MoMA Curator Sarah Suzuki on How Dieter Roth Invented the Artist's Book

Wait, Later This Will Be Nothing: Editions by Dieter Roth at the MOMA closed last Monday. Click here to read the curator's essay on Roth's influence on artist book production.

Book Arts Newsletter #83

Issue #83 of Sarah Bodman's UK Book Arts Newsletter is now available to download as a PDF, here.

Micah Lexier | Not Far From The Tree Tote Bag

Our friend Laura Reinsborough founded a charitable organization a few years ago with a simple but brilliant mandate: if you have a tree on your property with a harvest too abundant for you to eat or pick, they'll send volunteers. The fruit picked are split three ways: a third to the owner, a third shared amongst the volunteers who picked it, and a third delivered (by bicycle, no less) to local food banks, shelters and community kitchens.

Called Not Far From the Tree, the organization facilitated the picking of 3000 pounds (from forty trees) in 2008. Last year they picked 12,512 pounds of fruit from 243 trees, with nearly a thousand volunteers. Over the years they've picked black walnuts, sweet cherries, sour cherries, mulberries, pawpaw, ginko, quince, serviceberries, apricots, plums, grapes, crabapples, elderberries, sumac, pears and apples.

They are currently in the middle of a crowd-sourcing fundraising campaign and for a gift of only $20 you get a tote bag designed by Micah Lexier. For details, click here.

For more information, visit the Not Far From the Tree website here.


Below: Micah Lexier, last night at the Royal Ontario Museum, receiving a plaque from Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Michael Chan, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Lexier and Iain Baxter& were the two visual artists shortlisted for the Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Jenny Holzer | Raise Boys and Girls the Same Way

Sarah Charlesworth, RIP

Artist and co-founder (with Joseph Kosuth) of the important conceptual periodical The Fox, Sarah Charlesworth died yesterday at the age of 66.

For more information, visit Art in America, here.

Seth Siegelaub mock-ups

Curator, dealer and proponent of conceptual art and artists' book Seth Siegelaub died last week in Basel. The MOMA has a selection of papers from his archive, including early mock-ups for some of his best known publications and projects, here.

Just Another Asshole #5

(Barbara Ess and Glenn Branca, eds)
Just Another Asshole #5
New York City, USA: Just Another Asshole, 1981
12" vinyl with a plain sleeve, stickered to indicate the track listings.
Edition of 1000

Produced with support from White Columns, this 77 track album features brief soundworks, none of which last longer than a minute, by 83 artists and musicians affiliated with the 'no wave' scene. The record was the 5th of 7 periodicals edited by Ess (the 2 above refers to Side 2 of the disk).

A CD was released in 1995 on Atavistic Records.

The track listing is as follows:

1. Eggs Benedictus - Larry Simon
2. Kojak/Wang - Dara Birnbaum
3. Untitled - Cara Liss
4. Excerpt From Times Sq. Show Audio - Bobby G.
5. Incantation - Wharton Tiers
6. True Confessions - Carol Parkinson
7. Untitled - Nina Canal
8. Shift - Lee Ranaldo
9. Untitled - Jenny Holzer
10. Sound Stroke - Annea Lockwood
11. The Smith-Leroy Comedy Team - Michael Smith/A. Leroy
12. Dinner Time - Chris Nelson
13. Untitled - Willie Klein
14. Simply Riding A Dream - Mitch Corber
15. Untitled - Mark Abbott
16. Untitled - Dan Graham
17. On The Promontory - Michael Shamberg
18. Radio Song - Anne Demarinis
19. The Fucking Youth Of Today - Thurston Moore
20. Red Ants - Andy Blinx/Don Hunerberg
21. Calvin Klein - Vikky Alexander
22. Dear John - John Howell
23. Untitled - Salvatore Principato
24. Penumbra - Nigel Rollings
25. Grand Central Station - Peggy Katz
26. Highway Patrol - Eric Bogosian
27. Happy Police Horn - Herr Lugus
28. Door Stop - Amy Taubin
29. Excerpt From The Machines - Remko Scha
30. Talking Art - Susan Russell
31. Untitled - Bill Buchen
32. Well, Alice - Verge Piersol
33. Tell The Story - David Hofstra/Lynne Tillman
34. K-4 - D. Brown
35. Dogs - Sandra Seymour
36. Index Circa Seventy - Phill Niblock
37. United Technology - Barbara Kruger
38. Fetish - John Rehberger
39. Turtles Travel Slower On Asphalt - Paul McMahon/Nancy Radloff
40. Dub Bums - Bruce Tovsky
41. Untitled - Martha Wilson
42. Excerpt From 'Slowly I Turn, Step By Step, Inch By Inch...' - Ned Sublette
43. Faspeedelaybop - Glenn Branca
44. You Will Start Out Standing - Gail Vachon
45. Deutschland Etude - B. Conan Piersol
46. A Natual Death - Gregory Sandow
47. Dirty Tape - Stephen Wischerth
48. Warhead In The Forehead - Bob George
49. It's True - Judy Rifka
50. Long Song - David Garland
51. 32 Bad Movies - Mark Bingham
52. Excerpt From 'Strangers In A Strange Land' - Michael Byron
53. It's Hot Love - Glenda Hydler/Susan Fisher
54. Untitled - Laurie Spiegel
55. Entrada - Barbara Ess
56. Untitled - Kiki Smith
57. Untitled - Shelley Hirsch
58. Foreign Waters - Peter Gordon
59. Watch Out-Verse 5 - Arleen Schloss
60. Sweden-Den Mother - Tod Jorgenson
61. Voices And Chambers - David Rosenbloom
62. Untitled - Doug Snyder
63. Floating Cinema Excerpt - Jon Rubin/Steve Stain
64. Untitled - Thomas Lawson
65. Pipe Music - Harry Spitz
66. Excerpt From '64 Short Stories' - Rhys Chatham/David Linton
67. Salutations Roma - Isa Genzken
68. New Sneakers - Daile Kaplan
69. Working Youth - Kim Gordon/Miranda
70. Untitled - Sally A. White
71. Crown Of Thorns - Joseph Nechvatal
72. Friend Heart Alarm - Steven Harvey
73. Radio Off - Sammy Marshall Harvey
74. Untitled - Brian Doherty
75. Evelyn McHale - Rudolph Grey
76. Die - Richard Morrison
77. Excerpt From 'Metal And Plastic' - Z'ev

