John Baldessari | Four Events and Reactions

John Baldessari
Four Events and Reactions
Florence Italy/Paris, France: Centro Di/Galerie Sonnabend, 1975
[52] pp., 12.6 x17.8 cm, perfect bound wrappers

Published on the occasion of an exhibition held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (November 21st, 1975 - January 4th, 1976), this artist's book features black and white images of four "events" on the left hand side, and images of a woman's reactions to them on the right. The events are documented with 6 photographs each, and include putting a finger in milk, touching a cactus, extinguishing a cigarette and pushing a plate off a table.

Limited Unlimited

A review of my students Limited Unlimited multiples exhibition/retail operation in the Guelph University student newspaper. Visit their website, here.

Jenny Holzer | Survival Series pencils

Jenny Holzer
Survival Series
Buffalo, USA: Albright-Knox Gallery, 1991.
8 x 6"
12 unsharpened wooden pencils printed in metallic red foil, housed in a printed cardboard box.

Cranfield and Slade | 12 Sun Songs

Cranfield and Slade
12 Sun Songs
Zurich, Switzerland/Vancouver, Canada: Christoph Keller Editions for JRP|Ringier / Or Gallery, 2009
12 inch coloured vinyl album with gatefold and poster


A dozen cover songs about the sun, including Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles and the Velvet Underground's Who Loves the Sun? Laid out like a 70's concept album, the disk opens with sunrises and ends with sunsets. Cranfield and Slade are made up of visual artist Kathy Slade and artist/musician Brady Cranfield, alongisde Larissa Loyva, Johnny Payne and Chris Harris. Rodney Graham makes a guest appearance and the liner notes are written by poet and critic Peter Culley.

Bill Clarke on Artists' Postcards

Toronto collector and writer Bill Clarke, on Artists' Postcards, from the recent issue of Artnews. 

Sara MacKillop | Ex-Library Book

Sara MacKillop
Ex-Library Book
Copenhagen, Denmark: Pork Salad Press, 2012
80 pp., softcover
Edition of 500


For many book collectors an ex-library copy is unacceptable. The books are well worn from use, stamped, taped and often still have a card pocket glued to the front endpaper. The spines either show the library call number or the scar from its removal. Additionally, they are avoided by booksellers to dissuade theft from libraries. I was once given a hardcover copy of John Cage's Silence from a bookseller I visited often, because it was a library copy and she didn't feel comfortable offering it for sale.

MacKillop's new title, launched two weeks ago on the 14th, collects the remnants of books discarded or removed from libraries and presents them alongside diagrams and other library related imagery. The facebook page is here, and the book can be bought for € 16.00 from the publishers, here.

Sandy Plotnikoff | Blank Record

Sandy Plotnikoff
Blank Record
Toronto, Canada: Self-published, 2012
10" vinyl sticker with record sleeve and clear bag.
Edition of 12, signed and numbered copies

Available for $50, from Paul Petro Contemporary Art, here, or as a free downloadable EPS file from the artist's site, here.

Last weekend for The Small Utopia: Ars Multiplicata

Germano Celant's excellent exhibition of artists' multiples from 1900 to 1975 The Small Utopia: Ars Multiplicata closes this Sunday at the Prada Foundation in Venice. The catalogue is now available in North America. It can be found at Type Books in Toronto, and is available from amazon, here.

Hourglass Sand in the Vaseline

I've a solo exhibition opening on Saturday at MKG127, and continuing until December 22nd. There are no multiples, per se, in the show, though virtually all of the works are editioned, and there are books, records, video, etc.

Here's the PR blurb:

Hourglass Sand in the Vaseline, Dyment's third solo exhibition at MKG127, continues the artist's exploration of the language and idioms inherent to cinema and popular culture. Formal tropes such as the diptych, the duet, the recto-verso and the alternate-take are employed to investigate black-outs, gaps, and other temporal ellipses.

All of the works are from 2012, but some were started several years ago, with the help of RP, Scott Rogers, Lee Henderson, Matt Varey and Laura Simon. Thanks to JF, JS, and MK for installing the show.

In the project space in the front room is a great new work by Gwen MacGregor called A Googled History of Domestic Furnishings.

