Esmaa Mohamoud | Faith in the Seeds 1

Esmaa Mohamoud

Faith in the Seeds 1

Toronto, Canada: Self-published, 2020

21.6 × 30.5 × 22.9 cm

Edition of 12 [+ 1AP]

"The dandelion, though a wildflower, is commonly labelled as a weed to be eradicated at all costs, believed to ruin landscapes with its pervasiveness. Due to many qualities, including to its strong roots, the dandelion is one of the most resilient plants—thriving in many difficult conditions. One of the most magical aspects of the dandelion is its ability to spread its seeds through the air to grow and thrive in new places. This makes me think of the African diaspora and how we, as Black people, have had to spread our seeds and thrive and grow in new places. As such, this wildflower is here used to symbolize the ability to rise above life’s challenges. This work is dedicated to the resilience of the Black community and in particular, to those we’ve lost to police brutality. I want this installation to serve as a reminder of the resilience of Black people and as a beacon of hope for future generations.”

- Esmaa Mohamoud

Felix Gonzalez-Torres | Photostats

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Photostats

Siglio Press, 2020

88 pp., 8.25 x 6.5", hardcover

Edition size unknown

Released in November of last year, this volume is co-edited by Richard Kraft and Lisa Pearson, with writings by Mónica de la Torre and Ann Lauterbach.

Available from the publisher, here, for $36 US. 

Visit Siglio Press all weekend long at the Printed Matter Virtual Artist Book Fair. 

"Made at the height of the AIDS crisis, in a pre-internet era, the photostats—a series of fixed works with white serif text on black fields framed behind glass to create a reflective surface—are profoundly suggestive lists of political, cultural, and historical references. These works disrupt linear time, the seemingly causal relationships of chronology, and hierarchies of information as they ask how we receive and prioritize information, how we remember and forget, and how we continuously create new meaning. The photostats have a deep kinship with poetry in their use of specificity and ambiguity, operating as open fields: each juxtaposition and its oblique friction illuminates connections and disconnections.

The photostats also recall the screen—the television, and now the computer and phone—in which information is furiously delivered, and we are challenged to parse substance from surface, what we choose to assimilate from what we choose to reject. In the gallery, the glass surface of the framed photostats brings the viewer into an intimate relationship with the work as she may literally see herself in it—reflecting, too, her own assumptions. Now, as we find ourselves thirty years later, in a global pandemic, with a national reckoning in the face of enduring protests against police brutality and racial injustice, there is more to see of ourselves in the photostats and their uncanny multiplicity: layers of history with which we are only beginning to grapple as a society, grief in the wake of devastating loss, and the possibility of reinvention and regeneration.

Intended as discrete space to closely read the photostats with sustained attention, this elegant, clothbound volume opens from both sides: on one side, the framed photostats are reproduced as objects as one might encounter them in a gallery; on the other, white texts appear on full-bleed black fields to be read as writing. Its intimate size and its attention to the book as a physical object create a new way to experience the photostats.

In between the two sides, there are gorgeous and thought-provoking writings by poets Mónica de la Torre and Ann Lauterbach that do not explicate the work but instead enter it. Lauterbach penetrates the atmosphere of the photostats, contemplating mourning and memory while invoking Gonzalez-Torres’s spirit of generosity. De la Torre mines Gonzalez-Torres’s dates and references in her constraint-based essay, tracing time from past to present, while keenly attentive to the impossibility of linearity. Both demonstrate the richness of the work and its potential to inspire multiple readings."

- press release

 

Benjamin Critton | Evil People in Modernist Homes in Popular Films

Benjamin Critton

Evil People in Modernist Homes in Popular Films  

New Haven, USA: Draw Down Books, 2013

24 pp., 11.5 × 15 in., newsprint

Second Edition

An investigation into the representation of modernist architecture in popular film, reflecting on the convention of associating evil characters and events with modern buildings, and also, more generally, on the relation between cinema and architecture. A series of film stills, quotes and accompanying texts point to examples in The Damned Don't Cry (1950), Diamonds are Forever (1971), Blade Runner (1982), Body Double (1984), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998), and Twilight (2008). Designed by Critton, the publication includes essays by Steve Rose, Jon Yoder, and Joseph Rosa.

