Kay Rosen | Duck in the Muck

Kay Rosen

Duck in the Muck

Gothenburg, Sweden: LL'Editions, 2024

10 pp., 99 x 14.2 cm., accordion fold

Edition of 250

For their Leporello Series, ll’Editions invites a well-curated selection of excellent artists (Jonathan Monk, Micah Lexier, Fiona Banner, Maurizio Nannucci, etc.) to conceive of a work in the accordion fold format. Beyond this format stipulation, artists are given carte blanche to respond any way they wish. 

For the tenth iteration of the series, Kay Rosen revisited a work not seen for over a decade. Duck in the Muck was presented at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver in 2013, as part of Rosen’s first solo exhibition in Canada (see below). The work was conceived in 1989, the year of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. 

On March 24th, 1989, an oil supertanker owned by the Exxon Shipping Company struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, ten kilometres west of Tatitlek, Alaska, at midnight. The tanker spilled over ten million gallons of crude oil over the next few days.

It was the second largest oil in U.S. waters, and the environmental impact was exacerbated by the remoteness of the site. Prince William Sound is only accessible by helicopter, plane, or boat, making government and industry response efforts difficult. 

Many miles of coastline were affected and species as diverse as sea otters, harlequin ducks, and orcas whales suffered immediate and long-term losses. Some have still not recovered. 

Duck in the Muck (also known as Exxon Axxident) consists of nine distorted variations of the word “quack” reflecting "genetic damage to living species by oil and chemical spills, and as a worldwide disaster, the multiple spellings allude to the cries of voices from populations around the globe.”

Duck in the Muck was released earlier this month in a small edition of 250 copies. Get yours for €30, here. 

Lawrence Weiner | WATER IN MILK EXISTS

Lawrence Weiner

WATER IN MILK EXISTS

New York City, USA: Swiss Institute, 2008

Set of 4 glasses

Edition of 100

Rodney Graham | Champagne Glasses

Rodney Graham 

Champagne Glasses 

Chicago, USA: The Renaissance Society, 1997 

Set of two glasses

Edition of 100 

"A Champagne Flute is the perfect vehicle for an artist obsessed with corrupting civilization according to its own rules. Vancouver-based conceptual artist Rodney Graham has been keenly corrupting great works of literature, art and music based on their internal logic. For The Renaissance Society, Graham has converted the Robinson Crusoe-esque character from his stunnuing Venice Bienale film installation into a delightful tipsy monogram poetically described as forever never level.” 

Kay Rosen | Martini Glasses

Kay Rosen

Martini Glasses

Chicago, USA: Renaissance Society, 1997

Pair of etched glasses

Edition of 100

Two martini glasses with engraved and painted letter “O” on each, one in white and one in green. The work was produced for Table of Contents, a benefit for the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in November, 1997. Other artists produced plates, canisters and napkins. 

“[Holly Hunt] did allow, though, that a pair of martini glasses she bought for $75 two years ago at an auction at the Renaissance Society, a contemporary art museum at the University of Chicago, are a better union of form and function than the glasses she herself sells. Simple glasses engraved with the letter ''O,'' they were part of a limited edition designed by the witty text artist Kay Rosen, who, like Ms. Hunt, is a native Texan transplanted to the Chicago area.

''It's a perfect little piece of sculpture,'' Ms. Hunt said. ''It has a great hand to it -- and with martinis, the handling is as much fun as the alcohol. With this, you don't slosh because it has a little inward lip at the top.

''And it's a little heavy,'' she added, ''so it's very well balanced -- you feel comfortable holding it and walking around.''

That is, as long as she does not fill it to the top: the glass holds nearly eight ounces of high spirits, unlike the more modest and fragile four-ounce martini glasses that she sells.

[...]

The Renaissance Society had given Ms. Rosen a choice of items to design, and she opted for the martini glass because of its varied connotations, danger and decadence among them. ''It carries a lot of significance with it,'' she said. And while the O she engraved stands for olive or onion, she noted that, as with a martini, people are free to read into it whatever they will.

