Keith Haring & Brion Gysin | Fault Lines

Keith Haring & Brion Gysin

Fault Lines 

Munich, Germany / New York City, USA: Edition Schellmann, 1986 

[unpaginated], 22 x 29 x 4 cm., clothbound

Edition of 200 [+ 25 AP] signed and numbered copies

Keith Haring saw William S Burroughs and Brion Gysin speak at the 1978 Nova Convention (alongside John Giorno, Patti Smith, Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, John Cage, Anne Waldman, Laurie Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Les Levine, Robert Anton Wilson and others) and it left an indelible impression on the young artist. 

In an article for Flash Art in March 1984, Haring wrote "The work of William Burroughs and Brian [sic] Gysin came the closest in literature to what I saw as the artistic vision in painting. The artist becomes a vessel to let the world pour through him.” Elsewhere Haring characterized Gysin as “a kind of teacher” to him, and an “incredible genius” whose ideas changed his life.

He agreed to produce a series of erotic drawings to accompany Gysin’s texts for a collaborative book. When the content made finding a publisher difficult, Jörg Schellmann stepped in to help, in exchange for an object multiple from Haring [see below quote]. 

The oblong clothbound book with gilt lettering on the spine and cover and housed in a black card slipcase was released in an edition of 200 copies, intended to be signed by both artists. However, Gysin died in July of 1986, shortly before the pages were prepared for signing. His signature is therefore stamped posthumously to the imprint page. 

The work is now valued at between three and four thousand dollars, depending on condition. 

"In 1985, Keith had made a series of drawings for a text by Brion Gysin and wanted to turn this material into a book. However, he did not succeed in finding a publisher due to the heavy sexual imagery in his drawings. So he asked me if I could recommend a publisher in Germany. When I looked at the drawings, I could see the problem, but spontaneously offered to publish the book myself if Keith were to do an object in an edition for me - assuming that the book would hardly pay for its printing costs. Keith was very pleased and promised to come up with something – which indeed he did: he made the Dog multiple. As expected, the book sold slowly over the years, whereas the Dog garnered great popularity over the 30 years of its existence.” 

– Jörg Schellmann

C.O. Paeffgen | Rost Nest

C.O. Paeffgen

Rost Nest

Reimsheid, Germany: Vice-Versand, [1968]

6 x 15 x 15 cm.

Unlimited Edition, signed

The title of Claus Otto Paeffgen’s 1968 Vice-Versand multiple translates to Grill Nest, or Grate Nest. It appears to be a wire-mesh fence sculpted into a bird’s nest. 

The work is produced in a signed but unlimited edition, each unique. The piece is accompanied by a label bearing the artist’s signature. 

Dave Dyment | Watching Night of the Living Dead

There are three free screenings of my film Watching Night of the Living Dead as part of Nuit Blanche in Winnipeg tonight. 

I spent a few weeks this summer updating the work with the highest quality clips available, as well as adding in any new instances I found in the last few years.  It is completely overhauled since the Blu-ray release in 2019. 

Details here. 

Jasper Johns | Target

[Jasper Johns]

Technics and Creativity : Gemini G.E.L.

New York City, USA: The Museum of Modern Art. 1971

108 pp.,  27 x 22.5 cm., clamshell box

Edition of 22,500

The high edition size of this classic explains why - despite being celebrated and over fifty years old - this can still be picked up for a few hundred dollars. 

More commonly known as Target, this publication consists of a white plastic clam-shell box that contains a catalogue raisonné of prints by Gemini G.E.L. and a newly commissioned multiple by Jasper Johns.

The book features 364 illustrations (20 in colour) of the prints and multiples issued by Los Angeles-based Gemini G.E. Artists featured include Josef Albers, John Altoon, Wallace Berman, Sam Francis, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Claes Oldenburg, Ken Price, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, and Frank Stella. 

Target is a do-it-yourself collaboration where the buyer is invited to complete the target with the paint-by-numbers watercolour pads and brush provided. Johns’ signature is printed and a space is left to co-sign. 

For a different type of do-it-yourself target work, see Niki de Saint Phalle’s Shoot-it-yourself Picture, here. 

"The target, a form that can be construed as being both image and object, has been a central motif for Johns since 1955, when he created the encaustic and collage work Target with Plaster Casts. Targets, as well as some of the other intentionally banal objects Johns employs — such as ale cans, flags, maps, and stencilled letters and numbers (all things that the artist claimed “the mind already knows” — evoke Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the readymade. Yet whereas Duchamp effected a readymade by selecting an ordinary object, removing it from its expected location and function, and placing it in the context of “art)” Johns instead creates representations of such objects in paintings, drawings, sculpture, and prints. 

Rather than prioritizing the originality of each composition, Johns focuses on methods of representation and translation between mediums and contexts; he famously wrote in a notebook in 1963-64 about his intent: “Take an object / Do something to it / Do something else to it.” 

In 1960 Johns produced the lithograph Target. In this, his first published print, sketchy outlines and expressionist marks appear at seemingly random intervals and evoke not only the aesthetic of drawing — particularly the 1958 drawing Target (private collection), with which the print is closely aligned — but also Johns’s autographic touch and, by association, his presence. In the two 1971 Target prints (both based on a 1960 drawing, also called Target, originally in the collection of his dealer lleana Sonnabend [now private collection]), however, Johns revised the process, instead creating works comprising the outlines of five concentric circles with three dried watercolor cakes in the primary colors and a small red paintbrush affixed to the bottom. Johns humorously makes reference to both the ubiquity of targets and the seemingly simplistic construction of his celebrated depictions of the motif, even providing watercolours that correspond to the palette he frequently employed. Below the stamped title and date of the work is the artist’s signature (written in graphite for the lithograph and stamped for the offset lithograph), followed by the word “AND” and a blank line, signalling an invitation for viewers to become active participants in the construction of the piece.

The tension between finished and unfinished is integral to Target. Both works embrace a non finito aesthetic and evoke the possibility that they can only be completed when a participant, unknown to the artist, acts independently and makes modifications of which Johns would be unaware. In this way, Johns challenges concepts of originality, uniqueness, artistic skill, and authorship. A principle behind editioned prints is that each work maintains the same standard of quality; however, by inviting a future collaborator to make key decisions about such things as the degree of finish or the amount of detail and material used, Johns opens up the possibility that the corresponding works would become fundamentally different and therefore unique. By supplying his signature, Johns indicates his approval of any and all modifications in advance, provided the coauthor also signs his or her name. Target thus address a paradox: because the works can only be “completed” by someone else, even though to do so would perhaps destroy them, they therefore must remain in a state of being perpetually unfinished.”

- Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible

Linda M. Montano | The Wisdom of Mataji & Bapuji

Linda M. Montano

The Wisdom of Mataji & Bapuji

Toronto, Canada: Art Metropole, 2000

1 pp., 21 x 13 cm. (folded) 41 x 51 cm (unfolded), paper

Edition of 1000, 25 signed by the artist

The only issue of the Little Cockroach Press series to deviate from the 16 page format, this folded poster contains the acclaimed performance artist’s biographical account of her spiritual mentors and friends Dr. Aruna Mehta (Mataji) and Dr. A.L. Mehta (Bapuji). It includes 51 sayings by Mataji and a meditation on Christmas by Bapuji.

Other artists in the series include AA Bronson, Stan Douglas, Alfredo Jarr, Maurizio Nannucci, Sandy Polotnikoff, Sonic Youth,  John Waters, etc. The pamphlets were distributed free of charge via the mail, with twenty-five copies signed by the artists and housed together in a box designed by James Carl, who contributed one of the titles.