Chairs

Chairs by Franz West, Tom Dean, Rob Pruitt,  Donald Judd, Barbara Kruger, Harland Miller, and Van Maltese and Lauren Reed (in reverse order as Blogger now seems to load photos backwards - when it lets you load them at all). 

Barbara Kruger | I shop therefore I am

Barbara Kruger

I shop therefore I am

Cologne, Germany: Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1990

43.9 x 27.3 x 10.7 cm.

Edition of 9000

Barbara Kruger’s reworking of Rene Descartes’ best known dictum ("Cogito, ergo sum") has appeared as a canvas book bag, t-shirt, magnet and postcard. But this simple paper shopping bag had the widest reach. 

Only a handful of artists' multiples can claim edition sizes higher than nine-thousand, but most of the bags adorned with Kruger’s signature text conflating consumerism with identity no longer remain, destroyed by the consumerism they gently mock. They were distributed as a functional and ephemeral shopping bag, and few survived the use value. 

The art market gets the last laugh, though, with unused copies framed copies to sell for upwards of two thousand dollars now, despite the high edition size and disposable nature of the production. 

"Prior to making it, I had read Walter Benjamin, and I’ll paraphrase a quote: “If the soul of the commodity existed, it would want to nestle in the home and hearth of every shopper that passed its way.” I thought that was amazing. When reading Benjamin’s Moscow Diary, I realized that he was a compulsive shopper. He’s always shopping for something, and it was about framing his image of perfection.

I remember when the works of artists in my peer group were first being discussed by critics and first being sold. I thought if my work was developing this commodity status, I had to address it in the work.”

- Barbara Kruger

Matchbooks

Matchboxes and matchbooks by Arthur Koepcke, Ben Vautier, Daniel Olson, George Brecht & Robert Filliou, David Shrigley, Joyce Holland (editor), Louise Lawler, Barbara Kruger, Ryan McGinness, Rasah Subtler and Red Seifer. 

The Flue Volume 1, Number 5

[Franklin Furnace]

The Flue Volume 1, Number 5

New York City, USA: Franklin Furnace, 1981

8 pp., 43 x 29 cm., newspaper

Edition size unknown

Martha Wilson founded Franklin Furnace in 1976, to serve artists working in marginalized media such as publishing and performance, which could be vulnerable to "institutional neglect, cultural bias, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content."

Four years in, the Artist Run Centre began publishing a periodical called The Flue. Conceived by artist and printer Conrad Gleber, The Flue published sixteen issues between 1980 and 1989, which varied in format, including tabloids, posters, and newsletters. 

The publication served as a vehicle for promotion, political advocacy1, and helping to fulfill the mandate  of the organization, with articles on Artists’ Books, Performance Art, and Video works. It featured contributions by Jon Hendricks, Barbara Moore, Clive Philpot, Louise Lawler, Pauline Oliveros, and many others. 

A variety of artists were invited to serve as editors and designers, including Barbara Kruger, Linda Montano, Sherrie Levine, Carla Liss, and Buzz Spector. Richard McGuire served as both for this fifth issue2, which featured Laurie Anderson on the cover, promoting a concert she gave in celebration of Franklin Furnace’s fifth anniversary. 

The issue also features Diana Augaitis’ “Eastern European Bookworks,” "Sound Works 2" by Peter Frank (see last week's post, here) and descriptions of installations and performances by Al Aguilar, Sydney Blum & Janet Henry, Ronny H. Cohen, James Coleman, Toby MacLennan, Sandra McKee, Carol Meine, and Sandy Moore.

Copies of the periodical are now extremely rare. This issue can be bought for $175 US, here, or downloaded as a free PDF from Primary Information, here. As part of their ongoing efforts to make rare, archival material available, the publisher has collaborated with Franklin Furnace to digitize and disturb all sixteen issues. 

