Max Dean | The Thumb Chair

Max Dean

The Thumb Chair

Toronto, Canada: Runaway Bunny, 2007

7.6 cm

Edition of 300 signed and numbered copies

A pocket-sized version of Dean's Robotic Chair, that is thumb-activated, causing the chair to collapse and spring back.

Dean celebrates his 72nd birthday today. 

Roula Partheniou | Strange Objects

Roula Partheniou

Strange Objects

Los Angeles, USA: Marta, 2022

[16] pp., 48 × 10" (Unfolded) 6 × 10" (Folded)

Edition of 100

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Two and Two Together (March 11 to April 23rd, 2022), Strange Objects is a limited edition exhibition brochure/artists' book/framable artwork. It features a panorama of post-it note paintings made specifically for publication. The eight images reproduce hard-edge acrylic paintings on canvas, which remove the third dimension of the artist's sculptural post-it note works. 

Designed by Benjamin Critton, the verso features an essay by Partheniou on early childhood development and the mapping of meaning onto form - the artist's first published writing on her own work. 

Strange Objects is available from the publisher for $40.00, here. 

For a full monograph on Partheniou's work, see earlier post, here. 

Today is also the final day to visit her Toronto exhibition, Stationery Object at MKG127. 

 

ACBA: The Alps/Tauba Auerbach Easy Action LP

The Alps/Tauba Auerbach
Easy Action LP
Brooklyn, USA: Mexican Summer, 2011
31 × 31 cm.
Edition of 1000 copies

Erwin Wurm | Den Schmutz der Welt abwaschen

Erwin Wurm
Den Schmutz der Welt abwaschen
Cologne, Germany: Edition Koenig, 2019
15 x 25 x 5 cm.
Edition of 30 signed copies [+ 5 AP]

"Wurm’s "Den Schmutz der Welt abwaschen (To Wash Away The Dirt Of Our Time)," 2019, is a washing sculpture made of soap. The cucumber as a self-portrait is a recurrent motif in Erwin Wurm's work. He believes they somewhat resemble humans—each cucumber is distinct, but nonetheless distinguishable as a cucumber belonging to a greater whole."

- press release

John Peel Auction

The other somewhat relevant material from the John Peel Collection auction (see previous post) is a series of music zines and counter-culture publications, including the legendary OZ magazine (which was the subject of a high-profile anti-obscenity court case in the mid-seventies). 

To view the full collection, click here. 

Yoko Ono in John Peel's collection

Several friends have been kind enough to alert me to the Bonham’s auction of John Peel’s collection, which closed yesterday. 

John Peel was arguably one of the most influential radio DJs of all time, and the longest serving presenter on BBC Radio (1967 to 2004). He is of particular note here, for playing Laurie Anderson’s eight and a half minute experimental song O Superman, sending the performance artist  to the top of the charts briefly in 1981. 

I wasn’t aware that he was a big Yoko Ono fan, but the collection features a large number of materials sent by her and Lennon. It consists of their collaborative material and her solo work, but not solo material for her husband, and certainly no Beatle items. 

When the collection turns to works by other bands (almost all of them good - The Smiths, The Specials, PJ Harvey, Belle & Sebastian, The Fugees, Kate Bush, etc.)  I like to see it as a lineage from Ono’s proto-punk to the punk of the Pistols and the post-punk of Joy Division. 

The material includes promotional ephemera, personal postcards, vinyl test pressings, t-shirts, greeting cards, Ono's artist book Grapefruit and her classic artist Fluxus multiple Box of Smile. 

Scroll through the collection at the auction house site, here:

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/27992/live-in-session-property-from-the-john-peel-archive/?page=5

"Around the time of the dissolution of the Beatles, when he was living with Yoko, I met them then, and you know, I used to see them from time to time. And one of those things, there are very few people actually in the whole of this history that I rather wished weren’t famous people, because I enjoyed their company a lot. But you realized you couldn’t go to the match with them or go around and have breakfast with them at the café, just because they were such celebrities life would be intolerable if you tried to do that."

- John Peel

Douglas Huebler | Crocodile tears

Douglas Huebler

Crocodile tears

Buffalo, USA: Albright-Knox Gallery/CEPA Gallery, 1985

[44 pp.]. 28 x 22 x 1 cm., staple bound

Edition of 2500

Subtitled  "brief fictions re-sounding from the proposal in Variable Piece #70-1971, "to photographically document the existence of everyone alive", this title builds on Huebler's signature work, with photographs, drawings, and reproductions of famous artworks by Cézanne, Mondrian, Picasso, etc. 