Available from the publisher, here, for $50.00. 

Visit DrawDown Books at the Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair this weekend. 

San Francisco Sex and Protest 1988-2003

 

Starting in one hour (2pm): 

Dark Room: online event with Phyllis Christopher, Michelle Tea & Laura Guy

"At the 2021 Printed Matter Virtual Book Fair, Book Works will present an online event to present Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Protest 1988-2003 – the first ever collection of Phyllis Christopher’s trailblazing photography of lesbian erotic life and political struggle. The event will stream live as part of the Classroom programme at Printed Matter on 25th February 2021 at 2pm EST (7pm GMT).

In 1988, at the age of 24, Phyllis Christopher was drawn to San Francisco with her camera to capture a thriving lesbian counterculture involving sex parties, kiss-ins, and street demonstrations. This program features an intimate conversation about lesbian sexuality and documentary on the occasion of Phyllis Christopher’s debut solo publication, Dark Room (Book Works, 2021). The conversation will include Christopher and acclaimed author Michelle Tea, moderated by Laura Guy, editor of Dark Room."

Lucy Lippard | I See / You Mean

Lucy Lippard

I See / You Mean

Los Angeles, USA: New Documents, 2021

224 pp., 13.75 x 21.5 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

Originally published in 1979 (see below) by Chrysalis Books, Lippard's experimental novel is about mirrors, maps, relationships, the ocean, elusive success and possible happiness. Through a collage of verbal photographs, overheard dialogue, sexual encounters, found material and self-identification devices (astrology, the I Ching, palmistry, Tarot), it chars from past to future the changing currents between two women and two man: a model/stockbroker/maybe dictator, a photographer, and an actor.

A new edition by New Documents is available for pre-order now, at the sale price of $24 US (from $30). Edited by Jeff Khonsary, the title is supplemented by a new afterword by Susana Torre. It ships in April of 2021. 

Visit New Documents this weekend at the Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair. 

Art Metropole Retail Catalogue #19

Garry Neill Kennedy

Art Metropole Retail Catalogue #19

Toronto, Canada: Art Metropole, 1997

64 pp., 27.5 x 21.5 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

Art Metropole's 19th retail catalogue, with a cover design by Garry Neill Kennedy featuring bosses admonishing employees, sourced from corporate conflict resolution manuals. The work was later made into a wallpaper edition published by the NSCAD press, titled Seizures. 

The work can be purchased from Jonathan Hill, Booksellers, here, for $125 US. Both Jonathan Hill and Art Metropole can be visited virtually this weekend, as part of the Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair. 

The Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair

PMVABF launches today at 4pm with countless participating vendors, including Art Metropole, backbonebooks, Book Works, Bywater Bros. Editions, Draw Down Books, Fillip, Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, NERO EDITIONS, New Documents, Nieves, Primary Information, RE/Search and Search & Destroy, RITE Editions, siglio, Slow Editions, Tenderbooks, Three Star Books, White Columns, Whitechapel Gallery and dozens and dozens of others. 

Watch for a live worldwide drawing event in honour of the late Jason Polan, and a performance by ambient musician Laraaji. 

An incomplete list of the many vendors participating this year: 

& Half Letter Press

3 Hole Press

8-Ball Community

A Magic Mountain

A Published Event

A.I.R. Gallery

a/b Books

Aarati Akkapeddi & Philipp Schmitt

Aaron Krach

ABC (Artists’ Books Cooperative)

After 8 Books

 aka Bunker Basement

AKIO NAGASAWA Gallery | Publishing

Alder & Frankia

Alicia's Klassic Kool Shoppe

Allied Productions, Inc./Le Petit Versailles

Almighty & Insane Books

Almine Rech Editions

Alternate Projects

AMBruno

André Frère Éditions

Andrew Miksys

Animal Press

Anteism Books x The Hole

Antenna's Press Street Press

Anthology Editions

Anthology Film Archives

Aperture

Arcana: Books on the Arts

Arcangel Surfware

Archive Books

Arquitectura y fantasía 

Art Metropole

Art Museum

Art Resources Transfer (A.R.T. Press)

