Pierre Bismuth

[Pierre Bismuth]

Pierre Bismuth

Toronto, Canada: Art Gallery of York University, 2004

96 pp, 6 x 8”, hardcover

Edition size unknown

The catalogue to an exhibition of collages - both paper and video - at the Art Gallery of York University, from October 8th to November 23rd, 2003. 

Respect for the Dead features the opening scenes from various feature films - The Magnificent Seven, Jaws, Goodfellas, Dirty Harry, Dr No, and Breathless - truncated immediately following the first death. 

Collages for Men involves enlarged glossy images from porn magazines, with the models' bodies covered with white paper garments. 

For Unfolded Origami, Bismuth had an origamist fold and unfold posters, then displayed them flat. The posters include Andy Warhol's flowers, a map of Europe, an advertisement for the a fight between Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton, a cute kitten, and (a concession to the Toronto venue?) a Maple Leaf hockey player. The works are titled for the unfolded origami shape: dog, frog, peacock, yacht, etc. 

The fourth and final piece presented is the main draw here: The Jungle Book Project. For this work, the artist spliced together nineteen different international versions of the 1967 Walt Disney animated classic in such a way that each character speaks a different language.  Mogli speaks Spanish with a Latin American accent, Tigger speaks English, King Louie the orangutan speaks Japanese, Baloo speaks Hebrew, Bagheera the panther speaks Arabic, etc. etc. 

The book closes with two essays: “Why do Jewish mothers...?” by Aaron Schuster and "Chinese Whispers” by Alexander Alberro. These are followed by biographies and an exhibition checklist. 

“The Jungle Book Project comments on the entertainment industry's relationship to globalization. As they do with all of their products, prior to translating the film the Disney Corporation carefully researched the commercial viability of The Jungle Book in a number of languages and countries. The consumer reports seem to have indicated that whereas marketing the film in most European languages would be profitable, this would not be the case with African languages. As a result, The Jungle Book has not been translated into any African language. Evidently, Africa is not yet part of the culture industry’s global landscape. The exportation of the Disney product is relatively easy since the change in the voiceover virtually seamless. Unlike the type of out-of-synch effect that occurs when a film with actors is dubbed, to suture new voices to the animated cartoon figures does not pose problems of coher-

ency or delay. Films like The Jungle Book work equally well in all languages."

- Alexander Alberro

Vito Acconci | Think / Leap / Re-Think / Fall

Vito Acconci

Think / Leap / Re-Think / Fall

Dayton, USA: Wright State University, University Art Galleries, 1976

[56] pp., 21 x 21 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

 

A mostly hand-scrawled account of the development and construction of the piece Middle of the World at Wright State University in 1976, and it’s relationship to the artist’s previous work. 

Simone Forti | Dance Constructions: Yoko Ono Chambers St. Loft Map

Simone Forti

Dance Constructions: Yoko Ono Chambers St. Loft Map

1974

Pen on paper

17.8 × 25.4 cm.

Unique

In honour of Simone Forti’s passing last month, Hyperallergic has just published an interview that Julia Bryan-Wilson conducted with the artist, dancer, choreographer and writer, particularly about her relationship with Yoko Ono. 

Julia Bryan-Wilson: When did you first meet Yoko Ono? What were some of your initial impressions of her?

Simone Forti: I must have started hearing Yoko’s name around 1960. I knew that she was married to Toshi Ichiyanagi and that they both were doing interesting work in the larger artistic community that I shared with La Monte Young.  

JBW: Your Dance Constructions were first seen at Yoko’s Chambers Street loft.  How did this event come about? 

SF: I became aware that she had a loft studio and that she was very generous with it, letting dancers sometimes use it. I have memories of working in a loft with Trisha Brown and Steve Paxton, and in a different loft with Bob Morris and Yvonne Rainer, and one of these lofts may well have been Yoko’s loft. La Monte Young is the person who invited me to participate in the series, and with whom I was in touch for practical matters. And Bob Morris is the person who helped me set up. 

JBW: We’ve all seen pictures, but can you describe more about what the Chambers Street loft was like, architecturally as well as socially? 

SF: The loft was a large raw rectangular space with a very rough wood floor and windows at one end. The entrance was along one of the longer walls and closer to the windows than to the “deep” end. My memory of it is that, like many of the lofts at that time, nothing had been painted. The walls, the floor, all had been left pretty much as they had been found, abandoned after decades of industrial use, just swept “clean” with a broom. 

In terms of who frequented Yoko’s loft, I saw some of the performers in that series, Jackson Mac Low, Henry Flint, of course Bob Morris. And La Monte. I know that Merce Cunningham came to one of my evenings, because someone told me that he had liked it. I don’t think any of the artists from the Reuben Gallery frequented that series. I may be wrong, but I think that the conceptual and the imagistic theater (happenings) folks didn’t follow each other’s work. In fact, when I had performed at the Reuben Gallery a few months earlier, Lucas Samaras complained to me that my work was not poetic.

