Jenny Holzer | Untitled (Selections from The Survival Series)

Jenny Holzer

Untitled (Selections from The Survival Series)

New York City, USA: Self-published, 1983 

20 x 25 x 1 cm.

Edition of 10 

A cast aluminum plaque with enamel pigment of one of Holzer’s lesser-known aphorisms from the Survival Series. 

Zero Mass: The Art of Eric Orr.

Eric Orr, James Lee Byars, Thomas McEvilley

Zero Mass: The art of Eric Orr

Lund, Sweden: Propexus, 1990

320 pp., 28 x 29.5 x 8.5 cm., hardcover

Edition of 1000

One of the more unusual books in my collection, this monograph/artist book hybrid on/by Eric Orr, is housed in a styrofoam lined cardboard box, alongside a handmade multiple by James Lee Byars. The project was conceived when Orr and Byars traveled to Egypt with critic Thomas McEvilley, in early 1989. 

Published on the occasion of Orr's exhibition at Anders Tornberg Gallery in Lund from October 27th to November 21st, 1990, the book is designed by Gert Fors, John Melin, and Anders Tornberg, 

The book is bound in an anodized blue steel cover, and features extensive images and text, many written collaboratively between Orr and Byars. 

There are many physical interventions in the volume, including pages torn by the artists, inserted handmade paper  by Yoshio Ikezaki made using kozo fibers and powdered mummy's skull, and "The Matter of O” where Orr has stamped a ring of his own blood in the style of a coffee cup stain.

The book is accompanied by a handmade ball of fired clay by James Lee Byars, titled "The Sphere of Generosity.”

Almost thirty-five years old, the book is still available for only $125. I can’t imagine it cost much less to produce. Plus, I suspect the Byars multiple without the book would sell for more than that. Strongly recommended. Get your copy at Printed Matter, here. 

Cary Leibowitz | House of Liebowitz Puffy Print

Cary Leibowitz 

House of Liebowitz Puffy Print

New York City: Self-published, 2007,

13 x 13 x 1.5” 

Edition of 90 signed and numbered copies

A foam seat cushion for art critic Marcia Tucker that reads MARCIA TUCKER CHICKEN PLUCKER OYSTER SHUCKER LONG DISTANCE TRUCKER RSVP MOTHER FUCKER. 

Also in the series: OFFICIAL CANDYASS MUSEUM OF MODERN ART JELLO LIQUIDATION SALE. 

Leibowitz’ current exhibition You Really Let Yourself Go continues at New Discretions (515 W 20th Street, 3rd Floor) in New York City until November 23rd. 

Rita McKeough: The Lion’s Share

Rita McKeough, Josephine Mills, Elizabeth Diggon

Rita McKeough: The Lion's Share 

Lethbridge, Canada: University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2012

64 pp., 24 x 17  x 1 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

The Lion’s Share was an exhibition curated by Josephine Mills for the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, in 2011. It then traveled to the Doris McCarthy Art Gallery, Dalhousie Art Gallery, Kenderdine Gallery, and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery. 

The immersive installation included audio, electronics, and an opening night performance. The gallery was transformed into a faux-restaurant, which featured a kitchen floor covered in egg shells, table-settings with motorized spears stabbing at hotdogs and carrots, and glasses of milk which have formed their own tongues. Speakers played the sound of a lion eating. 

The artist described the scene as like “a 3D-version of a Looney Tunes restaurant in which things have gone terribly awry,” 

“I set out to find a dozen wild hotdogs in the coulees behind The Lions Share diner. I needed to get some fresh stock for the feedlot buffet before the dinner rush. I know there were probably hundreds maybe even thousands of them roaming through the coulees but I was in a rush and I didn’t have time to go very far. It is always hard to find them up near the buildings but I got lucky and found a dozen after about twenty minutes. They don’t move very fast so once I found them it was simply a matter of using my spear to poke them along.

It was hard to get them all going in one direction –a bit like herding cats, I imagine. . As soon as we got close to the building they all seemed to panic and they tried to turn back towards the grassland. It took me quite a while to gather them up again. I was starting to get a little frustrated. The hardest part was getting them through the door to the diner. They got more and more agitated and I had to be careful not to poke them too hard and leave marks on them. Our customers never liked to see marks on the bodies of the hotdogs. Once I got them into the diner, it was tricky moving them in between the tables and chairs, especially with people already filling the restaurant. Finally, I got them to the buffet table and I gently lifted each one with tongs and placed it into the buffet holding pen. It seemed stressful, overcrowded, and still full of hotdog droppings from the day before. I really needed to clean it out more often. To be honest, I felt really uneasy about putting them in but they were on the menu so what could I do?”

