Ben Vautier | Terrain Vague

Robert Filliou | Je Meurs Trop

Robert Filliou
Je Meurs Trop
Brussels, Belgium: Lebeer Hossmann Éditeurs, , 1977
23.3 x 11 x 3 cm
Edition of 50 signed and numbered copies

A brown fireproof brick with a white label attached and a grey/green label with white print. The numbers 22,11,30 are etched in the brick. The text, including a quote from playwright Antonin Artaud, is in French.

Translatio

Emily Jacir, John Lansdowne and Christopher MacEvitt
Translatio
Rome, Italy: NERO, 2016
116 pp., 10 x 17 cm., softcover
Edition of 500

"Translatio is a collaborative publication by Emily Jacir, John Lansdowne and Christopher MacEvitt, proceeding from artist Emily Jacir’s Via Crucis, the newly-completed permanent installation commissioned by artache at the church of San Raffaele in Milan. Uniting the artist with two scholars of the Medieval Mediterranean, John Lansdowne and Christopher MacEvitt, the book illustrates the movement of objects, images, people and places between Palestine and Italy.

The publication is released as part of the itinerant and performative exhibition Cinque Mostre 2016 – Across the Board: Parts of a Whole at American Academy in Rome, curated by Ilaria Gianni. Incorporating works by artists, scholarly research, architectural studies, musical compositions, literary texts – the exhibition provides a setting for an evolving narrative that  moves both physically and allegorically through various sites. These different locations disclose a cosmos of tales investigating marginality, authenticity, language, fragmentation, translation and transformation. Elaborating on historical facts, objects, landscapes, political representation, fictions and the construction of signs and symbols, the individual parts contribute to the development of a complex and multiform system questioning the potential of abstraction and its impact on reality."

- NERO press release

John Hiltunen

John Hiltunen
John Hiltunen
New York City, USA: Books For All Press, 2016
96 pp., 8.875 x 8.25", softcover
Edition of 500

Carolyn Schoerner founded Books For All Press (BFA), a not-for-profit organization working with artists with developmental disabilities, after working at Printed Matter and White Columns. Matthew Higgs, her colleague at the latter, introduced her to Creative Growth in Oakland, California, which he has called "without reservation the most important cultural organization I have ever encountered.”

The Creative Growth Art Center is the oldest and largest art center in the world for people with developmental disabilities. Sturgis, Kentucky artist John Hiltunen has been attending Creative Growth for almost fifteen years. He initially made textiles, ceramics, and woodwork, but after participating in Paul Butler’s Collage Party in 2007, collage became a "consistent artistic pursuit."

This is his first artist book, and it continues his interest in combining animals from natural history magazines with outfits from fashion mags.

John Hiltunen can be purchased from the publisher for $30.00 US here, or from Creative Growth, here. The latter also stocks a wallet by Hiltunen and a deck of playing cards.

Cut Up or Shut Up

[Jan Herman, editor]
Cut Up or Shut Up
Paris, France: Editions Agentzia, 1972
80 pp., 12 x 30 cm., soft cover
Edition size unknown


Edited by Jan Herman (editor of the Nova Broadcast Press and the later years of the Something Else Press) this collection features essays on culture, media, and the future of creativity by Herman, Jurgen Ploog, and Carl Weissner with commentary by William S. Burroughs in the form of a ‘Tickertape’ which runs at the top of each page throughout the book. A dust jacket (not available on all issues?) by Wolf Vostell features a Décollage from the Tour de Vanves series from 1956.

A copy signed and dated by Jan Herman is available for $80.00, here, or signed by William Burroughs, here, for 175 GBP.

Five on Fiche

[Richard Truhlar, ed]
Five on Fiche
Toronto, Canada: Underwhich Editions, 1980
6 x 4 1/8"
Edition of 250

"the contributors are Michael Dean, Brian Dedora, John Riddell, Steven Smith & Truhlar. anyone with an old 'fiche reader stashed in their walk-in closet? excited by the low cost of production of a single microprint acetate rather than an 84pp book, Truhlar plotted a series of such anthologies (it was to've been followed by Langscapes, an anthology of concrete/visual poetry coëdited with Riddell) but the idea petered out in the face of sparse orders: if people were going to have to go to a library to read it, let the library order it (few did)."