[...]

JBW: Some of your Dance Constructions use the word “instruction.” Had you known of Yoko’s Instruction Paintings, which are also from this time period? 

SF: It’s possible that the “instructions” idea came to me from Yoko, through intermediaries, such as La Monte Young and Jackson Mac Low. But certainly the concept also came from John Cage, through Bob Dunn’s class. And I had probably worked with instructions with Anna Halprin, but I don’t remember if she used that term.

JBW: Did you ever see any of Yoko’s performances? 

SF: I did see Charlotte Mormon perform Yoko’s piece where the audience members are invited to cut pieces of her dress right off of her [“Cut Piece,” first performed by Ono in 1964]. I think Charlotte had already been fighting cancer for some time, and the performance was very moving.

JBW: Did you participate in the cutting, and did you save the scrap? 

SF: Yes, I cut a very small piece. I think it was red satin. I kept it for years in one of those little special containers we all have, but I’ve lost track of it.

JBW: Were you aware of Yoko’s 1961 “Voice Piece for Soprano, to Simone Morris,” in which she instructs us to scream “against the wind, against the wall, against the sky?” It is dedicated to you using your married full name. Do you have any idea why she might have specifically invoked you here?  

SF: I’m thrilled to learn, or relearn, that Yoko made that piece and dedicated it to me. I tend to forget really important things. Maybe she dedicated the screaming piece to me because of my piece “Censor” that I performed in my spring 1961 concert in her loft. In that performance, one person vigorously shook a pan full of nails while the other sang an Italian folk song as loud as she could. 

[...]

One memory I have is from around 1976, when I made a performance, Planet, at PS1. I remember sitting with Yoko on a ledge on the PS1 roof and talking together comfortably. It was restful. Decades later, in 2011, I received the Yoko Ono Lennon Award for Courage in the Arts. Yoko, of course, was at the reception, handing out the awards. I’m now 79. I think Yoko is one or two years older than me. Well, she was looking very sharp in her cap and high heels and her blouse that revealed her cleavage. Very quick on her feet and smiling.

Read the full text, here. 

Kristin Hersh

 My favourite singer/songwriter turns 60 today. 

Skateboards

Artists skateboards (some produced posthumously) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bill Burns, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, Keith Haring, Mike Kelley, Harmony Korine, Yayoi Kusama, Faith Ringold, and Christopher Wool. 

Hans Eijkelboom | Portraits & Cameras

Hans Eijkelboom

Portraits & Cameras

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Self Published, 2009

64 pp., 21 x 13.8 cm., softcover

Edition of 1000

Martin Parr - who selected this title as one of the more important photo books of the decade - wrote the following about the artist: "Anthropologists often make use of photography in their research, especially when gathering information about a society's strange and fascinating habits. If I were an anthropologist, the first photographer I would call upon is Eijkelboom.” 

Another book artist who employs serial photography, Erik Kessels calls Eijkelboom "one of the most remarkable people I have come to know during the last few years."

Eijkelboom's first exhibited work in 1971, when he was only 21 years old, in the landmark SONSBEEK 71 exhibition. He was the youngest artist in a show that included Vito Acconci, Stanley Brouwn, Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, Dan Graham, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Ed Ruscha, Fred Sandback, Richard Serra, Paul Sharits, Michael Snow, Joyce Wieland, Lawrence Weiner, and many others.

The Amsterdam-based artist has produced over thirty artist's books, many of them self-published. One of the best, and hardest to acquire is In de Krant, or Being in the Newspaper. For ten consecutive days Eijkelboom succeeded in having his picture appear in the same newspaper. He tracked a press photographer and snuck into the frame whenever possible, in photographs ranging from hard news such as accidents and demonstrations, to promotional pieces like store openings. It's a durational performance documented unwittingly by the press.

For With My Family, in 1973, Eijkelboom rang random doorbells during the day when husbands and fathers were likely to be out at work. He convinced the women answering the door to let him in and pose for a family portrait, with him in the place of the missing father, often with a toddler bouncing happily on his knee.

A more recent project, 10 Euro Outfits, consists of self-portraits while travelling. For each, Eijkelboom photographs himself wearing outfits he bought locally, never spending more than ten euros.

In Portraits & Cameras photography itself (the camera, representation, etc.) becomes the subject matter. Eijkelboom was sixty years old at the time, and the sixty pages of the book reproduce an image of the artist at every year of his life. These cropped portraits are coupled with a a magazine ad featuring a camera introduced in that same year. The artist ages as the technology advances. Like most of his work, the book is smart, compelling and funny.

Jenny Holzer | Money creates Taste

Jenny Holzer

Money creates Taste

New York City, USA: Self-published, 2004

 7.5 x 7.5 x 7.5 cm.

Edition of 90 signed and numbered copies

A glass sphere engraved with Holzer’s Truism “Money Creates Taste” as a desktop paperweight, accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.