1. In her editorial, Martha Wilson notes "As I am writing this, President Reagan is dealing a heavy blow to arts funding for organizations which present avant-garde art. Below you will see my letter to the New York Times and a reply from a citizen who doesn’t realize that less than a dollar a year of tax payer’s money is devoted to the arts in America." 

2. Wilson remained as Editor-in-Chief and McGuire shared editorial duties with Lucy Evanicki. 

Barbara Kruger | Picture/ Readings

Barbara Kruger

Picture/ Readings

N.P.: Self-published, 1978

[44] pp., 14.5 x 22.5 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

The artist’s first bookwork, now scarce and valued at $1500 US. 

“...we might consider Kruger’s “Picture/Readings,” a series that necessitates a sustained engagement with its sentences and stories that precedes and even precludes our desire to fold them into critique. Completed in 1978 and self-published, “Picture/Readings” combines images, largely of the exteriors of houses in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Deerfield Beach, Florida, with texts of filmic, novelistic, and melodramatic ambitions. Rather than short bursts of words scattered among images, the stories in Picture/Readings are long by comparison to Kruger’s more famous work and unceremoniously formatted in blocks. If one wanted to write a dissertation on “Picture/Readings,” one could certainly argue for the importance of architecture in Kruger’s photo-collages, since they are themselves syntactic architectures made from blocks of text and image building upon each other. What is there to be said, however, about Kruger’s words here? They are not declarations, but rather stories or narrative scaffoldings that interweave and become the built environments of a life, a psyche, a series of loves and disappointments, of bodies that come together and disentangle. For us to allow Barbara Kruger to tell a story would change everything.”

- William J. Simmons, Flash Art

Barbara Kruger | Untitled [Flag]

Barbara Kruger

Untitled [Flag]

Los Angeles, USA: Los Angeles Museum of Art,  2020

 55.9 × 54 cm

Unlimited edition

Kruger’s untitled flag is a silkscreen print on a fine cotton blend bandana, produced for the Artist's Band Together, in support of grassroots “Get Out The Vote” programs in the United States, during the first Biden/Trump run. 

Initiatlly released through an exclusive arrangement with Ebay (allowing 100% of the proceeds to go towards voter-registration organizations Mijente, Rise and Woke Vote). Other artists in the series include Victoria Cassinova, Shepard Fairey, Jenny Holzer, Luchita Hurtado, Juliana Huxtable, Alex Israel, Merritt Johnson, Christine Sun Kim, Marilyn Minter, Christina Quarles, Umar Rashid, Xavier Schipani, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Hank Willis Thomas.

Many of these pieces now appear in auction for hundreds of dollars, but can still be had for much cheaper with a little sleuthing. 

Barbara Kruger/Consolidated | Business of Punishment

Barbara Kruger/Consolidated

Business of Punishment

New York City, USA: London Records, 1994

2 LP set, 70:24

Edition size unknown

Other than an obscure 7” single released in 1992 in an edition of 500 numbered copies, Consolidated’s fourth full length LP is the only album cover to feature a design by Barbara Kruger. 

The work is included in the collection of the MoMA library, here. 

Artists' Matchbooks: Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger | Untitled (Do you feel comfortable losing?)

Barbara Kruger

Untitled (Do you feel comfortable losing?)

London, UK:  RS & A. Ltd., 2006

102 x 94.5 x 23 cm.

Edition of 7 [+ 3 AP] signed and numbered copies

A talking chess set with Corian figures and 96 microprocessors responsible for tracking moves and triggering speech. Watch a short video of the work, here. 

Printed Matter Catalog Addendum '84-'85 Books By Artists

Printed Matter

Printed Matter Catalog Addendum '84-'85 Books By Artists

New York City, USA: Printed Matter, 1985

65 pp., 8 1/2 x 11", staple-bound

Edition size unknown

The ‘84-’85 supplement to the annual Printed Matter catalog of artist books, listing artists' books, periodicals and audio works available for mail order.

 Cover designed by Barbara Kruger. 

Available from Boo Hooray, here, for $175.00.