One For Me and One to Share, launches tomorrow

Excluding single artist monographs (such as books on Beuys, Brecht, Oldenburg, Fluxus, General Idea, Kippenberger, Lexier, Roth) I have about a half-dozen books on the subject of Artists’ Multiples. Most are now long out of print and/or hard to find. Often they consist primarily of listings of works. Or the subject is lumped in with artists’ prints, which outnumber them two to one. Frequently they are geographically specific. The last major title on the subject (the essential Artists' Multiples, 1935-2000 by Stephen Bury) is now a decade old.

So, hoping to correct this gap in the discourse, we compiled and commissioned two interviews and seven essays on the subject, alongside 36 full-page colour images:

Roula Partheniou interviews Cary Leibowitz (aka Candyass) an artist who has produced more multiples than almost any other (Beuys published more, but Leibowitz's are perhaps better integrated into the artists' larger practice). He is candid and witty.

I speak with Harry Ruhé, the Amsterdam-based curator, dealer and publisher who has dedicated his life to artists' editions. He is a wealth of knowledge and a simple question could lead to a twenty-minute answer, so all I had to do was get out of the way and let him talk. I also write about the influence of the surplus stores of Canal Street on Fluxus, and about Artists' Records.

Mark Clintberg contributes a text about the politics of the multiple, examining the suspended multiple (Kelly Mark, Mitch Robertson), the abducted multiple (Geoffrey Farmer, Felix Gonzales-Torres) and the performative multiple (Miranda July, Cary Leibowitz, Harrell Fletcher).

Nicolas Brown writes about multiples with, within and as magazines (Parkett, Arkitip, The Thing, etc.), and Jonathan Shaughnessy (of the National Gallery of Canada) writes about the multiple going mainstream, discussing the retail outlets from Art Metropole to the Gagosian Gallery Shop. The volume also features an English translation of Océan Delleaux’s “The Artists’ Multiple: A Contribution to the Debate on the Democratization of Art”, originally printed in the French journal Ars, in 2008.

Greg Elgstrand, who co-edited the book with me (and co-authors the intro and preface), writes about multiples in the context of economics, a theme that runs through the book, and is reflected in our choice of illustrations. These include works by John Baldessari, Fionna Banner, Joseph Beuys, BGL, Barbara Bloom, Maurizio Cattelan & Ali Subotnick & Massimiliano Gioni, Marcel Dzama, Fluxus (George Brecht, Ken Friedman, Alice Hutchins, George Maciunas, Yoko Ono, Paul Sharits, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier, etc.), FM3, General Idea, Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Martí Guixé, Jesse Harris, Jenny Holzer, Miranda July, Germaine Koh, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Cary Leibowitz, Micah Lexier, Piero Manzoni, Christian Marclay, Kelly Mark, Josephine Meckseper, N.E. Thing Co. LTD., Maurizio Nannucci, bpNichol, Claes Oldenburg, Mitch Robertson, Tom Sachs, David Shrigley, Lawrence Weiner, Ai Weiwei, and Rachel Whiteread.

Rounding out the 205 page volume is a 100-year chronology, a fairly extensive bibliography and full bibliographic listings of about 300 artists’ multiples.

One For Me and One to Share: Artists’ Multiples and Editions
Edited by Dave Dyment and Gregory Elgstrand
Published by YYZBOOKS
Designed by Martina Hawg


Book launch, tomorrow (Saturday the 26th) from
3pm to 6pm
Join us for drinks and sushi at
YYZ Artist Outlet
140-401 Richmond St. W, Toronto, Ontario

The price is $34.95 with a launch price of $30, which I’m sure YYZ will honour for same day web orders, too. Write to abarajas@yyzartistsoutlet.org.

The Facebook group is here:

www.facebook.com/events/315271021886425/