Ceal Floyer, RIP

Very sad to hear that Ceal Floyer has died, at the age of 57. 

I just posted one of her editions on Monday, and at the time wondered why I hadn’t seen new work from her for a while. Apparently she had been ill for some time. 

I met her once, at a party thrown by collector Paul Marks (the doctor for the Toronto Raptors). He had purchased the Canadian version of her Monochrome Till Receipt (White). The work consists of a simple grocery store shopping receipt, spray mounted to the wall. 

It’s a still life consisting of a list of items, and a monochrome because everything purchased is white. It’s also a performance and document. 

The project began in 1999 (Tate Britain bought the first), produced in an edition of ten and - if I recall correctly - there was only one available per country. The other eight in the series are American, Japanese, German, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Swiss. Seven are in private collections. 

Paul flew in Floyer, they went shopping together, and then he hosted a party in his home, in her honour. 

We spoke for less than ten minutes, as it was a busy party. I remember her asking about my friend Mitch Robertson’s work, installed on the floor. 

Her work was conceptual and playful, smart and funny. She made many pieces I wish I owned, and many I wish I had thought of first. 

"Monochrome needs to be produced locally in order to avoid reading it as an exotic curiosity. It counts on its unremarkable outward appearance for its subsequent conceptual transformation.”

- Ceal Floyer

Michael Snow

Michael Snow was born on this day in 1928. 

Jiri Valoch | Word Works

Jiri Valoch

Word Works

Berlin, Germany: Rainer Verlag, 1984

[unpaginated], 15 x 10 cm., softcover

Edition of 500

An artist's book featuring semantic studies and text pieces created between 1974-1982.

Ceal Floyer | Egg/Chicken

Ceal Floyer

Egg/Chicken

Copenhagen, Denmark:  Niels Borch Jensen Editions, 2005

[no size specified]

Edition of 12 signed and numbered copies

"The multiple Egg/Chicken is a standard office rolodex equipped with index cards displaying nothing but alternating images of a chicken and an egg. The piece references the proverbial causality dilemma which dates back to antiquity – the first written record being Plutarch’s Symposiachs. Aristotle later concluded that the egg/chicken paradox was an infinite sequence with no true origin. Floyer’s employment of the rolodex makes for a convincing illustration of this infinite sequence – one can interact with the work and theoretically spin the rolodex forever without any productive result. At the same time she undermines our perception of the rolodex as a device to store larger amounts of diverse date. Floyer’s rolodex does not provide answers – instead, it poses the same question over and over again.”

- publisher’s statement

Martin Parr

Martin Parr died yesterday, at the age of 73. 

John Latham | Early Works 1954 - 1972

John Latham

Early Works 1954 - 1972

London, UK: Lisson Gallery, 1987

40 pp., 10.04 x 0.39 x 8.46”, softcover

Edition of 1200

A catalogue published on the occasion of a John Latham exhibition held at the Lisson Gallery,

January 14th to March 14th, 1987. 

"No product of the sixties phenomenon ‘concept art’? produced anywhere survives with the distinction of Latham’s piece on Clement Greenberg’s Art and Culture (1965). For those too young to remember this historic happening I should say that it began with a party held in 1966 1n which students and friends of Latham chewed pages of Greenberg’s book (borrowed from the library of St Martin’s School of Art) and spat the pulp into a centrally placed bowl. The fermented mash was distilled and the resultant spirit of Art and Culture was offered to the library in a test tube in 1967 in reply to a request for the return of an overdue loan; Latham was sacked from his teaching job — but the work is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NY."

- Richard Hamilton, introduction

STAMPS IN PRAXIS

[Guy Schraenen]

STAMPS IN PRAXIS

Antwerp, Belgium: Archive Small Press & Communication, 1977

[12] pp., 21.5 x 15.5 cm., softcover

Edition of 200

An exhibition catalogue produced to accompan a show organized by Guy Schraenen at Galerie Kontakt, Antwerpen, in November 1977 and at Stempelplaats, Amsterdam in January 1978. The exhibitions featured original stamps collected on correspondence, documents and in publications.

