David Shrigley | It's OK

David Shrigley
It's OK
Berlin, Germany: BQ, 2016
80 pp., 21 x 14 cm, paperback
Edition of 500


Available from Ti Pi Tin, for £14.00, here.

Uncovering Artists' Books

This Sunday is the opening reception and curator's tour of Geraldine Davis' Uncovering Artists' Books at the Grimsby Public Art Gallery. The exhibition opened on last Saturday (March 26th), and continues until May 15th. The reception, on Sunday, April 3rd, runs from 2 to 4pm.

Bob Watts Clothing

Feather Dress, Portrait Dress, Female Underpants, Male Underpants, etc.

Bruno Munari | Struttura Continua

Bruno Munari
Struttura Continua
Milan, Italy: Danese, 1961
4.5 x 14.8 x 14.9 cm
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

Ten identical elements (in nickel silver, and measuring 5 x 5 x 5 cm) are stored in a wooden block and can be arranged in a variety of different ways, using the block as a stand.

Paul Sharits | Death

Paul Sharits
Death
Bloomington, USA: Indiana University, 1965
12 pp., 10.1 x 18.5 x 0.7 cm., spiral bound
Edition size unknown

A letterpressed book whose sole content appears to be the word death, surrounded by two hearts.

Mike Kelley | Untitled (Bowling Ball, Bag, Shirt and Catalog)

Mike Kelley
Untitled (Bowling Ball, Bag, Shirt and Catalog)
Los Angeles, USA: A.R.T. Press, 1991
Dimensions vary
Edition of 50

With an estimated value of between $8000 and $12000 US, this edition includes a customized bowling shirt, a bowling ball (manufactured for Kelley without holes), carrier bag and the catalog Mike Kelley by William S. Bartman and Miyoshi Barosh. The ball features Kelley's engraved signature and edition number.

Garry Shandling, RIP

While a tenuous book connection could be made (Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host, a meta-heavy follow up to The Larry Sanders Show) I think the best tribute to Garry Shandling - who died of a heart attack yesterday -  is this clip of Bill Haverchuck from Freaks and Geeks. In an episode where he endures some of his worst humiliations (his gym teacher dating his mother) he is shown at his most-comfortable-in-his-own-skin - while watching Garry Shandling host The Tonight Show, and laughing uncontrollably. Judd Apatow got his break working with Shandling, so this scene is presumably the acknowledgement of that. It is one of my favourite dialogue-free moments of television.

When Rolling Stone asked Apatow yesterday for a comment, his said "Garry would see the ridiculousness of me being asked to sum up his life five minutes after being told of his passing.  It is a perfect, ridiculous Larry Sanders moment. I can imagine how Hank would handle it, but I just don't know how to sum up someone I loved so much who taught me everything I know and was always so kind to me.  I am just too sad.  Maybe tomorrow I will do better."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmCpmEQD0L4

Eleanor King | Glenfiddich Artist in Residence

On Tuesday night, at an event at the Spoke Club in Toronto, the winner of this year’s Glenfiddich Artists in Residence was announced. Eleanor King, originally based in Halifax but now living in New York, was awarded the prize, valued at $20,000 Canadian at a ceremony hosted by the program’s curator, Andy Fairgrieve.

King has participated in residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, SOMA Mexico, and The Banff Centre in Alberta, among others. Her work has been exhibited across the country, and she was a national finalist for the Sobey Art Award in 2012. She is represented by Diaz Contemporary in Toronto.

2016 marks the 15th year of the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence program, and the 12th that a Canadian artist has participated. This summer Eleanor will join artists from India, China, Australia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

Chosen from over 100 submissions, King’s proposal involves living for three months at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Northern Scotland as though it were the turn of the century. She will disconnect from any technology and information unavailable before 1900. The clothes that she wears, the food that she eats, the books that she reads, will all have been accessible to a woman living over a hundred years ago. King said that the date was not chosen arbitrarily, but that it would allow her to drink 12-year old Scotch at the Distillery, which was founded in 1886.

King spoke about admiring "the ridiculous and unreasonable" nature of Jon Sasaki’s proposal from last year, in which the artist attempted to build and fly an airplane at the site, using only a 1983 copy of Popular Mechanics as his guide. She also stressed that her work is not about nostalgia, or the suggestion that life was better in 1990 (“it almost certainly wasn’t”), but as a way to examine sustainable futures.

"My work takes many forms, and I often try to provide new ways of connecting with the present moment,” she said, “with this project I hope to create an extraordinarily local lifestyle that highlights the historical skills, traditions, materials, and foods, and ultimately gain an understanding of how time becomes "the crucial ingredient" for the cultivation of great works of art and great whiskey alike."

King’s project will ultimately take the form of an artist’s book, documenting her time at the distillery. This will mark the first time one of the participants in the Glenffidich program produced a bookwork as their primary project.

The Glenfiddich AiR Prize has sponsored more than 100 artists since its inception since 2002. Canadian artists include Eleanor King (2015) Jon Sasaki (2015), artistic duo, Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky (2014), Daniel Barrow (2013), Jillian Mcdonald (2012), Helen Cho (2011), Damian Moppett (2010), Arabella Campbell (2009), Jonathon Kaiser (2007), Annie Pootoogook (2006) and Myfanwy Macleod (2005). For more information, visit: www.glenfiddich.com

Sophie Calle | Double Game

Sophie Calle
Double Game
London, UK: Violette Editions, 2007
296 pp., 7.8 x 5.8 x 1.1", hardcover
Edition size unknown


Originally published in 1999, Double Game was the first major publication in English by Calle, a hybrid monograph and artist's book. Julie Martin, writing for the New York Times Book Review, said "Double Game is a wonderful artist's book. Calle's texts are riveting, and they are enriched and amplified by accompanying photos. The photographs also pull us into the game." The title also received glowing reviews in Time Out, Artforum and the Daily Telegraph.

This slightly altered version was published in  2007, to coincide with the 52nd Venice Biennale, where Calle represented France. The book takes the form of a 'double game', between the work of Sophie Calle and the fiction of Paul Auster.

Paul Auster's seventh novel, Leviathan (1992) features a character named Maria - a photographer who follows strangers to take their picture. Many of the Maria's projects are based on the work of Calle and several others could be thought to be 'in the style of' Calle's work. In Double Game, the artist remakes these fictional artworks as her own.

James Riddle E.S.P.

James Riddle
E.S.P.
New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1967
9 x 5.5 cm.
Edition size unknown

“DOP Instructions/Blindfold yourself securely and rub your fingers lightly over the colored papers. With practice you can learn to distinguish between the colors.”

This work was released as at least four different Fluxkits (with minor differences between them) and
was issued in some Fluxkits and most copies of Flux Year Box 2. This envelope only version is from the Fondazione Bonotto collection.

The Fluxkit version can be seen in an earlier post, here.