Miranda Maher | After Reasonable Research

Miranda Maher
After Reasonable Research
Brooklyn, USA: Horse in a Storm Press, 1999
1 pp [accordion-fold], 8 1/2 x 4" [folded] 8 1/2 x 96" [unfolded]
Edition of 150

Housed in a cardboard sleeve, this accordion-fold bookwork lists (in a minuscule font) every year between 1 and 1999, along with every known war or battle that took place in them. "Years with no acts of 'open and declared armed hostile conflict' are indicated with a perpendicular line ... perhaps they were periods of peace." (there is only one).

The first edition is available here for £ 93.25, and the third, expanded edition here for $45.00 US.

Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane | Defile

Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane
Defile 
Toronto/Calgary, Canada: Art Metropole/Mercer Union/New Gallery, 2004
[unpaginated], 28 x 20.5 cm., staple-bound
Special edition of 25 signed and numbered copies


The second and final issue of Defile magazine, a short-lived glossy magazine riffing on Art Metropole's history with General Idea's FILE megazine. The premise of the periodical was to turn over the format to a different artist each issue, and let them do whatever they wanted with it. For the pilot issue Ron Terada exchanged ads with dozens of other art magazines, creating a closed circuit loop. The third issue, which never materialized, was have been a project by the late Will Munro.

This issue features the first published excerpt from British artists Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane's ongoing Folk Archive project. The pages alternate between full-bleed colour photographs of sound system speaker stacks from Notting Hill Carnival in 2003, and flower arrangements at the Tate Britain, treating both as sculptural works.

"Folk Archive is an attempt to re examine the notion of folk or popular art (most usually considered historically) by looking at this production from now on. Starting from folk art's broadest possible definition and in the light of developments in contemporary art, social diversity and technology, Folk Archive aims to point toward an enormous amount of energetic aand often overlooked creativity from the UK and Ireland."

- Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane

Available from Art Metropole for the original published price of $25.00, here.

Jeff Koons | Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Paddle Ball Game

Jeff Koons
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Paddle Ball Game
Berlin, Germany: Deutsche Guggenheim, 2000
Thermoprint on birchwood, with painted metal and string
31.7 x 20.2 x 6.5 cm.
Edition of 900

Paul + Wendy Projects at McGill Library

For more information, visit the gallery site, here, and the publisher site, here.

LA ART BOOK FAIR 2014

Jeremy Deller
I'd Rather Be Reading
New York City, USA: Printed Matter, 2014
Screenprint on plexi [no size given]
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies (50 yellow, 50 pink).
$200.00 US

Printed Matter's second annual LA Art Book Fair opens tomorrow night, January 30th, from 6 to 9pm, and runs until Sunday February 2nd.

A companion to the New York Art Book fair, the free event is held at the The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, at 152 N Central Ave.

Preview and reception: Thursday, January 30, 6–9 pm
Friday, January 31, 11 am–5 pm
Saturday, February 1, 11 am–6 pm
Sunday, February 2, 11 am–6 pm

A full calendar of events is posted online at laartbookfair.net

Printed Matter is also presenting four new editions to benefit the Fair, including the above work by Jeremy Deller, a four-color screenprint with unique collage elements by Laura Owens, a regular and deluxe edition skateboard deck by Patrick Lee, and a Paris Hilton-scented air freshener by Parra.

Nam June Paik | Liberation Sonata for Fish

Nam June Paik

Liberation Sonata for Fish

[n.p.]: Self-published, [1969]

18 × 32.5 × 2.5 cm

Edition size unknown

Distributed free to attendees at Charlotte Moorman's 7th Annual NY Festival of Avant-Garde, Wards Island, New York, in 1969. 

Available for $1,250.00, here. 

Jill Johnston in the Village Voice, 1969

Bruno Munari | Le Forchette di Munari

Bruno Munari
Le Forchette di Munari 
Mantua, Italy: Maurizio Corraini, 1996
[68] pp., 29 x 8 cm., softcover
Edition of 1000

The third edition of Munari's 1959 classic is available from Printed Matter, here.

Barbara Kruger turns 69 today

Robert Cumming | Picture Fictions

Robert Cumming
Picture Fictions
[np, nd] Self-published, 1971
32 pp., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

From the Banff Centre Library Archives, here. Available for sale, here, for £ 62.22

John Giorno | The Chinese Fortune Game

John Giorno
The Chinese Fortune Game
New York City, USA: Letter Edged in Black Press, 1968.
25.5 x 15.5 cm
Edition size unknown

Published as part of the SMS periodical, this Chinese Restaurant-themed card game by poet, artist and activist John Giorno is housed in a black portfolio case with slotted trays to hold three sets of game cards silkscreened in day-glo colors. The cards are accompanied by an instruction booklet in the form of a Chinese restaurant menu. Players are instructed to choose one card from Column A and two from Column B.

Available for $200 US from the New Museum Store, here.

Vanessa Maltese | Ornament Swatch

Vanessa Maltese

Ornament Swatch

Toronto, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2014

18.2 x 6 x 4 cm (closed), 1.8 x 4 x 55.5 cm (extended)

Edition of 15 signed and numbered copies

$550.00 CDN

We're very excited to launch our latest (& 13th) edition - a new handmade sculptural work by Vanessa Maltese.