Contemporary Art Society’s 2012 Award

Visual artist and co-founder of vvork.com, Oliver Laric has just been announced as the the winner of the Contemporary Art Society’s 2012 Award. The Vienna-born artist will receive almost $100,000 from the Sfumato Foundation, and will be commissioned by the Collection and Usher Gallery in Lincoln, England, to create a new work that will be added to the museum’s permanent collection.

Laric proposed 3D scanning all the works in the collection and making the results available to the public. “ I am very curious to see how the data will spread and I can’t wait to start scanning,” said Laric.


Visit the artist's site, here.

Joe Scanlan | DIY

Joe Scanlan 

DIY, or How To Kill Yourself Anywhere in the World for Under $399 

Ghent, Belgium: Imschoot Uitgevers, 2002

112 pp., 21 x 15 cm., softcover 

Edition of 1000, special signed and numbered edition of 30. 

Produced in the style of an IKEA instruction manual (with minimal text and mechanical drawings), Scanlan's title provides the reader with all the information required to produce a functional coffin from existing Ikea furniture. 

The book also features a cameo by AnnLee, a Japanese manga character that artist Pierre Huyghe purchased and 'liberated'.

Arnaud Maggs, RIP

From Susan Hobbs, his gallerist and friend:


"We deeply regret to inform you that Arnaud Maggs died peacefully on the evening of November 17th at Kensington Hospice. A gentleman, a friend, an artist, a lover of all life had to offer.

Surviving him are his wife, Spring Hurlbut; two sons Lorenzo and Toby and daughter Caitlan; their mother Margaret Frew; numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren; his sister Heather Cook and brother Derek M
aggs.

Private family service. A public memorial will be held at Hart House in the near future. Details, including memorial donations, to follow.
Condolences sent to the gallery will be forwarded to the family.

“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.” Nabokov"


Other obituaries and accounts can be found at the Toronto Star, here and at Blouin Artinfo, here.

Wolf Vostell | Buch mit elektronischer Tasse

Wolf Vostell
Buch mit elektronischer Tasse
Berlin, Germany: René Block, 1969
12 x 26 x 32 cm.
Wooden box with printed plexiglass cover containing an acoustic "noise sensitive" metal cup and paperback book: Sidney Simon “Vostell’s action-picture-language” (450 pages, 400 illustrations. 30 x 24 x 12 cm.)
Edition of 30 signed and numbered copies.

Book With Electronic Cup (the rough English translation of the title) is the 17th Edition published by the influential dealer, curator and publisher René Block, one of seven multiples he published by Vostell. The title is extremely rare, though apparently the collections of both Ryerson and NSCAD have copies. 

A copy in good condition is available from Raphael Levy, here, and the book alone is in stock at Specific Object, here.  

David Winfield | Like Watering the Ocean

David Winfield
Like Watering the Ocean
Guelph, Canada: Self-published, 2012
120 pp., 15.2 x 22.9 cm., softcover
Unlimited edition

In the 1898 novella Futility by Morgan Robertson, an "unsinkable" ocean liner sinks in the North Atlantic, after striking an iceberg. A shortage of lifeboats causes more than half of the ship's 2500 passengers to drown. The ship was named the Titan.

Winfield's first artists' book culls information from newspapers, microfiche, and online sources regarding this possible prophecy of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Available for $35 from www.limitedunlimited.ca

Juliane Foronda | Between the Future and the Past

Juliane Foronda
Between the Future and the Past
Guelph, Canada: Self-published, 2012
11 x 3"
Edition of 20, unsigned and unnumbered copies

An hourglass made opaque preventing the watching of passing time, but allowing the viewer to feel it's shifting weight.

Available for $30 at www.limitedunlimited.ca

Limited Unlimited

Limited Unlimited launched Monday with a 'grand opening' and continues until November 16th, in Zavitz Gallery, Guelph. The website had a few glitches in its early days, so if you placed an order and haven't heard back, please try again or contact me at ddyment@rogers.com.

www.limitedunlimited.ca

The site will remain active for two years, though I suspect many of the works will be long gone by then, as sales have been brisk so far.

Kris Martin | Mandi

Kris Martin
Mandi II
2002
33 x 24 x 13.3 cm
Altered Solari flap clock.
Edition of 5 signed copies.



Kris Martin

Mandi lll
2003
160 x 454 x 20 cm
Altered airport information board.