La Boîte-en-Valise exhibition

Curated by Wim Peeters and Marie Denkens, La Boîte-en-Valise is an online exhibition that takes place in a reconstruction of Marcel Duchamp’s 1941 famous mini retrospective work “Boite-en-Valise.” 

The exhibition features the work of 39 artists, including Yuji Agematsu, Cory Arcangel, Matthew Brannon, Judy Fiskin, Josephine Halvorson, Marc Hundley, Ravi Jackson, Thomas Kiesewetter, Terence Koh, Zoe Leonard, Jacqueline Mesmaeker, Alexandra Noel, Hikari Ono, Mira Schor, Erika Verzutti, Lawrence Weiner and many others. The exhibition runs from January 9th to February 20th, 2021.  

For more information, visit la-boite-en-valise.com.

"La Boîte-en-Valise, is an online exhibition that takes place in a reconstruction (by a Dutch carpenter), of Marcel Duchamp’s 1941 famous mini-retrospective work “La Boite-en-Valise.” The exhibition features the work of 39 artists and will run from January 9th thru February 20th, 2021.

La Boîte-en-Valise was born out of the question on how to bring art to people in times when we cannot travel, currently due to COVID-19 restrictions. As much a reflection on the condition of confinement, La Boîte-en-Valise is also a reflection on showing and viewing art online and an oddball attempt at finding new ways to connect art and people in meaningful ways. 

Marcel Duchamp, originally conceived “La Boîte-en-Valise” as a portable suitcase museum, made for his move to New York’s Greenwich Village in 1942, both a commentary on his scarce artistic output, compared to Picasso and the likes and a tool for the artist as a traveling salesman to promote his work abroad using miniature sample versions.

For La Boîte-en-Valise our aim was to strip bare the world wide web to the inner circumference of a box. We wanted to create a conceptual environment that resonates spatially as well as symbolically with our times. Hopefully Duchamp’s box can add to an understanding of the works on view and vice versa.

Each of the participating artists was invited to contribute a single work to La Boîte-en-Valise, regardless of scale, a task that seemed easy, knowing Duchamp was able to showcase 69 works of his own. The majority of historical reproductions of Duchamp’s “La Boîte-en-Valise,” mimic a dense forensic display though, as if the material on view would benefit from being shown from a single perspective. To present all the material online in the form of an exhibition, we made different photographic views of the box, taking inspiration from the publication “La boîte-en-valise. Une œuvre de Marcel Duchamp” (published by Musées de Strasbourg in 2015), which was the first study to take apart Duchamp’s box as a spatial model and which showed us the way out of a forensic scopic model, into an environment that comes closer to what Duchamp must have had in mind when scaling his work down for travel. When it comes to scale and compression, we believe jpegs are the closest we get today, to what miniature objects and small prints were in 1942. La Boîte-en-Valise 2021 brings together all of these elements in an exhibition that will be layered, dense yet playful, in the spirit of Duchamp, while being available worldwide 24/7.

With the exponential rise of online art fairs and viewing rooms, Duchamp’s box also provides  a welcome and hospitable settlement in the infinity of online space, a  modular environment, that in its dis-functionality, proves to be surprisingly attractive and versatile. 

With La Boîte-en-Valise, we were surprised by the apparent inefficacy of the carry-on suitcase as a symbol for global relations and travel today, but by turning it inside out, it became a kaleidoscopic museum, a memory of our inner voyages during confinement and quarantine." 

- press release

Title TK

Title TK
Title TK
New York City, USA: Primary Information, 2017
242 pp., 6.5 x 8.5", softcover
Edition of 1000

Title TK is journalist shorthand used to signify information still forthcoming for the final copy edit. It translates to "title to come". It is also the name of a 2002 LP by the Breeders.

Here Title TK is a conceptual band consisting of artist Cory Arcangel, curator Howie Chen, and composer/guitarist Alan Licht. The group perform, but do not play music. Instead, they sit and talk about music, pop culture, art and anything else that emerges in their unplanned dialogues.

Fittingly, this collection of ten performances from between 2010 and 2014 feature only transcriptions of their conversations. The venues range from the Lit Lounge in New York to the POP Montréal festival to the Whitney Museum of American Art. Topics of conversation include American Idol, CanCon, Dan Flavin, the Grateful Dead’s Dick’s Picks, Fugazi, Guns N’ Roses, Lil Wayne, Seth Price, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, the Situationists, etc. etc.

