Philip Glass

Philip Glass turns 89 today. 

Earlier this week, he announced that the was cancelling his June performances at the Kennedy Centre, in response to Trump’s takeover of the board of directors. He joins Lin-Manuel Miranda, Béla Fleck, Issa Rae, the Seattle Children’s Theatre, and many other performers in boycotting the venue. 

In 2018, Glass became a Kennedy Center honouree, during Trump’s first term. 

National General Strike

 

In solidarity with protests against the ICE invasion of sanctuary cities and the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti, the following galleries will be closed today: 

303 Gallery (NYC)

56 Henry (NYC)

Abattoir (Cleveland, OH)

Adams and Ollman (Portland, OR)

Alexander Gray Associates (NYC)

Alison Bradley Projects (NYC)

Almine Rech (NYC)

Andrew Edlin (NYC)

Andrew Kreps Gallery (NYC)

Anonymous Gallery (NYC)

Anton Kern Gallery (NYC)

Berggruen Gallery (SF)

Blade Study (NYC)

Bortolami (NYC)

The Brick (Brooklyn, NY)

Brigitte Mulholland (Paris)

Canada (NYC)

Casemore Gallery (SF)

Casey Kaplan (NYC)

Charlie James Gallery (LA)

Chapter NY (NYC)

Chart Gallery (NYC)

Chris Sharp Gallery (LA)

Company (NYC)

CONNERSMITH (Washington, DC)

Corbett vs Dempsey (Chicago)

Cristin Tierney (NYC)

David B. Smith Gallery (Denver)

David Klein Gallery (Ferndale, MI)

David Zwirner (NYC, LA)

DC Moore (NYC)

D.D.D.D. (NYC)

DIMIN (NYC)

Document (Chicago)

Fernberger Gallery (LA)

Foster/White (Seattle)

Fragment (NYC)

Fraenkel Gallery (SF)

Fridman Gallery (NYC)

Gagosian (NYC; LA)

Galerie Lelong (NYC)

Gallery Kendra Jayne Patrick (Bern, Switzerland)

Gordon Robichaux (NYC)

Gray (NYC, Chicago)

Greene Naftali (NYC)

Harkawik (NYC)

Henrique Faria New York (NYC)

Hesse Flatow (NYC)

Higher Pictures (NYC)

Hoffman Donahue (NYC)

Hostler Burrows (LA)

Howard Greenberg Gallery (NYC)

ILY2 (NYC; Portland, OR)

Ivester Contemporary (Austin, TX)

Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery (NYC)

James Cohan (NYC)

Jane Lombard Gallery (NYC)

Jeffrey Deitch (NYC; LA)

Jessica Silverman (SF)

JOAN (LA)

Karma (NYC)

Kavi Gupta (Chicago)

Klaus von Nichtssagend (NYC)

Kristen Lorello (NYC)

kurimanzutto (NYC)

La Loma (LA)

Lehmann Maupin (NYC)

Luhring Augustine (NYC)

Make Room (LA)

Management (NYC)

Marian Goodman (NYC, LA)

Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago)

Marianne Boesky (NYC)

Martha’s (Austin)

Martos Gallery (NYC)

Magenta Plains (NYC)

Margot Samel (NYC)

McClain Gallery (Houston, TX)

Megan Mulrooney (LA)

Michael Kohn Gallery (LA)

Michael Rosenfeld (NYC)

Microscope Gallery (NYC)

Miguel Abreu Gallery (NYC)

Monique Meloche (NYC)

Moskowitz Bayse (LA)

Mrs. (Queens, NY)

Nara Roesler (NYC)

Nathalie Karg (NYC)

Nazarian/Curcio (LA)

Nicodim (NYC; LA)

Nicola Vassell (NYC)

Nina Johnson (Miami)

Nguyen Wahed (NYC)

Olney Gleason (NYC)

Pace (NYC, LA)

Pablo’s Birthday (NYC)

Palo Gallery (NYC)

Patron (Chicago)

Paula Cooper (NYC)

Peter Fetterman Gallery (LA)

Peter Freeman (NYC)

Petzel (NYC)

Peter Blum Gallery (NYC)

Picture Theory (NYC)

The Pit (LA)

PPOW (NYC)

R & Company (NYC)

Rajiv Menon Contemporary (LA)

Rebecca Camacho Presents (SF)

Regen Projects (LA)

Rivalry Projects (Buffalo, NY)

Roberts Projects (LA)

Ryan Lee (NYC)

Salon 94 (NYC)

Sargent’s Daughters (NYC)

Sean Kelly (NY)

Sebastian Gladstone (LA, NYC)

Shrine (NYC)

Silke Lindner (NYC)

Sikkema Malloy Jenkins (NYC)

Stroll Garden (LA)

Tanya Bonakdar (NYC)

Timothy Taylor (NYC)

Vielmetter Los Angeles (LA)

Western Exhibitions (Chicago)

Yancey Richardson (NYC)

A.I.R. (Brooklyn, NY)

Artists Space (NYC)

Bronx Art Space (Bronx, NY)

CARA (Center for Art, Research, and Alliances) (NYC)

Drawing Center (NYC)

El Museo del Barrio (NYC)

Eyebeam (NYC)

Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (LA)

The Luminary (St. Louis)

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI)

MOCAD (Detroit)

MOCA LA (LA)

New Art Dealers Association (canceled talk in NYC)

Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (Portland, OR)

Printed Matter (NYC)

Project for Empty Space (Newark, NJ)

Recess (Brooklyn, NY)

Scandinavia House (NYC)

Screen Slate (NYC/SF)

Slash (SF)

Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY)

White Columns (NYC)

 

 

 

 

 

Maurizio Cattelan and Paola Manfrin | Permanent Food

"Permanent Food began from a simple wish: our own magazine, no budget, no rules. We adored glossy mags, those visual monsters that pull you in for reasons you can’t name, so we made one that swallowed them all. We bought every title in the newsstand, tore out the pages that felt strongest, most ambiguous, most irresistible, and reassembled them into a new object—no credits, no explanations, straight to the printer. Looking back, it foreshadowed how images now circulate—looted, re-stitched, source-less. We just did it by hand, starving for it. [...]