ARTFORUM/BOOKFORUM

Arthur Fournier Fine & Rare

Artphilein Editions

Atelier Éditions

Autonomedia 

AVARIE

B&D Press

backbonebooks 

Bad Student Press

Bard Graduate Center Publications

BASEMENT

Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum

billy ocallaghan / 

Bitter

blisterZine

BLOW UP PRESS

BOA NOITE

BOM DIA BOA TARDE 

BOMB Magazine

Book Works

Books for All Press

Brain Washing from Phone Towers 

Bread and Puppet Press

Brian Cassidy Bookseller 

Brick Press

Bricks from the Kiln

Bronze Age

BULK SPACE

Bywater Bros. Editions

Caboose / The Smudge

Calipso Press

CAMP BOOKS

Candor Arts

Capricious 

Carlo Quispe

Carnage NYC

Caroline Paquita-Kern

Case Publishing

Cash Machine

CASSANDRA Press

Center for Book Arts

Centre d'édition 

Chimurenga 

Christina Martinelli

Christopher Branson

Clifton Meador

Clown Kisses Press

Co—Conspirator Press

Cody DeFranco

Cold Cube Press

COLLI independent art gallery

Colour Code

Coloured Publishing

Colpa Press

Connecticut

Contemporary Art Review 

Conveyor Editions

Corraini Edizioni

Cory Emma Siegler

Counterbound

cpress

crevasse

cripple

CRISIS EDITIONS + DANE PRESS

Dale Wittig

Danarti Zine

Dancing Foxes Press

Datz Press 

David Kordansky Gallery

David Zwirner Books

Deadbeat Club

DelMonico Books

Desapê

Dia Art Foundation

Diagonal Press

diasporan savant press

dispersed holdings

District of Columbia (D.C.)

Dizzy Magazine

dmp editions

Dobbin Books

Dongola Limited Editions

Draw Down Books

Dream Press

Drum Machine Editions

East of Borneo

ECU Press/Libby Leshgold Gallery

Ecuador

Ediciones El Fuerte

Edition Patrick Frey

Edition Taube

Edizione Multicolore

EFA Robert Blackburn 

EMBAJADA 

Endless Editions

EXILE Books

EYE IN VISION

F Magazine

Façadomy

Fair Enough (Boabooks, edition fink, 

Farside Collective

FAW

Feixue Mei

Felicita Felli Maynard

Fillip

Florida

Floss Editions

Flower Press

FotoEvidence

Frans Masereel Centrum

frieze

Futurepoem books

Gato Negro Ediciones

GenderFail

Ginger

Gnomic Book

Gold Rain

GOST Books

Gravel Projects

Gregory R. Miller & Co.