“The major part of the stamps presented in this exhibition were collected since 1975 in our daily mail, some were found in publications remaining in the Archive.

The exhibition is divided in three parts:

1/ Stamps in correspondance and documents.

2/ Publications where original stamps are used principally or partly as printing process.

3/ Original stamps in publications.

Contrary to other stamp art exhibitions, which mainly showed, not the use of stamps, but the “stamps”, our purpose was to show how stamps are used in praxis as art, in mail art, as message or as ornamentation.

In small press and in artist’s publication stamps are wildly used because no printers or expensive technics are involved. Stamps also have the advantage to give color and image to printing.

In an other exhibition “printing processes in the small press”, which will be organised in the future, a large part will be consecrated to the use of stamps as typography.” 

— Guy Schraenen

Barbara Bloom | A Birthday Party for Everything

Barbara Bloom

A Birthday Party for Everything

New York City, USA: I.C. Editions, 1999

12.1 x 49.1 x 29.6 cm. 

Unlimited Edition

We had a copy of this work when I was at Art Metropole (I think it quickly sold to the AGO) and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It seemed like a cheap box of cheap dollar store party items and the gallerist's description does nothing to disabuse me of this notion: 

“Barbara Bloom's A Birthday Party for Everything includes the essential ingredients for a picture-perfect party in a convenient carrying case. 

 

No occasion would be complete without party hats and horns, plates, cups, napkins, and favors including puzzles, frisbees, wooden tops, yo-yos, kaleidoscopes, pinwheels, fans, bubbles, candy, and balloons. The artist makes this party her own and ours by festooning each surface with images ranging from the sub-atomic to the universal, from molecular structures to bodily systems to street maps to cityscapes to world views to the moon.

 

A Birthday Party for Everything is quite simply a celebration of life.”

2012 Olympic Posters

Every year since 1912, the city hosting the Olympics or Paralympic Games commissioned at least one poster project to celebrate. A hundred years later, London commissioned twelve posters, by some of the most acclaimed British visual artists of the day. These include Fiona Banner (pictured below), Michael Craig-Martin, Martin Creed (below, bottom), Tracey Emin (below), Anthea Hamilton, Howard Hodgkin, Gary Hume, Sarah Morris, Chris Ofili, Bridget Riley, Bob and Roberta Smith (below) and Rachel Whiteread. The Tate Modern held an exhibition of the works to coincide with the 2012 games. 

The Olympic posters: 

Martin Creed "Work No. 1273”

Anthea Hamilton “Divers"

Howard Hodgkin “Swimming"

Chris Ofili "For the Unknown Runner”

Bridget Riley "Rose Rose”

Rachel Whiteread "LOndOn 2O12.”

The Paralympic posters:

Fiona Banner "Superhuman Nude”

Michael Craig-Martin “GO"

Tracey Emin "Birds 2012”

Gary Hume“Capital"

Sarah Morris "Big Ben 2012”

Bob and Roberta Smith "LOVE.”

Martin Creed also created “Work No. 1197: All the Bells in a Country Rung as Loudly as Possible for Three Minutes,” to take place from 8 to 8:03 a.m. on July 27, the first day of the Olympics. The festival’s web site explained that the idea was to encourage the entire nation “to ring thousands of bells at the same time, whether school bells, church bells, town hall bells, bicycle bells or doorbells.

The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers refused to participate n the project, stating "We are not able to work closely with this project as we believe it is misconceived … We think 8am is not the right time for ringing in very many towers … We do not believe ringing for three minutes nor ringing as fast as possible is really suitable for church bell ringers.” 

A smaller group of enthusiasts visited the clock tower known as Big Ben and brought their own bells. Watch the short video, here.