Ms. Hunt, too, appreciates the playfulness of the O, with its suggestive, cipherlike quality -- a martini with a purely thoughtful twist. And as an advocate of design that functions well, she likes the fact that these glasses look best when being used.

''There's real sex appeal to the shape of the glass and the way one holds it,'' she said. Still, she is glad that she bought only one pair. Given the nature of their appeal, more than two would be a crowd."

- David Colman, New York Times, 2003

Nick Cave | Drinking Glasses

Nick Cave

Drinking Glasses

San Francisco, USA: Artadia,  2019

14.6 × 6 cm.

Edition of 250 signed copies

Artadia is a charity that believes that “visual artists are storytellers and civic leaders, with the power to unite people from all backgrounds.” Since its founding in 1999, the organization has awarded over $6 million in unrestricted funds to 408 artists in 8 cities.

Select Artadia Awardees were invited to create unique table-setting editions, which debuted at Artadia's fund-raising Artist Luncheon. 

Nick Cave was a 2006 recipient of the award, for Chicago. He designed a set of four sixteen ounce pint glasses adorned with images of iconic Soundsuits.

Damian Ortega | Parkett

Damian Ortega

Parkett

Zurich, Switzerland: Parkett Magazine, 2013

19 x 19 x 2 cm (each segment)

Edition of 35 [+ 3 AP] signed and numbered copies

Produced for the 92nd issue of Parkett magazine, the work is presumably a verbal pun on the magazine’s name and Parquet flooring. 

"In the spirit of Duchamp, Ortega (like many of his peers) deploys the readymade to great effect. Using store-bought goods such as cameras, cars, and tools, his work establishes, by virtue of their prior reality as useful things, a reciprocal relationship between the realms of the everyday and art."

- Helen Molesworth, Parkett

 

Coco Fusco | Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island

Coco Fusco

Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island

London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 2023

240 pp., 8.8 x 11.2”, hardcover

Edition size unknown

Released in October of last year, Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island is the first in-depth study of the performances, videos, and social practice of the Cuban–American artist. The book accompanies an international touring retrospective of the artist’s work and features contributions by Olga Viso, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Jill Lane, Anna Gritz, and Antonio José Ponte. 

Fusco celebrates her 64th birthday today. 

Henri Chopin | Portrait of Franco

Henri Chopin

Portrait of Franco

Berlin/Koln, Germany: Edition Hundertmark, 1975

9.5 x 7 x 2.4 cm.

Edition of 6 signed and dated copies

A spiky leaf encased in acrylic, and publication announcement (below). Signed and dated by the artist in black ink on label affixed to end of block. The Getty Library has copy 1/6, donated as part of the Jean Brown collection. 

Available from the publisher for 450 Euros, here. 

Henri Chopin was born on this day, in Paris, in 1922. 

Laurie Anderson | It’s Not The Bullet That Kills You - It’s The Hole

Laurie Anderson

It’s Not The Bullet That Kills You - It’s The Hole

New York City, USA: Holly Solomon Gallery, 1977

7” vinyl record

Edition size unknown

“I will be shot with a rifle at 7:45 p.m.,” performance artist Chris Burden wrote to the editors of Avalanche magazine, “I hope to have some good photos.”

On November 19th, 1971, he made good on his promise. At the  F-Space gallery in Santa Ana, California, he stood fifteen feet away from a friend armed with a .22-caliber rifle and took a bullet to the left arm. The work, named Shoot, has been described as Burden's "most infamous”. 

In It’s Not The Bullet That Kills You - It’s The Hole Laurie Anderson recalls the piece as a kind of cautionary tale. The 45 rpm single was originally created as part of jukebox that played the different Anderson compositions, for an exhibition at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York City. Peter Gordon appears on saxophone, Scott Johnson on bass guitar, Ken Deifik on harmonica, and Joe Kos on drums.

Copies of the 7” single on Discogs have sold for as low as low as a hundred dollars, and as high as two thousand. 

It’s an uptempo hillbilly avant-garde song about bullet holes, black holes, dark holes, dug holes, holes in the soles of shoes, and giving credit where it’s due. I recall a similar observation Anderson once made about shampoo commercials and their grandiose claims about cleanliness, when it's the water that does most of the work.