GRRRR

HAMBRE HAMBRE HAMBRE

Hammer Museum

Harper’s Books

Hassla

Hauser & Wirth Publishers

Heather Benjamin

Helen Douglas/Weproductions 

Hesse Press

Hi-Bred

Homie House Press

HOMOCATS

Hotam Press

HUMOBOOKS

HUNTERS POINT PRESS

Hyperlink Press

ice fog press

IDEA BOOKS / AMSTERDAM

IKREK

Image Text Ithaca

Infinite Kisses - Artist Zines 

Ink Cap Press, Inc. | GroundWork

Instantes Gráficos

Institute 193

Institute for Interspecies Art 

Interference Archive 

Inventory Press

Irrelevant Press

Issue Press

J&L Books

Jamiyla Lowe

Jason Rovito, Bookseller

JBE Books

Jo Rosenthal & Friends

Jody Zellen

Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller

Justseeds Artists' Cooperative

Juxta Press

K. Verlag 

KARMA

Kaunas Gallery Books

Kayrock Screenprinting

Kentucky

KGP | MONOLITH

Knust/Extrapool

Kodoji Press

Kunstinstituut Melly 

Kwago

L'Arengario Studio Bibliografico

L'Artiere

LAGON REVUE / SAMMY STEIN

Landfill Editions

Las Injurias

Letter16 Press

LIFTA

Linus Bill + Adrien Horni

Lisson Gallery

Little Mountain Press

Lodret Vandret

Look Back and Laugh

Los Sumergidos

Louis M Schmidt

lucky risograph

Lugemik

Maamoul Press 

MACK

Marcus Campbell Art Books

Margaux Bigou

Maria Editions

Marian Goodman Gallery

Martian Press

Más Allá

Matthew Marks Gallery

McGilvery, Laurence

Mega Press/Panayiotis Terzis

MEMBRANA

Mi Casita Press

Michalis Pichler

microutopías

Migrant Journal

Mike Mandel and Chantal Zakari

Miniature Garden

MIT Press

mixedgreens

Moniker Press

Monograph Bookwerks

Most Ancient

Mousse Magazine & Publishing

Multinational Enterprises

NANG Magazine

Naranja Publicaciones

National Monument Press

NERO EDITIONS

New Documents

Nichole Shinn

nico fontana

Nieves

NIGHTED

NOAH LYON

NoRoutine Books

Norsk Risoforening

OAZA BOOKS

Offset Projects

OOF Books

Ooga Booga

Open Projects Press

Oranbeg Press 

Orange Crush: The Journal 

Other Forms

Other Publishing

OUTER SPACE PRESS

Pace Gallery

Pacific

Palm* Studios

Paper Crown Press

Paper Cuts

Paper Monument

Papertown & Nuts! Company

Paradise Systems

Passenger Pigeon Press 

Paul Zelevansky

Pegacorn Press/

per(r)ucho

Peradam Press 

Perfectly Acceptable Press

Perimeter Editions

Pioneer Works Press

PPP Editions/Andrew Roth Inc.

Precog Magazine

Press Press

Primary Information

Primrose Press

Printed Matter, Inc.

Printmaking Workshop

PrintRoom

prompt:

PromptPress

Publication Studio Vancouver

Queer.Archive.Work

Rabbit Rabbit Press / Alaska Bookmobile

Radix Media

Random Man Editions

Raw Meat Collective

RE/Search and Search & Destroy

Reconstructed Magazine

Red Letter Distro

Red Pocket Press

Redboldface

Redfoxpress & Antic-Ham

Rhode Island

Rhombus Press

Richard Kostelanetz /Archae Editions

Rinny Perkins

Ripopée

RITE Editions

Rollo Press feat Yellow Pages

Roma Publications

ROMAN NVMERALS

Ruja Press

RxART 

S U N 

Sacred Bones

Scott McCarney VisualBooks

Seaton Street Press

Secret Riso Club

Shining Life Press

Shortt Editions 

SICK magazine

siglio

Sigrid Calon

Silent Face Projects

Silent Sound

simple project NY

Sims Reed Ltd. 

Slow Editions

Small Editions

Sming Sming Books

Soberscove Press

Social Species

Space Sisters Press

Special Special

Spend Time Zine Mart

Spheres Projects

Stefan Marx

Stefanie Leinhos

Sternberg Press

Stolen Books

Stop Over Press

Street Salad

Strike Design Studio

Sugarcane Magazine 

sweaterqueens

Taller California

TBW Books

Temblores Publicaciones

Temporary Services 

Tenderbooks

Terminal Ediciones

Terranova

The Aldrich Contemporary 

The Black School

The Brooklyn Rail  & Rail Editions

The Concern Newsstand

The Eriskay Connection

The Everyday Press 

The Fulcrum Press

THE ICE PLANT

The New Gallery

The Renaissance Society

The Southland Institute 

The Teachers Project

theretherenow. 

Thick Press

Three Star Books

TIS books

Torpedo Press

TORTILLAGURL

Triangle Books

Tricia Treacy

Tropic Editions

Twin Palms Publishers

TXTbooks

Ugly Duckling Presse

Ulises

Unknown Unknowns

UPON

Vacancy Projects

Valiz

Visible Publications

Visual AIDS

Void

Volatile [redux]

Volker Renner

Water With Water / فسر الماء بالماء

Wave Books

Wendy's Subway

Werkplaats Typografie 

White Columns

Whitechapel Gallery 

Women's Studio Workshop

Wordshape 

WORK/PLAY

X-TRA

Yes Press / NOMag

Yoffy Press

Zatara Press

Zavod P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E.

