Other Books and So Sales Catalogue #2

Ulises Carrión, Aart van Barneveld and Michael Gibbs

Other Books and So Sales Catalogue #2

32 pp., 21 x 14 cm., staple-bound

Edition size unknown

It's no surprise that most of the venues set up as non-profits to distribute Artists' Books were founded by artists. Sol Lewitt and Lucy Lippard* started Printed Matter in New York City, in 1976. General Idea started Art Metropole in Toronto two years prior. And Ulises Carrion founded Other Books (later Other Books and So) in the year in between, in 1975. 

This is the second issued inventory catalogue for the Amsterdam bookstore (the first can be viewed at archive.org in its entirety, here). Sections include Language Art, Objects/Multiples, Records, Cassettes, Posters, Music, and Postcards. 

The scarce title is available from Jonathan Hill, here, who are positioning themselves as experts in ephemera from artist-initiated bookstores. 

"For an artist’s book to be a bookwork it’s essential that it looks and functions like an ordinary book. That means no unusual size, no extravagant materials, no eccentric content.”

- Other Books 

*Along with Carol Androcchio, Amy Baker, Edit DeAk, Mike Glier, Nancy Linn, Walter Robinson, Ingrid Sischy, Pat Steir, Mimi Wheeler, Robin White and Irena von Zahn. 

Lucy Pullen | Poems

Lucy Pullen

Poem

Halifax, Canada: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 2000

70 x 450 cm.

Edition size unknown

Commercially produced rolls of wallpaper, created as part of a series by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design faculty and alumni. Other artists who participated include Lawrence Weiner, Monica Tap, John Baldessari, Kelly Mark, Garry Neill Kennedy, Katie Bush, Geruld Ferguson, David Askevold, Sally McKay, Jan Peacock and John Greer. 

Pullen's contribution is based on a 1999 blue pen drawing.

Jiri Valoch | Do It Yourself

Jiří Valoch

Do it yourself, 1971-1974

Amsterdam, Netherlands: Kontexts Publications, 1975

8 pp., 7.5 x 10.7 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

Following Do It Yourself 1: Signs and Do It Yourself 2: Dialogues (both from 1972), this 8 page title collects three years worth of score based works that also function as poetic writing prompts.

Examples: 

"A transparent poem about the air"

"Any poem with clouds"

"Long poem about death"

Helen Chadwick | Piss Flowers

Helen Chadwick

Piss Flowers

Self-published, 1991-1992

12 parts, each approx. 70 x 65 x 65 cm 

Edition of 5 [+ 3 APs]

Helen Chadwick's brilliant Piss Flowers debuted in 1991 as works in progress, at the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff, and Mercer Union in Toronto (long before I worked there). They have subsequently been exhibited in Athens, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Liverpool, London, Mumbai, Nottingham, São Paulo, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, and Vienna.

The work was initiated during a three-week residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, in February 1991. Chadwick and her partner, David Notarius travelled to different locations, made mounds of snow and laid out a flower-shaped metal cutter. They took turns pissing in the snow and then poured plaster into the cavities. 

In a poem written the same year entitled Piss Posy, Chadwick describes the works as "Vaginal towers with male skirt/ Gender bending water sport?". The flow of her urine, described as "strong and hot", resulted in a "central penile form", her male partner's was "diffuse and cooler", creating a "labial circumference". 

The twelve bronze castings of urine-melted snow remain the Turner-Prize nominated artist's best known work. Chadwick died five years later, of a heart-attack, at the age of 42. 

“It may have been mischievous to piss in the snow, but it was damn hard work to end up with the 12 bronzes. Piss Flowers took two years, largely because I had to find £12,000 to make them.” 

- Helen Chadwick

 

Alan Belcher | Kill Me Button

Alan Belcher

Kill Me Button 

Toronto, Canada: Art Metropole, 1997

2" diameter

Edition of 200

A button related to a controversial billboard Belcher produced for the Paradise Europe exhibition produced by Bizart, in Copenhagen, in 1992 (below). The billboard featured the artist's home phone number and the instruction/invitation to kill him. 

Art Metropole commissioned a re-design of the work to display at Yonge and Dundas Street in Toronto in 1997, but the project was rejected by the billboard company at the last minute. The series also included Moriko Mori, Alfredo Jaar, and Steve Reinke. All were printed and all but Belcher's installed in public locations throughout the city of Toronto. 

The 10-sheet, 10 x 20 feet billboards were produced in an edition of five, plus two printer's proofs and an artists' proof. They remain available for purchase from Art Met. 

Of the 200 buttons produced, the first fifty are signed and numbered by Belcher. 

Liz Magor: Living in the Wild Wild West

Jennifer Fisher

Liz Magor: Living in the Wild Wild West

Edmonton, Canada: Edmonton Art Gallery, 1991

12 pp., 25 cm, softcover

Edition size unknown

A slim and scarce exhibition catalogue with an essay by Jennifer Fisher that can be downloaded for free, here: 

https://catrionajeffries.com/assets/artists/magor-liz/Jennifer-Fisher_Liz-Magor-Living-in-the-Wild-Wild-West_AGA_1991.pdf

Coins by Artists

Coins by Paul McCarthy, Maurizio Cattelan, Jess Dobkin, Paul Couillard, Claire Fontaine (twice), Micah Lexier (thrice), Bill Woodrow, Germain Koh, Micah Adams, Jan Sokota, and Ryan Gander (twice).