Drawing on motifs that have cycled through her recent body of work, Maltese likens this hinged sculptural edition to “samples you might flip through if you were interested in ginger-breading the roof of your house or something. It’s reminiscent of a kids toy, which I am into, as it is a rather useless object at the end of the day."

The sculpture is accompanied by a signed and numbered postcard.

For more information, visit www.nothingelsepress.com. Follow us on Facebook here and Tumblr, here.

Visit Maltese's website at www.vanessamaltese.com.

Mary Kelly | Post-Partum Document

Mary Kelly
Post-Partum Document
London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983
244 pp., 2.4 x 19.2 x 23.9 cm., hardcover
Edition size unknown

Conceived as an installation in six consecutive sections, Kelly's Post-Partum Document is a six-year exploration of the mother-child relationship. When it was first exhibited in 1976 at the ICA in London, the work provoked tabloid outrage because of the inclusion of dirty diaper liners (see below). The diapers, or nappies, were encased in plastic, one for each day of her son's 4th to 6th month. Each was printed with the time and type of feedings, and the amount the child excreted.

Moving between the voices of the mother, child and analytic observer, the work presented six parts, each focusing on a formative moment in her son’s early life: his discovery of language, her own sense of loss, etc.

"Central for its theoretical breadth, textual complexity and thoroughness of analysis is Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document (1973-79). . . . Implicit in Kelly's remarkably contained analytic work is an argument for the social construction of subjectivity in a striking indictment of essential femininity."

-Kate Linker, "Parachute"

Jeff Koons turns 59 today

Let Us Keep Our Own Noon

An exhibition poster made for a 2012 show curated by David Horvitz at Galerie West in Den Haag, featuring the artists Fia Backström, Paul Branca, Daniel Gustav Cramer, Toril Johannessen, Emilie Halpern, Mishka Henner, David Horvitz, Zach Houston, Anna Lundh, Mylinh Nguyen, Rolu, John Sisley, Ed Steck, Penelope Umbrico, Matthew Vollgraff & Lucky Dragons.

The poster was designed by Nguyen, using a slogan found in a late 19th century pamphlet protesting the standardization of time. The verso illustrates a woman in San Francisco standing in front of a public sundial.

The piece is available for the price of shipping and printing (2 Euros), here and by emailing office@west-denhaag.nl.

Larry Clark turns 71 today

Douglas Huebler | Durata Duration

Douglas Huebler
Durata Duration
Torino, Italy : Sperone, 1970
[120] pp., 6.5 x 4.5 x 0.5", boards with dustjacket
Edition size unknown

"A fountain located in the Giardino of Sambuy, Italy, was documented by 61 photographs made according to 8 different systems in 'time'."

Available, here, for £ 112.99.

Kathy Acker | I dreamt I became a nymphomaniac! : imagining

Kathy Acker
I dreamt I became a nymphomaniac! : imagining 
San Francisco, USA: Empty Elevator Shaft Poetry Press, 1974.
34 pp. ; 22 cm., staplebound
Edition size unknown

This is the first part of Acker's second novel (and the first published without a pseudonym), released in 1974.  The title was followed by 5 others, in a similar format and with continuous pagination. The authorship varies. Volumes one and two are credited to Acker, the last three are unattributed or revisit the Black Tarantula pseudonym. The third is listed as being by composer Peter Gordon. Gordon and Acker were briefly married in 1976. He went to collaborate with Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Vega, David Johansen, The Flying Lizards, David Van Tieghem, Lawrence Weiner, and Arthur Russell.

The publisher also varies: the first volume is published by Empty Elevator Shaft Poetry Press; the remaining are self-published; the second by "Kathy Acker", and the final volumes by "The Black Tarantula." The title was later released as the complete work  (at 114 pages) by Travelers Digest Editions in 1980 (below). It's available from Amazon starting at $50.00, here.

The original Empty Elevator Shaft Poetry Press edition is $200.00, here.

A near complete set of the originals (lacking volume five) can be purchased for $850.00, here.

Glenfiddich Distillery Artist In Residence Program

Three of the best months of my life were spent in Northern Scotland in 2008, when I was artist-in-residence at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Dufftown. The program gathers together seven or eight artists from around the world (print-makers, painters, poets, photographers, filmmakers, sculptors, a chef once, I think) to spend the summer together. Other artists from Canada who have attended include Damian Moppett, Jillian McDonald, Helen Cho, and Sobey Art Award winners Daniel Barrow and Annie Pootoogook.

In the last three years or so the program moved to an open call application. The deadline is the end of this month, Friday the 31st, at midnight. 

Glenfiddich provides airfare, accommodation (in private cottages - one next to a six-hundred-year-old castle), a salary, and a not inconsiderable production budget. Three bottles of scotch awaited me on the kitchen table when I arrived, and the fridge was stocked with 'Canadian cheese'.

I can't speak highly enough about this program and the director Andy Fairgrieve (who also plays drums in a 'scrap metal'/punk band). Scottish hospitality and free flowing whisky is a winning combination. My gratitude for the time I spent there means that I will forever say yes to anything they ask of me, so I am currently serving as a juror for this summer's applicants. 

If you're thinking of applying (and a Canadian resident), information is available here. A blog/diary of my time spent there is here. A mini-site for the project I made there - a 100-year-old whisky titled A Drink To Us [When We're Both Dead] - can be viewed here:

http://davedyment.com/100.html