Yayoi Kusama | Yayoi Snow Globe

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Snow Globe

New York City, USA: The Museum of Modern Art, 2018

7 x 7 x 7 cm.

Edition size unknown

Sometime last year curator Matthew Higgs proposed on Instagram that someone write a book on the subject of “Artist’s Merch”. He posted an image of David Shrigley’s Heroin and Cocaine salt & pepper shakers to illustrate his point. 

This Yayoi Snow Globe snow globe would better represent the idea of Artists’ Merch - museum gift shop shlock that borrows the form of an artist’s edition. Items made with little input from the artist, designed as a keepsake souvenir of the accompanying exhibition. 

I have a Yoko Ono snowdome that fits the bill: produced by the Art Gallery of Ontario when they presented her YES retrospective, it consisted of two snow related texts from Grapefruit inserted into one of those cheap “add your own picture” globes. 

I’m happy to have it, and would likely pick up Yayoi Snow Globe, on sale. 

It’s a small glass and resin snowglobe featuring a portrait of the artist dressed in her signature red and white polka-dot patterned dress. When shaken, mirrored orbs not unlike those from Kusama's iconic Narcissus Garden float gracefully within the globe, in place of snow. 

 

 

Felix Gonzalez-Torres | Untitled (Perfect Lovers)

Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Untitled (Perfect Lovers)

Self-published, 1987 - 1990

(34.3 x 68.6 x 3.2 cm)

Edition of 3 [+1 AP]

For all the talk of Marcel Duchamp’s influence, there are very few artists whose signature works are readymades. Tracey Emin’s disheveled bed? The kitschy shelf collections of Haim Steinbach? Jeff Koons’ basket balls and vacuum cleaners?1 

But the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres often involved unaltered found materials, and when they didn’t, rarely showed any trace of the artist’s hand. Piles of candies, a string of lightbulbs and two cheap wall clocks are the works that come to mind when considering his brief but highly influential practice.  

The two store-bought clocks that constitute Untitled (Perfect Lovers) are to be hung above head height, touching, and should be synchronized at the time of their installation, according to the artist’s instructions. Because of the inconsistency of the batteries that power them, they would eventually fall asynchronous, if only by a few seconds. The decision as to whether or not to reset them fell to the curators. 

Positioned side-by-side, they form a kind of infinity symbol, a connection the artist made overt in other works (see below). Together with the parenthetical title, this infinity becomes a form of enduring love.

Indeed, the work is deeply romantic upon first reading (and always a favorite of students - one of mine had the graphic tattooed on her arm), but becomes more complicated upon deeper reflection. 

While the artist was reluctant to allow personal biography into the work, he did concede that Perfect Lovers could be viewed as a portrait of himself and his lover, Calgarian Ross Laycock.2 

Laycock’s death from AIDS in 1991 - five years prior to Gonzalez-Torres’ death from the same, makes the work resonate even more powerfully. But given that the work was produced at the height of the AIDS crisis (and the dismal response from the Reagan government) it could be viewed as a work about queer love in general.3

"Two clocks side by side,” the artist said, "are much more threatening to the powers that be than an image of two guys sucking each other’s dicks, because they cannot use me as a rallying point in their battle to erase meaning. It is going to be very difficult for members of Congress to tell their constituents that money is being expended for the promotion of homosexual art when all they have to show are two plugs side by side or two mirrors side by side."

Gonzalez-Torres also spoke about the work strictly in terms of a fear or time: 

"Time is something that scares me. . . or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scariest thing I have ever done. I wanted to face it. I wanted those two clocks right in front of me, ticking.” 

But in a 1988 typed work called Lovers (above) he writes “Don’t be afraid of the clocks, they are our time, the time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain TIME in a certain space.4 We are a product of the time, therefore we give back credit where it is due: time. We are synchronized, now forever. I love you.”

The double or repeated image brings to mind a long list of works in contemporary art, from Robert Rauschenberg’s 1957 work Factum to Candice Breitz’ videos of the same name, using twin siblings. And - mostly unrelated - Brian Eno in the documentary Imaginary Landscapes, describing the collaboration of musicians playing the same melody. He seems to stumble into the metaphor, and there’s no record of him repeating it anywhere else, so it may have just occurred to him in the moment:

"If you saw a Jackson Pollock painting and right next to it you saw another one that was identical, it would be very shocking, wouldn’t it? To see another identical version. Because whereas the first one was done like that [gesticulates wildly with his arm], the second one would have to be done with a one-hair brush. So there’s a dichotomy between the freedom [of the first] and the meticulousness of the perfect copy of it. It would be very hard to make a perfect copy of a Jackson Pollock. But if you saw either one of them on their own, you would only see the freedom of it. It’s seeing the two of them together that tells you that there’s also a, ah, conspiracy. That’s the only the word I can use.”5

The notion of duplication is strengthened by the countless cover versions of the work, one as recent as last week. “Paraconceptual” artist and designer Tobias Wong6 perfected Perfect Lovers by recreating the piece using clocks synchronized to the U.S. atomic clock, which tells time accurate to one second every million years.