ZINE COOP

ZOLO PRESS

Ulises Carrión | The Muxlows

Ulises Carrión

The Muxlows

Düsseldorf, Germany: Verlaggalerie Leaman, 1978

[unpaginated], 23 x 11 cm., softcover

Edition of 300 

A list of names dating back to 1835 when the titular Thomas Muxlow was born, arranged under the chapter headings: “Parents names”,  “Childrens names”, “Marriages” and “Other family events”. Only names and dates of birth and death are listed. 

"'The Muxlows' is the history of an English family from Yorkshire. I found it in 1972, in the city of Leeds, in the last pages of a badly damaged bible." 

- Ulises Carrión

Jean Dubuffet | L'Art brut préféré aux arts culturels

Jean Dubuffet

L'Art brut préféré aux arts culturels 

Paris, France: René Drouin, 1949 

52 pp., 20 x 17 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

The term outsider art was coined by art critic and professor at the University of Kent, Roger Cardinal in 1972. The term was an English synonym for the French term Art Brut, or "raw art" or "rough art"), a term used by Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture. 

He viewed fine art as too influenced by academic training, and favoured graffiti, and the work of

psychiatric hospital patients, children and "primitive" artists untrammelled by convention. He began incorporating these qualities into his own practice. 

This volume was published on the occasion of an exhibition of Art Brut organized by the Compagnie de l'Art Brut at Galerie Rene Drouin in Paris, the venue that gave Dubuffet his very first exhibition. 

He penned an impassioned catalogue essay, which came to be regarded as the group's manifesto. Alongside this text are 52 black and white illustrations and a checklist of 200 works by 63 artists. Fittingly, the volume is printed on cheap brown and pink paper. 

"Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade." 

- Jean Dubuffet

Joëlle Tuerlinckx | This Book, Like a Book

Joëlle Tuerlinckx

This Book, like a Book

Gent, Belgium: S.M.A.K., 1999

112 pp., 23.5 x 16.5 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

"This Book, Like A Book took place at the S.M.A.K. while the museum was still under construction. This exhibition was a record of Joëlle Tuerlinckx’s own museography, composed of the remains of exhibitions accumulated over several years. On this occasion, this museographic ensemble was integrated into the exhibition space, spread out in a large display and among these remains, the paper documents were transformed into volumes, or into those objects which are books. In her work, the term object is not to be considered in the traditional sense. Rather, an object is, I quote, “a visible and palpable manifestation of my own thought. In reality, they are sorts of tools that help me see and that I eventually name, grouping them under the generic term ‘objects’, for example: barres, bâtons, volumes, boules, boulettes”."

Maria Eichhorn | The Artist’s Contract

 

Maria Eichhorn

The Artist’s Contract

Cologne, Germany: Walther König, 2009

336 pp., 24 x 16.5 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

 

Between 1996 and 2005, the artist conducted interviews with artists, gallerists and other art world figures including Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Paula Cooper, Hans Haacke, Jenny Holzer, Adrian Piper, Robert Ryman, John Weber, Lawrence Weiner and Jackie Winsor. Their discussions were centred around the sale of artworks, speculation, the role of collectors and museums and artists’ rights.

Earlier this week it was announced that Eichhorn will represent Germany at the 2022 Venice Biennale. 

“Maria Eichhorn is the artist I have always wanted to see in the German Pavilion,” said Ylmaz Dziewior, director of Cologne’s Museum Ludwig, who is curating the German Pavilion.“In my view there are few artists who address themselves to German history and its impact on the present in as multifaceted and intensive a manner.”

White Fungus #16

[Ron Hanson, editor in chief]

White Fungus #16

Taichung City, Taiwan: White Fungus, 

234 pp., 26 x 19 x 1 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

This was sent to me ages ago and I never got around to posting it. It's an impressive periodical that began as a photocopied protest zine and has morphed into a slick production. 

Issue #16 features Kurt Gottschalk reporting on a performance of Max Richter's Sleep, Tobias Fischer on animal music, an article about 2018 Turner Prize–nominee Luke Willis Thompson, curator Jeph Lo on the emergence of noise music in Taiwan, and a photo essay on political demonstrations held during the islands transition out of military rule. 