Their previous "LP", ROCK$ tackled subjects as varied as Madonna, Deerhunter, Van Halen, Funkmaster Flex, Ben Stiller, Christina Applegate, and trying to remember every band on the 4AD label.

On-stage banter without the unnecessary music getting in the way.

Available from Tender Books, here.

Cory Arcangel turns 41 today

Cory Arcangel | All The Small Things

[Cory Arcangel]
All The Small Things
Author: Michael Bank, Christoffersen
Publisher: Cologne, Germany: Koenig Books, 2015
142 pp., 21.7 x 28.4 cm., paperback
Edition size unknown

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Cory Arcangel, All the Small Things at the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (March 22- June 22, 2014), this title is the first comprehensive monograph on the artists work. Designed in the collaboration with the artist, the book features texts by Michael Christoffersen, Alan Licht and Jonah Peretti.


Available from Art Metropole, for $59.00 CDN, here.

Cory Arcangel | Working On My Novel

Cory Arcangel

Working On My Novel

Penguin Books Ltd., 2014

144 pp., 13.2 x 1.2 x 19.9 cm., softcover

Edition size unknown

A bookwork (novel?) based on the artist's twitter feed, which re-tweets posts featuring the title phrase. "Hanging out in a cafe, working on my novel", for example, or "After an impressively long power nap, I am working on my novel again. Looks like it's taking shape!" 

Even the most solitary of creative venture is now fodder for social media sharing, and included here are a wide range of approaches, including the overly proud ("I love my mind") and even the defiant ("I'm a writer, deal with it").  

Those performing work or self-branding as writers are possibly easy targets (like the Hollywood joke that everyone in Los Angeles is writing a screenplay) but the selection here resonates in ways beyond the mere mockery. Collected, the tweets point to the many obstacles to creation, from distraction (one poster notes that he is simultaneously watching Family Guy) to competition. I recall a line from Hugh Prather's 1970 book Notes To Myself (which is itself mostly twitter-length observations) in which Prather notices that when he announces that he has finished writing his book his friends are mildly pleased for him, but when he gets its published they are besides themselves with praise. As though the accomplishment of producing is less than the success of getting it into the right hands. 

Arcangel notes on his website that all of the tweets in his book are used with permission, which seems counter to what one would imagine his notion of copyright supports. Perhaps this was at the insistence of the publisher, or maybe it's relevant information after all. That the people who constantly update their friends on the status of their creative endeavours are happy to be collected here. Perhaps being re-tweeted in print (even in something that could be seen as satirical) is the highest level of 'like'. 

The title is published by the company who invented the affordable pocketbook novel, and (not unlike Morrissey's memoir of last year, released - at the author's insistence - under the Penguin Classics imprint) there's something satisfying about seeing the penguin logo on the cover of this book. 

In the "elevator pitch" description on his site, Arcangel asks "What does it feel like to try and create something new? How is it possible to find a space for the demands of writing a novel in a world of instant communication?"

"Working On My Novel is about the act of creation and the gap between the different ways we express ourselves today. Exploring the extremes of making art, from satisfaction and even euphoria to those days or nights when nothing will come, it's the story of what it means to be a creative person, and why we keep on trying."

Visit the artist's site, here, and the dedicated twitter feed, here. 

The title is available from Amazon, here, where reviews range from "impossibly vacuous" and "this book killed trees" to "subversive genius" and "brilliant", all on the first page. 

Title TK | ROCK$

Title TK
ROCK$
Brooklyn, USA: New Images, 2013
[6] pp.,  31.5 x 31.5 cm., softcover
Edition of 500

Title TK is a "banter-prone band" consisting of artist Cory Arcangel, curator Howie Chen and guitarist and author of Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories Alan Licht (who is also currently playing as part of Lee Ranaldo's band The Dust). The group describes themselves as a cross between poet/critic "David Antin and Spinal Tap".

While the band do perform in concert (they appeared at Pop Montreal, and once opened for Bonnie "Prince" Billy) they do not play any music. ROCK$, their debut LP, is a studio recording of a conversation the three had about music. This recording has been transcribed and produced as an LP-like book. No actual audio is included. Their bio describes it as "the only full-length record ever made where every "track" is "non-LP.""

