Dan Graham | Rock My Religion

Dan Graham

Rock My Religion

Cambridge, USA: MIT Press, 1993

330 pp., 20 x 27.5 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

Sharing its title with Graham's celebrated 1984 film (scored by Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth), this volume collects eighteen essays written by the late artist between 1965 and 1990. These include articles rejected by magazines such as Artforum, Arts, Esquire, ZG and Screen, and published by Aspen Magazine, Vito Acconci and Bernadette Mayer's 0 - 9, Open Letter (Toronto), Real Life (New York), Parachute (Montreal), Art Press (Paris), and (eventually) Artforum. 

The volume is divided into three sections: "Information: Conceptual Art/Magazines/The Sixties", "Performance: Punk Rock, Popular Culture, Theater" and "Architecture: Art/Design/Urbanism". Each alternates between descriptions and documentation of Graham's own projects with his writings about other artists (Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Gordon Matta-Clark, Bruce Nauman) and musicians (The Ramones, Devo, Patti Smith, The Sex Pistols, The Runaways, Lydia Lunch, The Slits). 

The title essay traces the parallels not only between religion and rock music, but between rock music and propaganda, rock music and capitalism, politics, the media, etc. etc. 

Flipping through it today - for the first time in years - I'm most enjoying a text about Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. It recounts the story of the band Adam and the Ants asking the impresario to help "reshape their image". McLaren began by ousting Adam as the lead singer, replacing him with fourteen year-old Annabella Lwin (and briefly, also, George Alan O'Dowd, who would later achieve superstardom as Boy George). Changing the band's name to Bow Wow Wow, he wrote the controversial lyrics to their songs which ranged from the innuendo-laden "Sexy Eiffel Tower" (complete with faux-orgasmic panting by the adolescent singer) and songs promoting cassette piracy (released on the largest record label at the time). 

The book includes Graham's influential interventions in newspapers and magazines, such as Detumesecence (1969) and Figurative (1965), important texts such as Homes for America (1966-67),  performative works like Performer/Audience/Mirror (1977) and early forays into public art, including 

Children's Pavilion (1989), a collaboration with Jeff Wall. 

Wall also provides a blurb for the dust jacket:

"Dan Graham's essays are essential reading for everyone interested in the big issues in art and culture since the 60s - and some of the little issues too." 

as does Kim Gordon: 

"Dan was the first person to encourage me to write. By participating in performance of his involving an all-girl band he also encouraged me to play music. Sonic Youth would never have existed without Dan Graham. Rock My Religion is a fresh momento of Dan's perceptive brilliant and friendship". 

Rock My Religion spans twenty-five years of Graham's work, which would continue for another thirty-two, until his death on Saturday at the age of 79.  

Lucy R. Lippard | 955,000

Lucy R. Lippard

955,000

Vancouver, Canada: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1970

138 pp., 10 x 15.5 cm., loose leaves

Edition size unknown

The landmark exhibition catalogue for Lucy Lippard's landmark exhibition of the same name, which ran from January 13th to February 8th, 1970, at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The title refers to the population of Vancouver at the time (it's estimated to be almost three times the number now: 2,606,351). 

The publication was the first in a series of titles by Lippard which were titled after the population of the city in which the exhibition was held (Seattle 557,087, Buenos Aires 2,972,453). For these exhibitions each participating artist was invited to produce one or two cards to represent their work. The texts consisted primarily of proposals, scores and conceptual works. These cards were then placed in an envelope, in no arranged order - alongside an introduction and bibliography - and sold as a catalogue for $3.

Among the 62 artists in the exhibition were: Vito Acconci, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Greg Curnoe, Hannah Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Dan Graham,  Eva Hesse, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Barry Le Va, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, The N.E.Thing Company, Adrian Piper, Ed Ruscha, Fred Sandback, Jeff Wall, Lawrence Weiner, Ian Wilson, and many others. 

New Documents produced a facsimile reprint in 2012, but it has already sold out. 

Jeff Wall | Fortified Door

Jeff Wall
Fortified Door
London, UK: Phaidon, 2008
280 pp., 20.75" x 16.75", boxed hardcover
Edition of 100 [+ 10 AP]


A signed and numbered silver gelatin print with a custom-bound special edition of the hardcover book featuring 185 colour and 30 black and white illustrations, housed in a cloth-covered custom clamshell box.


"The documentary image Fortified Door is a portrait of urban defense that denies entry not only to visitors but also to the viewer. Tightly cropped and shot nearly head-on, it offers little information about its location or context—although small clues can be found at the edges of the photo. The door and the picture of it share a particularly ambivalent position in time, quoting idioms from the past but bearing traces of the present.

The Survey by Thierry de Duve, author of Pictorial Nominalism and The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp, proposes an alternative history of modernism. Critic and curator Arielle Pelenc talks with the artist on themes ranging from storytelling to cinematography. Boris Groys, author of Contemporary Art from Moscow, focuses on the meaning of light in Jeff Wall's work. The Update section by French art critic and historian of photograpy Jean-Francois Chevrier surveys Wall's work from 1995 to the present. The artist has chosen texts by Blasie Pascal and Franz Kafka for the Artist's Choice, and the Artist's Writings celebrate Wall as an art historian and theorist by including key essays and important interviews."

— Phaidon

A self-titled exhibition of Wall's work opens two weeks today (April 30) at Gagosian Gallery in NYC, with a reception from 6 to 8pm. The exhibition continues until June 22nd.

Jeff Wall turns 72 today