Richard Artschwager: No More Running Man

[Richard Artschwager]

Richard Artschwager: No More Running Man 

Los Angeles, USA: Gagosian, 2014

88 pp., (20.9 × 27 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

"This book was published on the occasion of Richard Artschwager: No More Running Man at Gagosian, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, which coincided with a major touring retrospective of the artist’s work organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in collaboration with Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibition presented Artschwager’s last series of work, variations on the motif of an isolated figure derived from a photograph—clipped from the Boston Globe—showing a man running through a park during the winter of 1989. Artschwager reimagined the image in several works beginning in 1991 and used it as the basis for this final series depicting one, two, or three monochrome silhouettes repeated or mirrored on plastic or paper. Presented in deep frames, each entry doubles as a sculpture and erases distinctions between synthetic and organic surfaces, the everyday object and the work of art.

The publication includes color productions of the twenty-five works in the exhibition as well as a preface by Bob Monk and an illustrated essay by Robert C. Morgan. The book design features a die-cut silhouette of the running man’s shape on the front and back covers, mimicking the mirrored laminated figures in Running Man (double blue) (2013).”

The book is available from the publisher here for $60 US. 

Approximate Objects [below] is on display until this Friday, April 17.

Richard Artschwager | Hydraulic Door Check

Richard Artschwager

Hydraulic Door Check

Koln, Germany:  Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig, 2002

256 pp., 18.5 × 24 cm., hardcover, boxed

Edition of 500 signed and numbered copies

Housed in an archival cardboard box (21.9 × 26 cm.), the deluxe version of this 2002 exhibition catalogue is covered with the rubberized horsehair that the artist frequently used in his unique sculptures and multiples. The book was published in conjunction with a show held at MAK, Vienna, Austria, from March 27th to June 16th, 2002, curated by Daniela Zyman.

Edited by Peter Noever, the volume includes texts (in both English and German) by Jörg Heiser, Anthony Vidler, and John Yau.  These essays "consider Artschwager's artistic development, the meaning of surface quality in his work, and his place within the context of relevant art movements."

The work is available to purchase for $1000 from Gagosian gallery here. The work is available to purchase for $1000 from Gagosian gallery here. 

The work is part of Approximate Objects, an exhibition of sculptural multiples by Artschwager that is on view at Gagosian’s gallery and shop in the Burlington Arcade, London. The presentation surveys sixteen editioned works created between 1969 and 2012, alongside a selection of the artist’s publications and prints.

Eleanor Antin: The Angel of Mercy

Eleanor Antin

Eleanor Antin: The Angel of Mercy

San Diego, USA: La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, 1977

18 pp., 20.4 x 23 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

The catalog for an exhibition at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, where Antin performed as a 19th century, Clara Barton-esque nurse. The publication ncludes photographs staged in a British Victorian style which seem to depict life in an army camp during the Crimean War. Scenes include a piano performance, surgery in a field hospital, chess, and a deserter’s execution. The title also includes essays by Jonathan Crary and Kim Levin.

Backworks catalog

[Jon Hendricks and Barbara Moore]

Backworks? Catalog No. B / Performance : Photographs of a Decade 1959 - 69

New York City, USA: Backworks, 1977

[20] pp., 27.6 x 21.3 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

I recently watched the documentary It’s Never Over and was reminded that singer Jeff Buckley once dated Rebecca Moore, daughter of Barbara and Peter Moore. 

Barbara Moore is an art historian and "a seminal and innovative champion of artists working in alternative mediums” [David Platzker]. She’ll be familiar to readers here as the proprietor of Bound and Unbound, and Reflux Editions. Peter Moore was a photographer known for his documentation of avant-garde art, music, dance and theatre events in 1960’s New York. He captured many classic Fluxus moments, as well as Happenings and performances that took place at the Judson Memorial Church. 

Artist, activist and curator Jon Hendricks programmed the Judson Church basement gallery and performance series at the time. He and Barbara Moore formed Backworks in the mid-seventies, specializing in documents and artifacts of the avant-garde, experimental art, Fluxus, etc. 

The venture was ran out of 488 Greenwich street, the home that Jon and Joanne Hendricks bought in 1975 (his brother Geoffrey Hendricks lived next door, at 486, with a Lawrence Weiner work above his door). 

Their clients included Gilbert and Lila Silverman, who Hendricks introduced to Fluxus. In 1981 he left the partnership to work for them, helping to amass the most important collection of Fluxus publications anywhere (now housed in the library of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC). After this Hendricks moved on to become Yoko Ono’s curator and right-hand man. 

This is the second of - I believe - three catalogues that Backworks issued. It includes performance photographs of works by Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Yves Klein, Robert Whitman, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier, Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, Carolee Schneemann, Shiegeko Kubota, Otto Muehl, Günter Brus, Max Neuhaus, Milan Knizak and others. In addition to Moore, the photographs include Max Baker, Martha Holmes, Scott Hyde, George Maciunas, Robert McElroy, and Lawrence Shustak. 