In the summer of 2010 the three participants found themselves discussing "the overabundance of bands in the world these days" and joked about presenting their rambling conversations about music and pop culture as the work of a 'band'. Reading ROCK$ is like listening in on a conversation behind the counter at a record store, with the trio discussing a wide variety of performers (Deerhunter, Van Halen, Ben Stiller, Christina Applegate and Madonna) as part of their many tangents. At one point, for example, the three attempt to identify every band signed to the influential 4AD roster (the group’s name - which is placeholder text in publishing, meaning “title to come” - was also used as the title for an album by 4AD group The Breeders).

The "LP" was released in October of last year, and is available from the publisher, here, for $24.99.

Sound Postcards

(Various ‎Artists)
Sound Postcards
Italy: The Bookmakers Ed., 2008
Compact Disk
Edition size unknown

Subtitled "39 Unreleased Audio Messages", this compilation was curated, produced and edited by Guillaume Sorge. It was released as part of the 16th issue of the art quarterly UOVO Magazine. The disk features songs by Akron Family, Daniel Johnston, and the Sun City Girls, as well as works by artists Cory Arcangel, Terence Koh and curator Jens Hoffman. Arcangel's track is intended to be opened with a text editor.

The set can be downloaded from Mediafire, here, courtesy of continuo, here. The issue of UOVO featuring the disk can be purchased for £11.00 from Antenne Books, here.


Tracklist:

1 Akron Family – Afternoon Rain Pennsylvania 1:03
2 Davide Balula – Swedish Lessons 1:02
3 Felix Kubin – OSR#1 Vienna Bathtub 13.9.07 0:31
4 Joana Preiss – Untitled 1:27
5 Kevin Blechdom & Christopher Fleeger / Barn Wave* – Heehaw Theme 1:03
6 Matthieu Laurette – I Am Still Alive 21. 11. 07 0:21
7 Mickey Moonlight – Music For "Responsible Reprogenetics" Public Service Broadcast 1:03
8 John Rage – 1'00" 1:02
9 Olivier Babin – The War Of The Words 3:33
10 Throbbing Gristle – Sixty Seconds @ Tate Modern 1:03
11 Sébastien Tellier – Destination Miami 0:48
12 Effi Briest – Girls' Game, Baker, Lake Inuit 1:03
13 Discodeine – Choral 1:19
14 Anri Sala – Untitled 1:05
15 Camille Henrot – My Way 1:03
16 Daniel Johnston – Devil Town 1:04
17 Jonathan Caouette – Untitled 1:12
18 Le Volume Courbe – Little Death 1:06
19 Jens Hoffman / Valerio – Valerio Never Dies 0:33
20 Nobukazu Takemura – Untitled 1:08
21 Tarwater – Holle 1:01
22 Villeneuve – Umbrella 1:02
23 Zongamin – Hrhaharhtzaha! 1:06
24 Terrence Koh – Untitled 0:12
25 Cory Arcangel – Hello World 0:04
26 Brezel Göring – Kinder Panic Acoustique 0:46
27 Alan Vega – Love 1:02
28 Joakim – One MInute To Catch Up And Forget 1:02
29 Khan – Jingle 1:10
30 Lullatone – So Happy 1:08
31 Sun City Girls – Putting Coals On The Fire 1:02
32 Cyprien Gaillard / Koudlam – Eagles Of Africa 3:38
33 Devastations, The  – The Data Response 1:06
34 Fujiya & Miyagi – Untitled 0:33
35 Etienne Jaumet – Fondo Rosso 1:18
36 Henrik Vibskov – The Fantabulous Bicycle Music Factory 0:49
37 Satanicpornocultshop – Untitled 1:04
38 Hanayo – Untitled 1:01
39 Darri Lorenzen – Untitled 0:59

Cory Arcangel | The Bruce Springsteen Born To Run Glockenspiel Addendum

Cory Arcangel
The Bruce Springsteen Born To Run Glockenspiel Addendum
New York City, USA: self-published, 2006
12" vinyl LP
Bruce Springsteen's classic "Born To Run" album features three songs with glockenspiel accompaniment. Here Arcangel adds glockenspiel to the remaining tracks, recorded solo with the instruction that this record be played alongside the Springsteen original.