- jw curry

Niki de Saint Phalle | Nana

Niki de Saint Phalle
Nana
New York City, USA: Marlo Plastics, 1968
109.98 x 100.08 cm.
Edition size unknown

The Closer Things Are

Shannon Anderson and Jay Wilson
The Closer Things Are
Waterloo/Sackville/Halifax/Lethbridge, Canada: UWAG, Owen's Art Gallery, Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, 2017
62 pp., 21.5 x 15 cm, softcover
Edition size unknown

Edited by Shannon Anderson and beautifully designed by Jay Wilson, this slim volume documents their co-curatorial project, which debuted in September at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery and travels to three other venues over the next year.

The exhibition features projects by Kathleen Hearn, Ève K. Tremblay, Laura Letinsky, Rhonda Weppler & Trevor Mahovsky, Luke Painter, Chris Kline, Roula Partheniou as well as Micah Lexier in collaboration with both Partheniou and myself (separately).

"The Closer Together Things Are explores the space between difference and similarity that arises from intense observation and consideration. It focuses on the proximity of time, heredity, frottage, palette, concept and presentation. Under close scrutiny, the most mundane objects and situations can compel us, drawing our full attention. The more we look, the more variations surface; differences arise from things that once seemed identical, and sameness arises from things that once seemed unrelated. This exploration of nearness guides how the artworks interact with one another through proximity, mirroring, repetition and reinterpretation. Strange bedfellows are made and unforeseen connections arise. The Closer Together Things Are takes stock of how little we need to see in order to feel like we’ve seen these things before, only this time more clearly."

- Press release

Yoko Ono | COLOR, FLY, SKY

Yoko Ono, Jon Hendricks
COLOR, FLY, SKY
Roskilde, Denmark: Museet for Samtidskunst, 1992.
[47] pp., 20.5 x 21 x 3 cm., boxed loose leaves
Edition size unknown

Edited by curator Jon Hendricks on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, this boxed work contains forty-five cardboard sheets and two pamphlets. These reproduce texts, scores and conceptual works by Ono, as well as photographic stills from her 1970 film Fly.

In 2011, the work sold at auction for €190.00, against an estimate of between €100.00 and €150.00.

Mike Nelson | Cloak

Mike Nelson
Cloak
Rome, Italy: Nero Publishing, 2016
168 pp., 17 x 22.5 cm., hardcover
Edition of 500

The deep blue colour Ultramarine is a pigment originally made by grinding the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli into a powder. It was the most expensive blue used by Renaissance painters, frequently employed for the robes of the Virgin Mary, in works by Masaccio, Pietro Perugino and others. Vermeer also made extensive use of ultramarine in his paintings, perhaps most notably in Girl with a Pearl Earring. 

Last year Mike Nelson painted every single room in the United Bank of Switzerland in Monaco using (presumably the newer synthetic) Ultramarine. The UBS building (2 Avenue de Grande Bretagne) was closed for renovation at the time, allowing Nelson access to all seven floors. Every detail was covered in the pigment that was once more valuable than gold.

Presented by the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, Nelson's project explored notions of economic value and luxury goods, both of which are closely associated with the city-state of Monaco.   The work also nods to Yves Klein (whose International Klein Blue is very close to ultramarine) and David Hammons' Concerto in Black and Blue (which used blue light to similar effect).

Visitors entered the immersive environment and were led through the rooms up to the sun-bleached rooftop terrace, where they were offered a respite from the hallucinogenic claustraphobic blue rooms, before being reimmersed for the trip back down.

Nero Publishing's elegant document of the project is printed with a custom offset plates separation (cyan+black+reflex blue) that beautifully translates the ultramarine blue used by Nelson in the installation. The only instances of non-blue in the book (which features an all-blue dust jacket) are presented as fold out pages.

Cloak is available from the publishers, here. It is also available in the UK at Amazon.co.uk and at Tender Books.