Michael Dumontier | Sock

Michael Dumontier's Sock, which sold out in 12 hours a few weeks back, in situ in a few homes. I'll update this post when more images arrive.

Below, the original 8 (edition of 6 plus one artist and one publisher's proof) when they were first back from the foundry:

Robert Filliou | Frozen Exhibition

Robert Filliou
Frozen Exhibition
Remscheid, Germany: Edition VICE-Versand, 1972
20 x 32 cm
Felt-covered paper hat, 35 reproductions of photographs, and 7 facsimile press clippings.
Edition of 100 signed copies.

In 1962, inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Boite-en-valise, Filliou made a hat-shaped velvet envelope filled with photographs, documents and ephemera related to the Festival of Misfits from the year prior. He placed it in a plastic bag and put it in a freezer. Discovering it was destroyed, he remade the work a decade later with Vice-Versand.

Available from Artbase, here.

Roula Partheniou | Parts and Wholes

Roula Partheniou's Parts and Wholes opened at MKG127 on Saturday, and continues until April 20th. There are a few editioned pieces in the show, which I'll post later, as well as unique sculptural works that refer to books and records. The show continues her interest in the replica, here reduced to the Gestalt of objects, with a further blurring of painting and sculpture.

Click here to read Terence Dick's review at Akimbo. Calling the show "dope" he notes:

"To make matters more intriguing, the objects are gathered in clusters or "constellations", and now must be assessed not simply in relation to the ideas and objects they aren't, but also to the things they share wall space with. They become puzzles that, like the best brainteasers, generate complex conundrums from the simplest of elements."

Or visit www.roulapartheniou.com.

Andrea Fraser | May I Help You?

Harmony Korine Late Show ban

Last year I posted the transcript to one of Harmony Korine's visits to the David Letterman show (the first, and only that I'm aware of, time someone appeared on the program to promote an artists' book). It can be read here.

The filmmaker appeared on the show three times, all extremely entertaining, and then never again. There was a rumour that he was banned for life and that it involved Meryl Streep.

The other day James Franco (who stars in Korine's new 'crossover' film Spring Breakers) appeared on the Late Show and prodded the host to reveal the actual story. It turns out it involves Korine going through Streep's purse and being caught by Letterman.

The full interview can be watched here.

Yoshimasa Wada | Smoke Fluxkit

Yoshimasa Wada
Smoke Fluxkit
New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1968
9.3 x 12 x 2.5 cm
Edition size unknown

A clear-plastic hinged partitioned box with an offset label by George Maciunas, containing various substances that would produce either pleasant or unpleasant smelling smoke. The work was first offered  for $5 in 1968, a price that didn't change until 1976, when it was offered for $8.

The Reflux version, below, contains rubber, orange peel, woods, incenses and jute fiber.

Nancy Spero | Bookplate

Nancy Spero
Bookplate
New York City, USA: Printed Matter, Inc.. 1991
250 pp., 13 x 7.5 cm., boxed
Edition of 100,  signed and numbered copies

Produced as a fundraiser for Printed Matter more than two decades ago, these Ex Libris bookplates are printed on acid-free paper and come housed in an archival document box. The series also included Larry Clark, Jenny Holzer, Claes Oldenburg, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, Robert Gober and Faith Ringold. Some are now out of stock (Holzer, Clark), others are still available, but at increased prices (the Clemente is $500, the Oldenburg is $750 and Gober is $2000), and a few are still available at the original publication price of $175, including the Spero, Fischl and the Ringold.

Visit Printed Matter, here, to purchase.

Maurizio Nannucci | Let's talk about art

Maurizio Nannucci
Let's talk about art
Toronto, Canada: Shark Editions, 1999
15 x 10 x 6 cm. (boxed)
Embosser in grey archival box with silver lettering.
Edition of 50.

Janet Cardiff: The Walk Book

Janet Cardiff
Janet Cardiff: The Walk Book 
Cologne, Germany: Walther Konig, 2005
344 pp., 6.9 x 1.5 x 9.6", hardcover
Includes 35 track audio CD
Edition size unknown

Edited by Thyssen Bornemisza, this survey of Cardiff's walks (Paris, London, New York, etc.) includes a site-specific 'walk' through the book itself.

Rich Jacobs | Minor Threat Billboard

Liz Magor | Four Notable Bakers

Liz Magor
Four Notable Bakers
Toronto, Canada: Self-published, 1983
[42] pp., 18 x 23 cm., softcover
Edition Size Unknown

"Magor's artist's book juxtaposes images from professionnal baking manuals, with a variety of images which refer to the body and social practice, including hairstyles, tatoos and the wearing of uniforms."