Published in conjunction with the 1985 exhibition of the same name at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Crocodile tears illustrates a disjointed screenplay involving a number of fictitious characters dealing in high-end art forgery. The cast includes Richard Decker, a “signature artist” cranking out salable objects to pay the mortgage; Arthur Lord, known as “the great corrector” for his ability to replicate the works of the old masters without their original “mistakes”; and Alec Gregory, a con-artist who sells forgeries of famous paintings to unsuspecting collectors. 

"Huebler’s parable is a witty and dark reflection on art-market politics and a compelling exploration of the problematics of authorship and authenticity." 

- Printed Matter

Geoffrey Hendricks | Five Found Photos

Geoffrey Hendricks

Five Found Photos

New York City, USA: Printed Editions, 1979

[12] pp, 15 x 22 cm., softcover

Edition of 600 signed and numbered copies

A slim volume with tipped in found photographs published by Dick Higgins' imprint. 

Five Found Photos is available here, for $150.00 US. 

"Last summer in Germany, rummaging through flee markets, I collected some old postcards and photographs. The collection was made casually just picking out what struck my fancy. One night I noticed certain photographs were of the same people. Other cards seemed to go together because of similar structural elements. I began to group and regroup the material, pairing images visually, narratively, and numerically, seeing contrasts and similarities of form, subject, location, time, or emotion. Sometimes there were surprises. These five cards are one distillation from this process. They might imply a story, or a dream, perhaps a souvenir of a summer abroad. They are for reflection."

- Geoffrey Hendricks

Kay Rosen | Nau Sea Sea Sick

Kay Rosen

Nau Sea Sea Sick

London, UK: Four Corners Books, 2009

128 pp., 22.5 × 16 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

Kay Rosen selects and illustrates six stories about the sea:

John Moore: Local Boy Makes Good

Katherine Mansfield: The Voyage

Stephen Crane: The Open Boat

Isabella Bird: The Hawaiian Archipelago, Letter I

John Aaron Rosen: Stranger In The Empty Night

Eileen Myles: Everyday Barf

Nau Sea Sea Sick was the fourth of the Four Corners Familiars series which invited contemporary artists to respond to the classics of literature (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Franz Kafka's Blumfeld, etc.). 

The title is still available from the publisher, here, for $22.00. 

Derek Liddington | The body will always bend before it breaks, the tower will always break before it bends the tower will always break before it bends, the body will always bend before it breaks

Derek Liddington

The body will always bend before it breaks, the tower will always break before it bends the tower will always break before it bends, the body will always bend before it breaks

Toronto/Lethbridge, Canada: AGYU/Southern Alberta Art Gallery, 2019

112 pp., 6 x 9", softcover

Edition size unknown

"This book documents two 2017 exhibitions of the work of Derek Liddington staged back-to-back across two sites: the Art Gallery of York University and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. These exhibitions were, in turn, a performance of two photographic stills taken from two 1928 Ballet Russes productions—Ode and Apollon Musagète. Pivoting across time and space, Liddington animates the space in-between performance and image as a point of departure for his ongoing investigation into the relations between narrative and abstraction. Like the revolutionary practice of the Ballet Russes itself, these exhibitions operate at the intersection of dance, theatre, and the visual arts.

Essays by Emelie Chhangur and Fabien Maltais-Bayda are accompanied by an interview with Liddington by Ryan Doherty as well as full documentation of the two exhibitions."

- dust jacket blurb

Available from Art Metropole, here, for $24.00 CDN. 

I Am A.R. Penck

A.R. Penck

I Am A.R. Penck

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Aschenbach Galerie, 1989

30 x 38 cm. (closed) 30 x 453 (open), accordion fold

Edition of 100 [+ 20 AP] signed and numbered copies

Last September a copy sold of 150 Euro at auction, against an estimated value of 180 - 200 Euro. 

David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble

[David Hammons]

David Hammons: Rousing the Rubble

New York City, USA: The Institute for Contemporary Art, P.S. 1 Museum / MIT Press, 1991

96 pp., 28,5x24 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

Published in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition of Hammons's works, Rousing the Rubble includes texts by Kellie Jones, Tom Finkelpearl and Steve Cannon, and an introduction by Alanna Heiss. Photographic essays by Dawoud Bey and Bruce Talamoun. 

The title is available here, for £419.74.

"Rousing the Rubble celebrates the energetic work of American artist David Hammons, who until now has ducked the attention of art critics, traditional galleries and museums. Preferring to 'do things in the street', Hammons, a recent recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, places himself as an artist between Arte Povera and Marcel Duchamp. He creates his art from urban refuse and the detritus of African American life -- chicken wings, Night Train bottles, clippings of African American hair. Hammons' witty and elegant sculptures, body prints and installations are the product of his deeply felt views on racism and cultural stereotypes." 

- dust jacket blurb

Damien Hirst

 Damien Hirst turns 57 today.