Dave Dyment | My Friend Goo

Dave Dyment

My Friend Goo

Toronto, Canada: Paul + Wendy Projects, 2025

38 pp., 25 x 17 cm. staple bound

Edition of 200

Astutely recognizing that the subject matter touched on a number of my interests1, Paul Van Kooy commissioned me to write a text about Raymond Pettibon’s cover for Sonic Youth’s Goo LP and the subsequent hundreds of memes it has inspired. We amassed over a hundred of them, most of which appear in this little publication, and I wrote a text that attempts to make sense of them. 

It traces the way a Moors Murders paparazzi photo became a Raymond Pettibon drawing, then a cover for Sonic Youth’s major label debut and then a template for people to address subjects as varied as companionship, fandom, escape, corruption, trans rights, police killings, threats to democracy around the world, Covid19, and countless other contemporary concerns. 

The book is designed by Emma Wright (who designed Roula’s fantastic Index), features a cover illustration by Leanne Shapton2 and comes with a bookmark by Jonathan Monk3.

Thanks, of course, to Paul, Wendy, Emma, Leanne, Jonathan, Lee, and Roula. And special thanks to Annie Koyama for making this (and so many other things) possible.

The book is available from the publisher, here. 

1. Sonic Youth, Raymond Pettibon, album covers by artists, the ways that culture takes shape, etc.

2. Leanne Shapton is an artist, art director and publisher. She has designed lettering for the covers of two  Chuck Palahniuk novels and the credits of Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale. She also created the "armpit sex drawing" for Spike Jonze's 2013 film Her.

3. The first hundred copies include a bookmark made from a receipt drawing with an illustration of another SY album cover, Daydream Nation (see next post). 

"A wonderful look into not just our mashup but the whole history of them. I loved the historical antecedents - and the footnotes are as good a read as the text! Really wonderful to have this text about (or, in reference to) our album cover and Ray’s drawing.”

- Lee Ranaldo

Richard Long

Richard Long turns 80 today. 

Jeremy Deller | Iggy Pop Life Class

Jeremy Deller

Iggy Pop Life Class

Brooklyn, USA: Brooklyn Museum, 2016

144 pp., 8.5 x 11.5", softcover

Edition size unknown

“The life class is a special place in which to scrutinize the human form. As the bedrock of art education and art history, it is still the best way to understand the body,” says Jeremy Deller. “For me it makes perfect sense for Iggy Pop to be the subject of a life class; his body is central to an understanding of rock music and its place within American culture. His body has witnessed much and should be documented.”

In February of 2016, Deller hosted a life drawing class at the New York Academy of Art. The class was led by drawing professor and visual artist Michael Grimaldi and the nude artist model was 69 year old Iggy Pop. 

Twenty-one artists, from all walks of life and educational backgrounds, participated in the project. They ranged in age from 19 to 80. Some were current undergraduate and graduate students, others were practicing artists, some had retired. 

In total, 107 drawings of Iggy Pop were produced, ranging from five-minute sketches to studies to presentation drawings. All are included in Iggy Pop Life Class, which was published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at Brooklyn Museum. The book also features an introduction by Deller, an interview with Pop, and an essay on the practice of life drawing in art history, documentation of the process, and works from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. 

The promotional poster for the project (below) inverts the structure of a life drawing class by having the model clothed and those sketching naked. 

Iggy Pop Life Class us available here, for £19.99. 

Alison Knowles

 

Alison Knowles Weisbaden

Eunice Luk, who I’m working with on a project for Ontario Culture Days in the fall, visited Wiesbaden, Germany earlier in the year. She brought me back these four cards from an exhibition celebrating the work of Alison Knowles, who turned 92 a month ago today. 

Francis McKee | How to Know What’s Really Happening

Francis McKee

How to Know What’s Really Happening 

Berlin, Germany: Sternberg Press, 2016

56 pp., 15 x 9.5 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

"In this post-truth era, how does one navigate the endless information available and choose a viable narrative of reality? In How to Know What’s Really Happening, Glasgow-based writer and curator Francis McKee looks at various techniques for determining verity, from those of spy agencies and whistle-blowers to mystics and scientists.

This is the third book in the Kayfa ta series, a publishing initiative of artists Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis. Each book in the series is a monographic essay commissioned in the style of how-to manuals that situate themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, and the factual and the fictional.”

- Publisher’s blurb 

Bernard Heidsieck | Partition V

Bernard Heidsieck

Partition V

Paris, Le Soleil Noiur, 1973. 

149 pp. 2 fol. 19 x 19 cm. 

Edition of 1125 

A square artist book with a 7” flexi-disc mounted to the cover and another five following the title page.The discs feature spoken word texts written by Ruth Francken and performed by Heidsieck. 

Of the 1125 copies produced, the first 250 are signed and numbered. 

The track listing, from Discogs, is below. 

A Livre-objet De Ruth Francken

C Partition V - Poème-partition

D Partition V - Poème-partition

E1 Poème-partition B2 B3

E2 Le 4ème Plan

F1 La Pénétration

F2 La Convention Collective

G1 La Cage

G2 La Mer Est Grosse

G3 Quel Age Avez-Vous ?

H Bilan Ou Mâcher Ses Mots

I1 La Semaine - Passe-partout N°5

I2 La Semaine - Passe-partout N°5

J1 Ruth Francken A Téléphoné - Passe-partout N°8

J2 Ruth Francken A Téléphoné - Passe-partout N°8