently revealed that Black had contributed a page to the infamous Epstein 50th birthday greeting album (compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 and featuring the now-notorious Trump signature as pubic hair drawing). Black’s contribution was a handwritten poem that contained the lines "Blonde, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically/With this net of fish, Jeff’s now The Old Man and The Sea". The poem is signed"Love and kisses, Leon".

He reportedly paid $158 million to Epstein between 2012 and 2017 for advice on taxes and estate planning. Epstein also helped him amass an enormous art collection, including The Scream by Edvard Munch, for which he paid $119.9 million.

In March 2021, Guzel Ganieva claimed in a series of tweets that "I was sexually harassed and abused by [Black] for years and forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement under duress”. Black maintained that the relationship was consensual but paid out nine million dollars for the agreement. Ganieva further alleged that he had introduced her to Epstein and tried to force her to have sex with him. 

In 2023, a lawsuit was filed against Black alleging that he violently raped a 16-year-old girl with autism and Down syndrome in Epstein's Manhattan townhouse the year prior, while asking her "what made her 'Jeffrey special girl.” 

Yesterday, British artist and Turner Prize winner* Tai Shani [above, centre] announced that she too has withdrawn a forthcoming monograph with Phaidon. The 49 year old artist posted to her twenty-five thousand Instagram followers: 

“I have decided to withdraw my monograph from publication with Phaidon. The recently unsealed Epstein files contain numerous horrific allegations against Leon Black, the owner of Phaidon since 2012. 

Behind these allegations, whose specifics many of us have read with horror, behind the geopolitical implications, the many unsurprising ties to the art world, behind the gossip, behind the observations about global networks of power, behind the spectacle of violence are human beings, victims: young women, children, often from precarious backgrounds, real lives exploited and destroyed. Even in this 

age of increasing impunity and breathtaking ruthlessness, their suffering, their lives matter and must be acknowledged." 

And then added in the comments: "I’m trying to meet this moment with some kind of moral consistency."

*The 2019 shortlisted artists (Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Shani)  were jointly awarded the prize as a collective, following their request to be considered as a single group "in the name of commonality, multiplicity and solidarity”.

Guerrilla Girls

 

(see previous post)

Guerrilla Girls Cancel Phaidon Book Contract

Last week the Guerrilla Girls announced that they have canceled their book contract with Phaidon, citing Leon Black's association with convicted sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Phaidon is a multi-national publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, based out of London and New York City, with additional offices in Paris and Berlin. 

Phaidon has over 1500 titles in print and has sold more than 42 million books worldwide. Founded in Vienna in 1923, the company was sold to Black in 2012. 

“In 2018, the Guerrilla Girls contracted with Phaidon Press to publish our dream book of all our work from 1985 to today: conceptualized, designed and written by us,” the Guerrilla Girls said in a statement. “In 2019, the world learned about Black’s extensive and shady dealings with shady pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, before and after Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking young girls. We decided we could not work with Phaidon.”

They have also called for Black, to step down from his post as chair of the board of directors of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

“How to explain MoMA’s silence? And why does MoMA tolerate people like Black and [Glenn] Dubin on its board in the first place?” queried the Guerrilla Girls. “If we’re stuck with a system where our tax-exempt, educational institutions have to depend on money from the super rich, they should at least choose board members who make the world a better, not a worse place.”

Open Letter to the New Museum

"We stand in solidarity with the New Museum Union.

We are troubled by New Museum leadership’s decision to hire an anti-union firm to sow fear and hostility and to misinform both management and staff about the role of unions in the workplace. Intimidation and misinformation do not constitute open engagement with the Museum employees. Moreover, such behavior goes against everything that the Museum has historically stood for—that is, equity, diversity, and a commitment to institutional responsibility.

We implore New Museum leadership to do the right thing and allow their employees to form a union without interference. We also urge leadership to bargain with the New Museum Union in good faith for a fair contract. Your coworkers are not simply union supporters but devoted colleagues who deeply love and believe in the institution and are fully committed to its future.