Jenny Holzer | A Little Knowledge Can Go a Long Way

Jenny Holzer
A Little Knowledge Can Go a Long Way. Your Oldest Fears Are the Worst Ones.
New York City: USA, Self-published, 1978
[8 ] pp., 22 x 22 cm., staple bound
Edition size unknown

Art Metropole at the Basel Art Fair

Seth Siegelaub | March 1969

Seth Siegelaub (ed)
March 1969
New York City, USA: Self-published, 1973
31 pp., 21.5 x 18 cm., staplebound, card covers
Edition size unknown

Also known as One Month, this calendar-as-exhibition featured a different artist's work for each day of the month. Siegelaub invited 31 contemporary artists to contribute a "work", and those that replied are featured in the publication.

The calendar opens with the letter sent to the artists:


"Dear Mr. ___________________ ,

I am organizing an International Exhibition of the “work” of 31 artists during each of the 31 days in March 1969. The exhibition is titled “One Month.”....

You have been assigned March ___, 1969. 

Kindly return to me, as soon as possible, any relevant information regarding the nature of the "work" you intend to contribute to the exhibition on your day. 

Your reply should specify one of the following:
1) You want your name listed, with a description of your "work" and/or relevant information. 
2) You want your name listed, with no other information. 
3) You do not want your name listed at all. 

A list of the artists and their "work" will be published, and internationally distributed. (All replies become the property of the publisher.)

Kindly confine your replies to just verbal information. 

All replies must be received by February 15th. If You do not reply by that time, your name will not be listed at all. 

Thank you for your cooperation. 

Sincerely, 

SETH SIEGELAUB. 
21 January 1969


Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Robert Barry, Rick Bartheleme, N.E. Thing, James Lee Byars, John Chamberlain, Ron Cooper, Barry Flanagan, Alex Hay, Douglas Huebler, Robert Huot, Stephen Kaltenbach, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, Richard Long, Robert Morris, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Allen Ruppersberg, Robert Smithson, Dewain Valentine, Lawrence Weiner and Ian Wilson all contributed text works.

The no-replies (represented by blank pages) include Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt, Bruce Nauman and Ed Ruscha. Andre and Lewitt had previously participated in Siegelaub's important Xerox Book project.

Huebler sub-divided his day into 30 forty-six minute sections, divided amongst the participating artists. Robert Barry released helium into the air. Christine Kozlov (the only woman invited1), 24 years old at the time, condensed a 24 hour recording into a single looped hour. Dennis Oppenheim buried pages of a science fiction novel. Allen Ruppersberg proposed a walk in the desert, in a straight line. Claes Oldenburg's contribution was simply "Things Colored Red".




1. Ingrid Baxter was a part of the N.E.Thing Co. at the time, but only the name of her then-husband Iain appears. 

Seth Siegelaub, RIP

Curator, dealer and proponent of artists' publications, Seth Siegelaub died on Saturday in Basel, Switzerland at the age of 71.

Siegelaub is best known for championing the work of artists who would eventually go on to become the core members of what would come to be termed conceptual art: Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, Sol Lewitt, Robert Morris and Lawrence Weiner. He often presented their work in exhibitions that took the form of publications, such as the legendary Xerox Book (1968) and March 1969.

Happy Birthday John Baldessari

John Baldessari turns 82 today.

Billy Squier's Emotions in Motion, by Andy Warhol

"I realized that my record company was going to want to have my face on my album cover, but I didn't want it to be just me with a guitar," Billy Squier remarked recently, sounding somewhat humble, but Warhol paints a different picture of Squier's image at the time:

“Went to Madison Square Garden (cab $4) to see Billy Squier, he was just going on. Backstage there were about fifty nude girls serving hot dogs and beer and mud wrestling. Took pictures, then realized I didn’t have film in the camera.” - The Andy Warhol Diaries,  page 453.

Squier told the Boston Globe in 2005 "Andy was at the height of his popularity. So I called him up, and he said, "Sure." He asked me what colors I didn't like." Warhol took a series of polaroids and produced a couple of different silkscreens of the singer. Emotions in Motion was Squier's third album, released in July of 1982. The graphics were used as the LP cover and a picture disk 7", among other promotional items such as posters and buttons.

Squier wore (and famously tore open) an Emotions in Motion t-shirt in the music video that many consider the worst of all time. In Rock Me Tonite he tears off the shirt and replaces it with a pink tank top, and then continues to prance and preen. Squier credits the video with destroying his career.

The Warhol silk screen now hangs in his apartment.

Andy Warhol
Billy Squier 
screenprint in colors on museum board, presumably unique in this composition
60¼ x 40¼ in. (153 x 102.2 cm.)
Executed in 1982.
Estimated value: $12,000.00 - $18,000.00 US