With their now iconic status, it’s natural to forget that Perfect Lovers was typically presented in peripheral spaces, like the gallery’s back office, or behind the reception desk. It’s also easy to forget the work is an edition. And - until Matthew Higgs’ Instagram post yesterday - I had no idea that it was once offered for sale for as little as three-hundred and fifty dollars (a good reminder that editioned work can be an excellent investment). 

1.  Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank and The New were quickly overtaken in Koons’ oeuvre by more traditional sculptural. An online search of ‘Jeff Koons’ requires scrolling down pages and pages past balloon dogs and rabbits, flower dogs and Michael Jackson and Bubbles before the floating basket balls and vacuum cleaners in perspex appear.  

 

2. Read Greg Allen’s tribute to Laycock, here: https://greg.org/archive/2009/11/30/on-remembering-ross-laycock.html

3. The identical nature of the clocks support this reading.

4. What could be more romantic than the idea that our love is not born of fate, but that it conquers fate, beating the odds of two like-minded people ever coming together at the right time and place? 

5. https://vimeo.com/84186635?ref=em-share

6. Born in Vancouver in 1974, Tobi Wong took his own life in New York City, in 2010. 

"In October 1988 Felix Gonzalez-Torres first showed his iconic masterpiece ‘Perfect Lovers’ (the best contemporary artwork?) at White Columns in a three-artist exhibition entitled ‘Real World’ (with Lorna Simpson and Jon Tower.) On this occasion the work was dated “1984, 1987” and priced at $350.00 in an edition of three. (None sold!) The work was hung on the wall above the gallery’s desk. The subsequent version of this work, now titled “Untitled” (Perfect Lovers) and dated 1987-1990, was shown at Jay Gorney’s gallery in 1990 in an edition of three plus one AP. Three examples from this edition are now in the collections of @dallasmuseumart @glenstonemuseum and @thewadsworth (the fourth example is in a private collection.) A subsequent unique version dated 1991 (with white rimmed clocks and the option to paint the wall pale blue) is in MoMA’s collection [below, top]. The Wikipedia entry for ‘Perfect Lovers’ makes no mention of the earlier manifestation of this work shown at White Columns in October 1988. The gallery was located at 325 Spring Street at the time. Bill Arning was the director.”

- Matthew Higgs

Jeremy Deller | The Battle of Orgreave (photo album)

Jeremy Deller

The Battle of Orgreave (photo album)

London, UK: Artangel, 2001

4.75 x 7.125 x 0.25”

Edition of 150 signed and numbered copies

The last of the deep coal mining pits in the UK closed in December of 2015, with layoffs to 450 workers. In the first half of the 20th century there were over a thousand collieries in the country. By 1983, only 174 working pits remained. 

In 1984, the Thatcher government announced plans to close an additional 20 collieries, with a loss of over 20,000 jobs. Many communities in Northern England, Scotland and Wales stood to lose their primary source of employment. This led to the largest strike in the country since the 1926 General Strike. At its peak, 142,000 mineworkers were involved.

On June 18th, police in riot gear clashed with picketing miners outside of a coking plant in the South Yorkshire village of Orgreave. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, historian Tristram Hunt described the confrontation as "almost medieval in its choreography... at various stages a siege, a battle, a chase, a rout and, finally, a brutal example of legalized state violence."

Accounts vary, but between six and nine thousand officers were deployed to respond to eight thousand picketers. Between forty and sixty of the officers were on horseback, and several thousand were in full riot gear. They were assisted by dozens of attack dogs. The mounted police charged against the picketing miners, striking them with batons and seriously injuring over a hundred participants.

Harry Paterson writes in Look Back in Anger; the Miners’ Strike in Nottingham (Five Leaves, 2014) that the picketers were "mercilessly battered by police officers in full riot-gear, flailing away indiscriminately with truncheons, while mounted officers charged fleeing bands of men, desperate to escape. On the miners’ side, barricades were erected and bricks and stones were hurled into the mêlée. A car from a nearby scrap-yard was dragged into the middle of the road and set alight and police pursued the miners into the nearby village, through gardens and houses, hammering down all they caught."