Signed:

Julie Ault, Artist

Andy Bichlbaum, the Yes Men

Claire Bishop, Professor, PhD Program in Art History, CUNY Graduate Center

Hannah Black, Artist

Nayland Blake, Artist, Chair ICP-Bard MFA

Jennifer Bolande, Professor, New Genres, UCLA Dept. of Art

Justin Vivian Bond, Transgenre Artist

Gregg Bordowitz, Artist

A.K. Burns, Artist

Paul Chan, Artist

Howie Chen, Curator

Liz Collins, Artist

Leah DeVun, Associate Professor, Rutgers University (Member, AAUP-AFT Local 06323)

Kimberly Drew, Writer and Independent Curator

Andrea Fraser, Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of Art

Malik Gaines, Artist

Liam Gillick, Artist

The Guerrilla Girls, Artists

Miguel Gutierrez, Artist

House of Ladosha

Sharon Hayes, Artist

Katherine Hubbard, Artist

Juliana Huxtable, Artist

David Joselit, Distinguished Professor, PhD Program in Art History, CUNY Graduate Center

Alhena Katsof, Curator

Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Artist and Writer

Nicole Killian, Artist and Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University

Devin Kenny, Artist

Kate Kraczon, Curator

Molly Larkey, Artist

Simon Leung, Artist and Professor of Art, UC Irvine

Monica Majoli, Artist and Professor, UC Irvine

Yong Soon Min, Professor Emerita, UC Irvine

Fred Moten, Professor, New York University

Carlos Motta, Artist

Gala Porras-Kim, Artist

R.H. Quaytman, Artist

Halsey Rodman, Artist; Co-Chair of Sculpture, Bard MFA; Critic, Yale School of Art, Painting and Printmaking

Martha Rosler, Artist

Alexandro Segade, Artist

Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Artist; Visiting Artist Faculty, California Institute for the Arts and

Bard Summer MFA

Gregory Sholette, PhD, Professor, Queens College Art Dept, CUNY

Patrick Staff, Artist

Eric A. Stanley, Assistant Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley

A.L. Steiner, Artist

Eric Golo Stone, Writer, Artist, and Curator

Lincoln Tobier, Artist, Otis College of Art and Design / SEIU Local 721

Mariana Valencia, Artist

Chris E. Vargas, Artist

Anton Vidokle, Artist and Founder of e-flux

Matt Wolf, Filmmaker

Yellow Jackets Collective"

This Week on Tumblr: Posters

The Moma Library tumblr has been releasing images from the Steven Leiber archives recently. Follow the site here.

Guerrilla Girls | Bus companies are more enlightened than NYC art galleries

Guerrilla Girls
Bus companies are more enlightened than NYC art galleries

New York City, USA: Self-published, 1989

Broadsheet poser

43 x 55 cm.

Edition size unknown

The Artist Poster Show

The Artist Poster Show opened a few Fridays ago (February 8th) at the Burnaby Art Gallery in British Columbia, and continues until April 7th.

The show, drawn primarily from the gallery's permanent collection, features exhibition posters by artists such as Rodney Graham, Guerrilla Girls, Laurel Woodcock, Bruce Nauman, Michael Drebert and Ian Wallace (pictured above), as well as Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Gilbert & George, Lawrence Weiner, N.E.Thing Co.,  Gordon Matta-Clark and many others. The exhibition includes a new commissioned series of twelve posters by Sonny Assu and a contemporary selection of artist posters from Vancouver artist-run centres like Artspeak, Or Gallery and Western Front.



Ian Wallace
At Work
Or Gallery
1983

Rodney Graham
Vexation Island
Canada XLVII Biennale di Venezia
1997

Michael Drebert
Available Light
Artspeak
2008
Offset print on paper

Guerrilla Girls
Guerrilla Girls Identities Exposed!
c. 1990
lithograph on paper

Bruce Naumann
Body Pressure
1974
Offset print on paper

Laurel Woodcock
Playlist for Bas Jan Ader
Mercer Union
2008
Foil-stamped poster


Visit here for more information.

Guerrilla Girls | Erase Discrimination

Guerrilla Girls
Erase Discrimination
Self-published, 1999
1 1/8 x 2 1/2 x 1/4 in
Pink rubber with ink screenprint