But most notable is a 50-page interview by Ron Hanson with Carolee Schneemann. It's one of the last major interviews with the artist before her death in March of 2019. 

Schneemann candidly recounts running away from home at 15 and going to Mexico, changing her name at 18 (in part to keep her parents away from her work), and losing her teaching job at Rutgers in 1999 because her male counterparts thought she was a witch. Stan Brakhage (best friends with her partner James Tenney) apparently thought she was a monster also - for identifying as more than a wife. She recounts the story of how he insisted his bride burn everything pertaining to her life before they married:

"When he meets Jane [Wodening], his life-partner for 35 years, he has her burn all of her things on the side of the mountain where they lived: her diaries, her paintings, her clothes, her books. Everything is set on fire. And then she has a handmade dress that she wears as his bride. So her life is consecrated to him.

After five children, and all the creative work together, Stan says, “I don’t want to live with you anymore; I’m changing my life.” So I’m reading a lot of her writing because she’s an amazing writer, a profound naturalist. And she moves into her old car and drives across the country for two years.

That’s a pattern that we’ve discovered for women whose marriages are solid and coherent and consistent. When their marriages are suddenly blown apart by the male partner, they often start driving. They don’t know who they are; they don’t know where they want to be."

Schneemann discusses spending time Joseph Cornell's place: 

"I found a drawing from Rauschenberg signed "To Joseph, with great admiration". And I said, "Look what I found. And he said "Put that away! I don't want to see that thing!". 

She also describes her most acclaimed artist publication: 

"I began a work that would be titled "ABC - We Print Anything - In The Cards". I was really devastated and gathered advice from my friends over the phone. The women friends suggested "Well, make him his favorite dinner. Invite him over and have candlelight, and he'll feel how close you still are." So I wrote that on a card and that in the drawer. And then the next friend would say , "Tell him to fuck off! Got out and get stoned , and don't pay him any attention. So I write that down. I begin to have that drawer full of contrary advice. I thought, "Oh, this is good. This is really interesting. This is wonderful.""

The issue can be purchased here for $10. 

Yoko Ono turns 88 today

 

Cindy Sherman | Madame de pompadour (née Poisson) tea set

Cindy Sherman

Madame de pompadour (née Poisson) tea set

New York City, USA: Artes Magnus, 1990

Dimensions vary

Edition of 300 (75 of each of four colours)

A twenty-one piece set of porcelain tea service, including a teapot, sugar bowl, creamer, six cups, six saucers and six dessert plates. 

Currently valued at between eight and ten thousand dollars. 

Richard Long | Walking and Sleeping

Richard Long

Walking and Sleeping

Madrid, Spain: Ivorypress, 2003

24.5 x 70 x 55 cm.

Edition of 58 [+ 2 AP] signed and numbered copies

An artist book comprised of 11 offset lithographs and 22 pages of accompanying text by the artist, with original mud drawing, on handmade paper, the full sheets and with margins, the sheets mounted to a linen concertina and hand-sewn with hemp, the book wrapped in natural canvas, contained in the original wooden box within a grey painted wooden traveling case.

Designed by Long and Herman Lelie, the project was directed by Elena Foster. The letterpress and lithography were made by Francis Atterbury and the boxes were produced by Paul de Bock under Long’s close supervision. The paper was hand-made with straw and stones by Ruscombe Paper Mill especially for the edition and was supervised by Richard Long, who also mixed the inks. 

The work has exhibited in London (Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Britain, London, Whitechapel Gallery), Venice (Palazzo Fortuny) and Madrid (Ivorypress, the publisher). 

An edition of 58, only the first sixteen includes the mud drawing. The remaining forty-two contain a reproduction. There is an artist proof for both versions. 

The title is valued at approximately four to five thousand dollars. 

Kablusiak Felt Kitties

 

Kablusiak

Felt Kitties

Calgary, Canada: Self-published, 2020

14.5 x 14.5 cm

Edition size unknown

Hand stitched felt swatch images of cats, complete with cross-stitched anuses. 

Produced for the Undecimal Mail Art Group, likely in an edition of twelve or thirteen (with each a unique colour). 