 - Rita McKeough

Tish Murtha | Elswick Kids

Tish Murtha

Elswick Kids

London, UK: Bluecoat Press, 2018

180 pp., 27 x 29 cm. hardcover

Edition size unknown

In the 2023 documentary Tish (which played the Sackville Film Society last night) photographer David Hurn recalls interviewing a young Tish Murtha about why she wanted to attend his photography class. She answered "I want to take pictures of policemen kicking children.”

Few twenty year olds can lay out their MO so succinctly. 

Directed by Paul Sng, who had previously made films about Poly Styrene and The Sleaford Mods, Tish makes the case that her work - largely forgotten at the time of her death in 2013 - is ripe for reappraisal. Her photographs of “marginalised communities from the inside” seem more relevant than ever today. 

She was also a powerful writer. The film unearths grant applications, letters to newspapers and - heartbreakingly - job applications in the final years of her life, where she is forced to list photography as one of her hobbies, alongside taking walks and reading. 

Writing about automation and the corporate promise of increased leisure time, with employees no longer having to endure dull, repetitive tasks sounds like she could be speaking about the impact of AI on the contemporary workforce. But she is writing about the working conditions in the late ’70’s Britain. Her sharp skepticism is clear (with terms like "enforced idleness”) and extends also to the gallery that represented her work, Side Gallery. 

She left the venue that had supported her early in her career out of fear that they wanted to push her work into an "anaesthetized philosophy of working-class culture”. 

From a young teenager she wielded a found camera as a weapon, even without it containing any film. She learned that just by carrying it, pedophiles luring children into their vans could be thwarted. 

This book features images of these kids, her neighbours in the Elswick district of Newcastle Upon Tyne, which was known as "the worst square mile in England”. 

Tish has deep empathy for her subjects and a fierce rage for their situation. The children here, despite the deep poverty and strong sense of hopelessness around them, manage to find joy in the bleakest of surroundings. 

"Elswick Kids is a less strident set of images. They were taken as Tish walked the streets of the working-class district of Elswick in Newcastle Upon Tyne and were not intended to be an exhibition in their own right. Today, though, they tell of a time when children had the freedom of the streets to play in and where friendship blossomed against a seemingly harsh background. The photographs have a stark beauty that shines from every page. Elswick Kids is a vital contribution to our understanding of life in a northern city in the late twentieth century.”

- publisher’s blurb

Daniel Spoerri

Daniel Spoerri died yesterday, at the age of 94. He made significant contributions to the world of artist books and multiples, as a curator, as a gallery and as an artist. 

Martin Kippenberger | Untouched & Unprinted Paper

Martin Kippenberger

Untouched & Unprinted Paper

New York City, USA: Printed Matter, 1990

24 x 15 x 5 cm., loose leaves in slipcase

Edition of 50 signed and numbered copies

A slipcased ream of pristine paper wrapped in kraft paper and sealed with brown paper tape (the removal of which results in the destruction of the artwork). The artist has neither printed on nor touched the stack.

Furthering the remove of the 'hand of the artist' - it's reported that Kippenberger also didn't even see the paper. The work's label on the front of the ream was signed by the artist and mailed to Printed Matter from California, where he was teaching.  When the publisher mailed Kippenberger his artist copies of the edition to the same address, they were somehow lost in transit.

A copy of the work appears in the collection of MoMA (top image), but otherwise has almost no online presence. The other images were taken at John Goodwin’s home in 2013. Goodwin was the director of Printed Matter at the time, and oversaw the production of the work. 

Ulises Carrión | Mirror Box

Ulises Carrión

Mirror Box

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Self-published, 1979

[18] pp., 18.5 x 18.5 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 100

An Artist Book handmade and self-published by Ulises Carrión featuring images of boxers rubber-stamped with pink and blue ink. The ink bleeds through the felt, leaving a ghostly impression on the opposing pages.

Ulises Carrión was reportedly a life-long boxing aficionado, and had just edited an issue of Commonpress a year prior, titled Box, Boxing, Boxers. 

The title is extremely scarce and prohibitively expensive. A copy is available at Printed Matter for $3,000.00 US, here. 

“Mirror Box is printed on synthetic felt with rubber stamps of two boxers facing each other in sequential sparring positions. The soft touch of the page, in contrast to the strong punch of the imagery, makes for a potent allusion ot the exchange and repression of male sexuality.” 

-Tim Guest / Germano Celant, Books by Artists