In the endless feed, content must be produced or recycled nonstop. Under that pressure, authorship rules fray from exhaustion more than evolution. Everything is accessible, copyable, editable. Today the real plagiarism isn’t copying an image—it’s using it with zero intention. Creativity dies when the gesture turns automatic, harmless, forgettable."

- Maurizio Cattelan

Marcel Broodthaers

Marcel Broodthaers was born on this day in 1924, and died on this day in 1976, at the age of 52. 

Jason Polan | Every Person in New York Vol 2

Jason Polan

Every Person in New York Vol 2

New York City, USA: Dashwood Books, 2021

412 pp, 7.3 x 1 x 9.25”, softcover

Edition size unknown

I think of Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip as one of the most influential artist books of all time, and not because it inspired similar street photography. But rather the idea of trying to present a comprehensive collection of anything. The Every of the title. 

Rucha’s mandate was a very finite two-and-a-half kilometre stretch of a 38 km California boulevard. Jason Polan set himself an impossible task, and then spent ten years trying to make a dent in the goal of drawing every person in a city with eight and a quarter million residents, 

This book picks up in June 2014, where Volume 1, published in 2015, left off, and draws from the artist’s meticulously kept sketchbooks. Designed and Edited by Hans Seeger, the title features more than 5,000 drawings. 

Jason Polan died on this day six years ago, at the age of 37. By this point he had completed more than 50,000 portraits. 

"Jason Polan’s powers of observation — so simple, quick, supple, fun, and visually intelligent — made him one of the consummate draftsmen of the 21st century.” 

- Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine

 

Yoko Ono | Instruction Paintings

Yoko Ono

Instruction Paintings

New York City, USA/Tokyo, Japan: Weatherhill, 1995

63 pp., 18.5 x 18.5 cm., slipcase

Edition size unknown

One of the earliest books on Ono to focus (retrospectively) on a single body of work, this title documents an exhibition of Ono's at George Maciunas' AG Gallery in New York. The title features six illustrations of the works and the text (in both English and Japanese) to the Instruction Paintings: Painting to the See the Skies, Painting for the Wind, Painting in Three Stanzas, Painting to Shake Hands, Painting for Burial, Smoke Painting, Painting to See the Room, Painting to Hammer a Nail, Waterdrop Painting, Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through, Painting To Be Constructed in Your Head (5 versions), Painting Until it Becomes Marble, A + B Painting (2 versions), Portrait of Mary, Painting to Enlarge and See, Painting for a Broken Sewing Machine, and Painting to be Constructed in Your Head.

In the six-page introductory text Ono is quite candid about her first marriages (to composer Toshi Ichiyanagi and later to film producer Tony Cox) and about a brief stay in a clinic during a bout of depression.

Photographs by George Maciunas and cover design by Ono.

"PAINTING TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN YOUR HEAD

Imagine a flower made ofhard material such as gold, silver, stainless steel, tin, marble, copper, etc. Imagine it so that you can count each of the thousand petals of the flower. Imagine that the petals suddenly become soft like cotton, or like living flesh. In three hours, pick all the petals. Save one and press it in a book. In the margin oft he page where the flower is pressed, note the derivation of the petal and the name of the petal. At least eight hours should be spent for the construction of the painting.”

- Yoko Ono

Claude Closky | Dessert Plate

Claude Closky

Dessert Plate 

Paris, France: Galerie de Multiples, 2010

21 cm diameter

Edition of 500 numbered copies

A Royal Limoges ceramic dish with a colour silkscreen print of bills and coins. 

Guerrilla Girls

 

(see previous post)

Ana Mendieta: A Retrospective

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta: A Retrospective

New York City, USA: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1987

85 pp., 25.5 x 24.5 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

The first major retrospective of Ana Mendieta’s work opened in November of 1987, just a little over two years after her death. Mendieta fell from the window of the 34th-floor apartment building that she shared with sculptor Carl Andre. She was 36 years old. The couple - married only nine months earlier and on the verge of divorce - had been heard arguing. Neighbours and the door man went on record saying that they had heard her cry out “No” immediately before the fall. 

Andre called 911 and told the operator “My wife is an artist, and I’m an artist, and we had a quarrel about the fact that I was more exposed to the public than she was. And she went to the bedroom, and I went after her, and she went out the window.” 

When the police arrived to examine the scene, Andre showed the officers catalogs of his work and restated that his wife had been jealous of his fame. The different levels of success in their careers became a frequent point of inquiry in the trial. 

Additionally, the defence used Mendieta’s work to discredit her. The use of blood and soil in her practice was said to represent a subconscious desire to kill herself. Her interests in indigenous occult practices suggested that she was mentally unstable, Andre’s lawyers argued. 

“The defendant’s guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the presiding judge announced, on February 12th, 1988, acquitting Andre on charges of murder. 

Ana Mendieta: A Retrospective surveyed the growth and change in Mendieta’s career and included thirty documentary colour photographs of her Silueta series; black and white photographs of Cuban rock carvings; early drawings on leaves; floor sculptures made from sand and earth; and videotape documentation of multiple performance works.”

The catalogue includes thirty-four b/w and twelve colour images, a preface by Marcia Tucker, and essays by Petra Barreras del Rio and John Perrault. 

“I have been carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.”

- Ana Mendieta