Jeff Buckley and Rebecca Moore

Ed Ruscha / Lawrence Weiner | Hard Light

Ed Ruscha / Lawrence Weiner

Hard Light

Los Angeles, USA: Heavy Industries Publications, 1978

[116] pp., 17.6 x 12.5 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

Heavy Industries Publications is the name Ruscha used for several of his own self-published artist’s books, such as Crackers, Records, and A Few Palm Trees. Its final release is this Ruscha and Lawerence Weiner photo-novel starring Shelley Chamberlain, Suzanne Chandler, and Susan Haller in an oblique visual drama.

Except for a single statement by Weiner, this is a textless photo-narrative documenting several conversations between three women, each photographed in a different setting. 

"Ruscha's books are meant to be read, but since the art world doesn't know how to read he might as well amuse himself.” 

— Eleanor Antin

Kay Rosen | Wish Dish

Kay Rosen

Wish Dish

New York City, USA: Artware Editions, 2020

26.7 cm. diameter

Edition of 175

 

As is often the case with Jenny Holzer, this editioned work improves on the original, more expensive option. 

While known as Wish Dish, the full title is actually Reddish/Yellowish, and it makes more sense printed on a plate than painted on a wall. And the wish of the title improves with the context of the series of plates produced by Artware Editions in collaboration for Collation For the Homeless. 

The Coalition for the Homeless is the nation’s oldest advocacy and direct service organization helping individuals and families experiencing homelessness. They partnered with Artware in 2020, at the peak of the Covid19 pandemic, to produce the Artist Plate Project.

The funds raised by the sale of plates provided food, crisis services, housing, and other critical aid to thousands of people experiencing homelessness and housing instability. The purchase of just one plate fed more than 100 homeless and hungry individuals. 

Over a hundred artist participated in the series, including Christopher Wool, Ed Ruscha, Elizabeth Peyton, Fred Tomaselli, Glenn Ligon, Jenny Holzer, Jonas Wood, Julian Opie, Laura Owens, Lawrence Weiner, Maurizio Cattelan, Rob Pruitt, Sarah Sze, Tauba Auerbach, Ugo Rondinone, Vik Muniz, Wade Guyton, Yoshitomo Nara and many, many others. The estates of Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and others also collaborated with the organization. 

We bought a copy at the time of release and the price maddeningly more than doubled with shipping costs and customs charges (money which didn’t end up providing food for the homeless). 

"WISH DISH ostensibly describes a yellow and red receptacle of desire, but it is really a verbal remnant descended from the past, the legacy of the original roots Yellow and Red before they were compromised into Yellowish and Reddish and then shortened to wish dish. They have not only gone through a name change, but they have also changed speech parts, from adjective to noun. Their transformation from dozen letters is dramatic. It empowers the phrase with entirely new status. As former modifiers, Yellow and Red served in a dependent and accessory capacity to help define nouns. Now they are nouns. Although there is little outward resemblance to their antecedents, a close examination of WISH DISH reveals some genetic baggage. Seventy-five percent of each word is comprised of a suffix, ISH, passed down from Reddish and Yellowish. Twenty-five percent is borrowed from the previous syllables: W from Yellow which, like jello and hello, does not need it for pronunciation, and the extra D from Reddish. The most visual holdover from the past is color, which Wish and Dish have inherited through their chromatic genes Yellow and Red.”

- Kay Rosen, 2004 

Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson

Ray Johnson

Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson

Raleigh, USA: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1976

498 pp., 29.21 x 24.13 cm., loose leaves

Edition size unknown

Richard Craven (often simply known as Richard C.) and Ray Johnson maintained a voluminous correspondence, beginning in the late 1960s and unbroken until Johnson’s suicide in 1995. 

Craven organized the exhibition Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson, which ran from October 31st to December 5th, 1976, at the North Carolina Museum of Art. It featured works loaned by a hundred recipients of Johnson’s Mail Art.

This exhibition catalogue - now valued at between $600 and $1000, depending on condition - consists of unbound photocopied sheets housed in a large laminated folder. 

 

"It is generally and correctly understood among those who participated in the crest of the mail art movement in the late sixties and early seventies that Ray Johnson was the founder of the New York Correspondence School and foremost proponent of mailing activity. And while there have been a few exhibitions enthusiastically supported by growing numbers of mail artists, there has not been proper emphasis credited to Johnson as a communication artist. It is overwhelming to conceive of the amount of material that Ray Johnson has sent through the mail over the years and of the numbers of individuals with which he has made contact and continues to amuse, entertain, irritate, and educate. 

This exhibition represents only a sampling of his communication efforts despite the fact that it is the largest assemblage ever of his work. Over 1,000 items were submitted for consideration in the exhibition by more than 100 lenders from across the country and abroad. 

As we view and read these unique missives, let us keep in mind that we are in a sense reading over the lender’s shoulder, being let in on a one-sided conversation, and what we see may very well be mysterious and obscure for that reason. As suggested by one of our lenders, Lillian Kiesler, it would be nice if the letters show stimulated the art of letter writing in its most inventive sense, as Ray Johnson has done."

 - Moussa M. Domit, introduction