Alfredo Jaar | September 15

Alfredo Jaar
September 15
2009
Digital ink jet print in clasp envelope
22.9 x 30.5 cm (envelope), 21.6 x 27.9 cm (print)
Edition of 21

"This envelope contains a photograph by Alfredo Jaar of Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery, London. The purchaser of this work agrees to view this image only once a year, on September 15, the anniversary of the day Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy in New York.”

Jaar will be representing Chile in this year's Venice Biennale.

Tristan Perich | 1-Bit Symphony

Tristan Perich
1-Bit Symphony
New York City, USA: Canteloupe Music, 2009
CD Jewel box and circuitry
Unlimited edition

An electronic composition in five movements, housed on a single microchip. The work utilizes the same format as Perich's heralded (and sold-out) 1-Bit Music, which was also released by the Bang on a Can label, Canteloupe (in 2006). A jewel box contains the hardware which creates the music "live" once turned on, and it is listened to through a headphone jack mounted into the case itself. The artist programmed the circuitry and the jewel boxes are hand assembled.

The title is currently out of stock, but is available as pre-order (for the second run, presumably) for $29.00. Also available as a downloadable MP3 (for $10), here. A signed and numbered edition of 50, accompanied by a silkscreen of the schematic, is no longer available.

"I wanted to revisit the idea that an album of music could be more than just a recording, more than just an audio CD. That when you listen to an album, you could actually be experiencing -first hand- the production of the music itself."

- Tristan Perich

A video of the work can be viewed here.

Daniel Buren designs for Art Metropole

(Daniel Buren)
Art Metropole Retail Catalogue 10
Toronto, Canada: Art Metropole, 1983
48 pp., 26.8 x 19.6 x cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

The tenth Art Metropole retail catalogue featured a cover design by Daniel Buren who also designed packing labels and stationary for the artist run centre in 1982. Museums by Artists, by Peggy Gale and AA Bronson, (not pictured) also featured a similar Buren design.

Photo: The National Gallery of Canada

Carolee Schneemann | ABC - We Print Anything - In The Cards

Carolee Schneemann
ABC - We Print Anything - In The Cards 
Beuningen, Holland: Brummense Uitgeverij Van Luxe Werkjes, 1977
158 pp., [loose leaves], 112 x 30.5 x 5 cm., boxed
Edition of 151

A handmade blue cloth box, gold-stamped and tied with a ribbon. It contains 158 cards, which function both as an unstructured narrative bookwork, and as a performance score. The cards are colour-coded: the pink index cards contain comments and advice by friends; the yellow are diary and dream extracts; and the blue cards contain comments by A (Anthony, the artist's soon-to-be ex), B (the artist's new lover, Bruce) and C (the artist herself). The choice of format was intended to encourage an open-ended reading of the piece, in no particular order.

The accompanying imagery features domestic items (a kitchen sink, a wall clock, pets, a pair of shoes), nude photographs of the artist, and photographs of primitive sculpture, typically eroticized ("a monstrous male figure penetrating a female figure who stretches back over a rock" and "a female sculptural figure reaching behind her to the huge erect penis of a male figure", etc.).

The work was first performed at Franklin Furnace in New York, in November of 1976. The following year Schneemann presented the work in both Holland and Amsterdam. After this the artist became "dissatisfied with the static nature of the reading", preferring the random shuffled structure of the boxed work.

"Every dilemma of our life is in there, every contradiction. It was a wonderful piece to be able to create, because it came out of such chaos. My partner was leaving me and strange enough it seemed like I was falling in love with someone else. It was so confusing. So when people would talk on the phone they would give me advice…I would write that down and drop it in the drawer…Finally I looked in this drawer and I had all these notes piled up and thought maybe I could do something with this."

- Carolee Schneemann, 2001

Per Kirkeby | Fluxus Finger Sweater

Per Kirkeby
Fluxus Finger Sweater
New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1969
12 x 9.3 x 1.3 cm
Edition size unknown

A white plastic box with a George Maciunas label, containing a hand knitted or crocheted thimble-sized 'sweater'. Originally offered for $2 in the spring of '67, the price was raised to $3 in '68 and advertised again at the price the following year. After that the work was no longer advertised in Fluxus newsletters or pricelists.

Hi Red Center | Canned Mystery

Hi Red Center
Canned Mystery
New York City, USA: Fluxus: 1964
5.6 x 5 x 5 cm
Sealed metal can with label, containing unknown contents

The short-lived (1963-1964) Japanese group Hi Red Center group consisted, primarily, of Genpei Akasegawa (also known as Katsuhiko Akasegawa), Natsuyuki Nakanishi and Jiro Takamatsu. Canned Mystery consisted of metal cans of various size, labelled with the group's exclamation mark insignia.

Maurizio Cattelan

C Magazine review of One For Me and One To Share

The following review of One for Me and One to Share: Artists Multiples and Editions, written by David Senior, appears in the current issue of C Magazine (117, Spring 2013), on newsstands now (with a cover graphic by Kristiina Lahde).