Jackson Arn in the New Yorker describes Burden’s practice with another hole analogy: "I hear the chuckle of a shrewd entrepreneur filling a hole in the market."

I used to use myself as a target

I used myself as a goal

I was digging myself so much

I was digging me so much

I dug myself right into a hole

Now, in a hole it's so dark

You can't see a thing

It's easy to lose sight of your goals

It's not the bullet, not the bullet that kills you

It's the hole, it's the hole, it's the hole...

It's not the bullet it's the hole

Like a ventriloquist I can throw my voice

Long distance is the story of my life

and in the words of the artist Joseph Beuys

"If you get cut, you better bandage the knife"

Cause, in a hole it's so dark

You can't see a thing

It's easy to lose sight of your goals

It's not the bullet, not the bullet that kills, you know

It's the hole, it's the hole, it's the hole...

Like a hole, like a black hole in space

You disappeared and there's nothing to take your place

Now I'm sweating, I'm freezin, in this Jamaican sea breeze

I remember you in my knees

I really feel like fallin’

It's not gravity that's getting me down

It's giving me those down and out lowdown blues

It's not the rain that's getting me wet

It's the holes, it’s  the holes in my shoes!

It's not the bullet, It's the hole

Cause, in a hole it's so dark

You can't see a thing

It's easy to lose sight of your goals

It's not the bullet, not the bullet that kills, you know

It's the hole, it's the hole, it's the hole...

It's not the bullet...

It's the hole...

Raymond Pettibon

A selection of 'zines by Raymond Pettibon, who turns 67 today. 

Nam June Paik | Television (ICA Edition)

Nam June Paik

Television (ICA Edition)

Cincinnati, USA: Carl Solway Gallery, 1990

61 x 61 cm.

Edition of 25 signed and dated copies

A silkscreen on canvas with added plastic elements and a TV antenna, with an estimated value of ten grand. 

A RING THAT OCCASIONALLY BORDERS THE SUN

Rachel Domínguez/Jon Rubin/Dawn Weleski

A RING THAT OCCASIONALLY BORDERS THE SUN 

Pittsburgh, USA: Conflict Kitchen, 2015

56 pp., 18 x 13 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

Conflict Kitchen (see earlier post, here) was a restaurant in Pittsburgh started by Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski, in 2010. For the seven years that it was operational (at various locations) it served only food from countries that the United States was in conflict with. 

A RING THAT OCCASIONALLY BORDERS THE SUN is designed by Brett Yasko, who also created the facades for each iteration (in collaboration with locals from each featured country) and the printed materials that serve as food wrappers (see below). The Cuban wrapper features interviews with Cubans both living in the US and in Cuba. They touch upon subjects such as Revolution, Media, Health Care, Arts and Economy. 

This title continues the approach but with children living in Cuba. Interviewer Rachel Domínguez poses the same question to boys and girls aged between the years of five and fourteen. 

Q: If you could make a law that everyone had to obey, what would it be?

A: To plant plants.

Q :If you were to move to another country, which would it be?

A: Paris.

Q: Why?

A: Because it is very cute and has the Eiffel Tower. I like it.

Q: Have you seen it?

A: On television.

14 year old Ariel was asked "What is the strangest thing that you have seen in your life?” and replied 

"The ring that occasionally borders the sun, like a halo. I have shot many photos of it,” providing the volume with its title. Asked what she would do if she were president, she answers "Improve this shit. I would raise wages.”

The interviews are accompanied by portraits of each participant, photographed by Carlos Ernesto Escalona Martí. 

Q: What do you think is the best invention in the world?

Armando, 9 years old: Someone should invent a city with banks that give away free money.

Q: Are you sure?

A: Well, it would be a better invention than the soccer ball.

Q: If you could send a message to anyone right now, who would it be?

A: To an adult.

Q: What would you say?

A: That they should not party and not drink too much alcohol.

Q: Why?

A: Because that could be a catastrophe for the human body.

Q: Why do some people have more money than others?

A: Because some are unable to work and others live in places where there is big money. And here most people are not so rich.

Q: How do you know that?

A: Because my mom says she pretends to work and they pretend to pay.