Peter Fischli / David Weiss | Equilibres

 

Peter Fischli / David Weiss

Equilibres

Cologne, Germany: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2006

168 pp, 20.3 x 24.1 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

The eighty-two colour and black & white photographs that make up the Equilibres series were created between 1984 and 1986, immediately preceding their celebrated film The Way Things Go. Following the subheading dictum “Balance is most beautiful just before it collapses”, the works present household objects and studio detritus arranged to form tenuously-balanced assemblages.  

Michelle Grabner | The Thing Quarterly, Issue 27

Michelle Grabner

The Thing Quarterly, Issue 27

San Francisco, USA: The Thing Quarterly, 2015

23 x 23 x23 cm., boxed

Edition of 1000

Ken Johnson closed his twenty-four line New York Times review of an exhibition by Chicago-based artist Michelle Grabner with this sentence: 

"If the show were a satire of the artist as a comfortably middle-class tenured professor and soccer mom, it would be funny and possibly illuminating, but it’s not.”

The overt sexism ignited a firestorm of counter-reviews and letters to the editor. Grabner herself responded by posting a link to the review on Facebook, without comment. 

“It was 300 words but it tells us a lot more about the world we live in than it does about Ken Johnson and Michelle Grabner,” she remarked later. 

The following year she responded with this functional size five gingham soccer ball. The ball arrived to subscribers to The Thing Quarterly boxed, accompanied by a pamphlet containing a brief introduction, an interview with Grabner by editor Jonn Herschend, and a reproduction of Joe Fyfe's review of the NYT review in HyperAllergic.

Geoffrey Hendricks | Taschengewitter (Pocket Storm)

Geoffrey Hendricks

Taschengewitter (Pocket Storm)

Eschenau, Austria: the eschenau summer press & temporary travelling press publications, 1991 

[4] pp., 21 × 14.8 cm., string-bound

Edition 150 numbered copies

Similar to Willem de Ridder's Paper Constellations and Martin Creed’s crumpled balls of paper, this book consists of a single sheet of wrinkled and folded paper. Given Hendrick’s lifelong interest in painting the sky [see below] - and the title - one can assume the paper is intended to represent a cloud. 

The work is published by herman de vries, who has been publishing artist’s publications with his eschenau summer press & temporary travelling press publications for over fifty years. There are 78 titles so far in the series, many by de vries himself. Other artists include Melanie Bonajo, Marinus Boezem, James Lee Byars, Eugen Gomringer, Maurizio Nannucci, Paul Panhuysen, Dieter Roth, Wolfgang 

These artists are given carte blanche, which results in striking experiments in form and content. More than 75 editions have now appeared in the series, ranging from a radio play with sound recordings of bumblebees to a glass slide that allows the sun to be viewed. All editions are shown in full in herman de vries - publisher and clarified by RKD curators Lynne van Rhijn and Ton Geerts.

Vija Celmins | The View

Vija Celmins

The View

New York City, USA: The Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985

[22] pp., 2.5 x 39 x 28.7 cm., hardcover

Edition of 120 signed copies

Poems by the Lithuania author Czeslaw Milosz illustrated with four mezzotints by Celmins. Bound by George Wieck in black morocco spine, in a matching slipcase. The unnumbered work is signed by both Milosz and Celmins.

The View is available here for $15,000 US. 

Robert Filliou | Poussière de Poussière

Robert Filliou

Poussière de Poussière 

Paris, France: Edition La Boutique Aberrante, Daniel Spoerri, 1977

6 x 16.8 x 12 cm.

Edition of 100

In the mid-seventies Michel Lacotte, curator and later director of the Louvre Museum of Arts, received an unusual request:

"Dear Friend,

As you might have heard, we are preparing a wonderful show by Daniel Spoerri, that will be called "The Sentimental Museum". Spoerri has been in contact with Henri de Cazals in order to get information on certain rare and curious objects which will appear in this show.

Concurrently, Spoerri hopes to create a "Boutique aberrante" that will sell examples of artistic fetish objects for the profit of international organizations. Numerous artists have shown an interest in bringing their wares to this show, among them Robert Filiou, one of the Fluxus group. He would like your permission to dust the frames of a number of famous paintings in the Museum. His intention is to sell, within the context of the "Boutique aberrante", the dust clothes [sic] accompanied by a photograph proving that they are in fact the dust cloths that cleaned "The Man with a Glove", "The Mona Lisa" etc.

I know that at first glance this request could seem rather bizarre, however, at the same time I know that I can count on your understanding.

I, am hoping you wilfbe able to accommodate Filliou, Spoerri, and myself. In awaiting your reply I remain,

Sincerely yours,

Pontus Hulten

Director

Centre Pompidou”

The resulting edition consists of a rubber-stamped cardboard box with a stapled photograph and a duster, each unique.  

There’s very little information about "Boutique Aberrante”, but the various boxes contain dust collected from works by Yves Klein, Marcel Duchamp, Magritte, Da Vinci and others. One sold at Christies auction in 2009 for 2,500 Euros, 500 more than its high estimate.

The work can be viewed as a companion piece to Flux Dust [see previous post]. 

Issue #23/24 of Impressions magazine (1980, edited by Isaac Applebaum and Lorne Fromer and designed by Suzy Lake) featured Filliou's 1977 work Poussière de Poussière as a four page spread. Excerpts are below.

"In this instance, the artist quest involved cleaning works of art within public collections in Paris and presenting the dusty cloths along with a small photograph of the action in archive style boxes, as if 'the aura of original work could be presented as a relic.' "

- Amy Fowler, Quests for the Lost and Found