Thursday, February 27, 2020

Maurizio Nannucci | Boite a Poesie






Maurizio Nannucci
Boite a Poesie
Braunschweig, Germany: Kunstverein Braunschweig, 1980
31 x 22.5 x 3.3 cm.
Edition of 30 numbered copies

Various objects (many previously available separately) housed in a cardboard box, including a 7" record, five postcards, a wooden stamp, two mounted photographs, a small globe, several rolled text sheets, printed transparency film, etc. etc.



Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Artists4Bernie



As of today, more than 2500 artists, curators, critics,  musicians, writers, and arts professionals have formally endorsed Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders for president of the United States. Among them: Hito Steyerl, Jeff Koons, Damián Ortega, Kader Attia, Kara Walker, Kim Gordon, Martha Rosler, Nan Goldin, Anicka Y, Nicole Eisenman, Karen Azoulay, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Steve Reinke, Ryan McGinley, Parker Ito and Moyra Davey.

In addition to visual artists, the letter was signed by actress Chloë Sevigny, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and musicians Devendra Banhart, M.I.A, Kim Gordon, and Michael Stipe.

The letter quotes Sanders commitment to the arts: "You have my promise that as president, I will be an arts president. I will continue to advocate strongly for robust funding of the arts in our cities, schools and public spaces. Art is speech. Art is what life is about."Conversely, each of Trump's annual budgets have declared the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities as 'wasteful and unnecessary funding'.

The Artists4Bernie campaign was launched by DIS, Mohammed Salemy, and Jennifer Teets. See the signatures at the website, here:

https://artists4bernie.org

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Takako Saito | Water's Journey





Takako Saito
Water's Journey
Dusseldorf, Germany: Noodle Edition, 1981
31 x 22 x 0.6 cm.
Edition of 14 signed and numbered copies


Monday, February 24, 2020

Richard Hamilton | Collected Words/Nine Studies










Richard Hamilton
Collected Words/Nine Studies
London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1982
23.5 × 20.5 × 2.8 cm.
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

An artist's book and a portfolio of eight collotype and screen-prints (one with collage additions, one with ink additions) and a screen-print with aerosol spray.

Hamilton was born on this day in 1922. He died in 2011.

Friday, February 21, 2020

Jan Henderikse | Broadway

















Jan Henderikse
Broadway
Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Bebert Edition, 1983
83 pp., 4 1/4 x 14″, accordion-fold
Edition of 200, 100 of which were signed

An artist'’s book documenting Broadway Street in 249 images laid out horizontally, three to a page, which are presented end-to-end so that the book becomes an uninterrupted continuum tracing New York City’'s oldest north-south thoroughfare from its Southernmost point at The Battery to the Spuyten Duyvil.

Unfolded the book is 98 feet long.


Thursday, February 20, 2020

Adrian Piper | Funk Lessons




Adrian Piper
Funk Lessons Direct Mail Advertisement
New York City, USA: Self-published, 1983
gold leaf on letterpress card
22.2 x 14.6 cm
Edition size unknown


Monday, February 17, 2020

Wim Delvoye | SeXrays










Wim Delvoye
SeXrays
Luxembourg: Beaumont Public, 2002
[94] pp., 30.5 x 23 cm., spiral-bound
Edition of 220

Published to accompany an exhibition of the same name, this title features twenty-five X-ray images of sex acts on acetate sheets from aluminum cibachromes, held together by spiral binding underneath a card cover book. With the help of a radiologist, the artist invited several friends to paint themselves with small amounts of barium and perform explicit sexual acts in medical X-ray clinics.


Sunday, February 16, 2020

Keith Haring







Keith Haring died on this day thirty years ago, at the age of 31.

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Willem de Ridder & Wouter Klootwijk | Good News






Willem de Ridder & Wouter Klootwijk
Good News
Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Bill Daley, 1968
[12] pp., 42 x 60 cm., folded newsprint
Edition size unknown

A collaboration between Dutch Fluxus artist Willem de Ridder and journalist Wouter Klootwijk, consisting almost entirely of black-and-white photographs, along with a few drawings and comics.


Friday, February 14, 2020

This Week on Tumblr: I Love

















In the mid-seventies in New York City crime was at an all-time high and tourism at an all-time low. The New York State Department for Economic Development tasked Madison Avenue ad firm Wells Rich Greene to develop a marketing campaign that would counter the negative coverage of riots, blackouts, muggings, fires, the Son of Sam killer, garbage strikes, a drug and crime epidemic, and neighbourhoods that had fallen into a state of disrepair.

The resulting 1977 campaign included the Steve Karmen song "I Love New York" as a commercial jingle and a now-ionic log by Milton Glaser (previously best known for a psychedelic poster of Bob Dylan). The logo was conceived in a taxi cab, with "I  ❤ NY" scribbled in crayon in a single line, which later changed to the present stacked letters (which Glaser later admitted might have been "subliminally" influenced by Robert Indiana's LOVE), and the serif typeface American Typewriter.

The campaign was truly a labour of love, with Karmen relinquished his publishing rights for the song, and Glaser also working pro bono. “You want to do things like that, where you feel you can actually change things,” he said in a recent interview in The Believer.

The campaign was launched forty-two years ago today, on Valentine's Day, with TV commercials featuring eighty Broadway actors, singers and dancers performing the "I Love New York" theme song. Originally intended as a five-week campaign, it continues to this day. 

Glaser's original concept sketch (above, top) and presentation boards are currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The New York State Empire State Development, New York’s chief economic development agency, holds the trademark to the “I Love New York” logo, and licenses its use. It's estimated that sales of merchandise such as mugs and t-shirts emblazoned with Glaser’s design generates more than $30 million a year. The state fights to uphold its trademark with over 3,000 objections against imitators so far, and an average of 100 trademark objections and cease-and-desist letters filed yearly.

The works above presumably fall under fair use. They are by Cary Leibowitz, David Shrigley, Mark Pawson, Sarah Nasby, Jeremy Deller, Claude Closky, Ross Sinclair, Adam Rolston and Ugo Rondinone (about Gertrude Stein, Andy Warhol, John Giorno, John Cage, Claude Closky, etc.)