The Sweetest Little Thing

The Sweetest Little Thing event takes place tonight, including an online auction of affordable small artworks. These are two things we won last year, by Amanda Fauteux and Hannah Bridger: a cigarette as candy and cheezie as sculpture. This year’s event includes a work by Roula Partheniou (see previous post) as well as works by Micah Lexier & Jon Sasaki, Andrea Mortson, Lacey Decker Hawthorne, Paul Butler, Kerri Reid (A Bernie Sanders w/Mittens finger puppet), Derek Sullivan, etc. etc. 

All funds raised benefit Struts Gallery and The Owens Art Gallery. 

To bid, visit the 32Auctions site, here:

https://www.32auctions.com/slt2021

Roula Partheniou | Prize Ribbon (Red)

Roula Partheniou

Prize Ribbon (Red)

Sackville, Canada: Self-published, 2021

4 layer screenprint on Kozuke paper, Yamoto glue

28 x 10 x 2.5 cm

Edition of 5 signed and numbered copies

Prize Ribbon (Red) adopts the "Red-white-blue" Chinatown tote bag motif, synonymous with practicality, affordability, durability and the resilience of the working-class and migrant populations around the world, and equates it with a symbol of honour and tribute. The grid was hand-drawn and then translated into a 4-layer screenprint on Kozuke paper. Printed by Jess Palmer at Open Studio, Toronto. The edition (numbered on an accompanying certificate) consists of five ribbons, each unique. 

The work is available as part of the fundraising auction The Sweetest Little Thing, an annual event whose proceeds benefit Struts Gallery and the Owens Art Gallery. 

Bid here: 

https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/78578/auctions/96407/auction_items/2764777

Gerald E.Smith | Firing Squad Match Co.

Gerald E.Smith

Firing Squad Match Co. 

Toronto, Canada: Gorgonzola Press, 1983

5/8 x 2-3/16"

Edition of 50 copies

A matchbook containing a single match, published on April 11th, 1983 as the third issue of Gorgonzola.

Available from jwcurry, here. 

Thomas Schütte | Reserve

Thomas Schütte

Reserve

Düsseldorf, Germany: Self-published, 1993

7.3 x 18 x 12.9 cm

Edition of 50

Painted ceramic lightbulbs housed in a wooden crate. 

Guerrilla Girls Cancel Phaidon Book Contract

Last week the Guerrilla Girls announced that they have canceled their book contract with Phaidon, citing Leon Black's association with convicted sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

Phaidon is a multi-national publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, based out of London and New York City, with additional offices in Paris and Berlin. 

Phaidon has over 1500 titles in print and has sold more than 42 million books worldwide. Founded in Vienna in 1923, the company was sold to Black in 2012. 

“In 2018, the Guerrilla Girls contracted with Phaidon Press to publish our dream book of all our work from 1985 to today: conceptualized, designed and written by us,” the Guerrilla Girls said in a statement. “In 2019, the world learned about Black’s extensive and shady dealings with shady pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, before and after Epstein’s conviction for sex trafficking young girls. We decided we could not work with Phaidon.”

They have also called for Black, to step down from his post as chair of the board of directors of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

“How to explain MoMA’s silence? And why does MoMA tolerate people like Black and [Glenn] Dubin on its board in the first place?” queried the Guerrilla Girls. “If we’re stuck with a system where our tax-exempt, educational institutions have to depend on money from the super rich, they should at least choose board members who make the world a better, not a worse place.”

Primary Information

The previous post concludes a week of Primary Information titles. Fourteen posts are, of course, not enough to do justice to the publisher, and there are several glaring omissions: 

Fantastic Architecture and An Anthology of Concrete Poetry, which I never bought as I have the original Something Else Press titles. Both are essential. 

James Hoff’s TopTen, which I was also lucky enough to get the original, pre-PI version. 

The box set of Great Bear Pamphlets, which deserve a full week themselves. I’ll try to get to them next month. 

Women in Concrete Poetry, which deserves a deeper dive than I can accommodate right now. 

Tony Conrad’s Writings, which I need to finish reading. 

Avalanche, which I missed out on and which is now sold-out. 

Visit Primary Information here.