Television footage was edited to make it appear that the miners had instigated the police by throwing rocks, causing them to retaliate in self-defense. Not until 1991 did the British Broadcasting Corporation offer an apology for misleading the public about the event, by claiming that the footage had been “inadvertently reversed” and that the stone-throwing was actually a result of police aggression.

Paterson argues that that there is little doubt that the police action was "pre-planned, deliberate and sanctioned at the highest level of the South Yorkshire force." Barrister Michael Mansfield agrees: "They wanted to teach the miners a lesson – a big lesson, such that they wouldn't come out in force again."

Right-wing political activist and Margaret Thatcher’s favourite fixer David Hart confirmed as much in 1993: “It was a set-up by us on a battle ground of our choosing.  The fact is that it was a set-up and it worked brilliantly.”

Calls for public inquiries into the handling of the police action have been routinely rejected. Former editor of the conservative magazine the Spectator, Charles Moore celebrated a recent rejection as a victory, suggesting that any inquiry would be a "travesty", and a sure indication that we "would have entered the world according to [left-wing filmmaker] Ken Loach."

On June 17th, 2001, the battle that has been called "one of the most violent clashes in British industrial history" became the subject of a work by artist Jeremy Deller. Working with the events company EventPlan Ltd and a cast of almost a thousand, he staged a re-enactment of the action. Whereas most historical re-enactments favour deep history, such as the Civil War, or Medieval battles for cosplay enthusiasts, The Battle of Orgreave re-enacts something from living memory, only seventeen years prior.

Alongside over five hundred seasoned re-enactors, approximately 280 local residents took part in the performance, including many picketers and police officers who were involved in the original encounter. Deller reportedly arranged to have the officers portraying the miners and vice-versa.

The event became the subject of a Channel 4 documentary by Hollywood filmmaker Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode, etc). It is available on DVD from Cornerhouse publications, and can be viewed on Youtube, here.

The above edition, valued at approximately £2500, consists of 19 chromogenic prints on Fujicolour Professional paper, housed in a plastic photo album and cardboard box with a rubber-stamped title. 

"Jeremy Deller's The Battle of Orgreave is one of the greatest works of public art staged in the U.K. (and probably anywhere)".

- Matthew Higgs

"In 1998 I saw an advert for an open commission for Artangel. For years I had had this idea to re-enact this confrontation that I had witnessed as a young person on TV, of striking miners being chased up a hill and pursued through a village. It has since become an iconic image of the 1984 strike – having the quality of a war scene rather than a labour dispute. I received the commission, which I couldn't believe, because I actually didn't think it was possible to do this. After two years' research, the re-enactment finally happened, with about eight-hundred historical re-enactors and two-hundred former miners who had been part of the original conflict. Basically, I was asking the re-enactors to participate in the staging of a battle that occurred within living memory, alongside veterans of the campaign. I've always described it as digging up a corpse and giving it a proper post-mortem, or as a thousand-person crime re-enactment.”

- Jeremy Deller

Stephen Willats | Balcony

Stephen Willats

Balcony

London, UK: Imprint93, 1994

staple-bound

Edition size unknown

"Xerox printing with stapled binding. I personally hand made all of the copies! (Probably no more than 125-150 in total.) I made the dust jackets from grease proof paper from the supermarket! (It changes color over time!)"

- Matthew Higgs

Wolfgang Tillmans | The W.C. #45: Sleaford Mods

Wolfgang Tillmans

The W.C. #45: Sleaford Mods

New York City, USA: White Columns, 2014

28 pp., 27.9 × 21.6 cm., staple-bound

Edition of 150 numbered copies

The Sleaford Mods are a post-punk duo from Nottingham, consisting of vocalist Jason Williamson and musician Andrew Fearn. They have described their sound as "electronic munt minimalist punk-hop rants for the working class." 

I saw them perform during the Toronto stop on the English Tapas tour. Williamson commanded the stage with a strut that veered into prance (and almost peacocking), while never seeming like an affectation. Fearn - rather than twiddling knobs in a way that falsely suggests a wrong move would topple the show - simply pressed play on his laptop and spent the rest of the song drinking beer, nodding his head to the track. 

The band's lyrics take a passionate, raw, no-holds-barred look at austerity-era Britain.

“B.H.S.”, for example, takes its title from the defunct department chain British Home Stores. When they shuttered their doors in 2016, 11,000 employees lost their jobs, and 22,000 former employees were without their retirement funds. Billionaire retail tycoon Sir Philip Green had absconded with £400 million in dividends and was seen sailing the Mediterranean on a newly-purchased super-yacht (his third) as the last stores closed.

"T.C.R." uses the name of a children's toy race game as a metaphor for the mindless endless loop many find their lives stuck in: 

The trappings of luxury can't save you from the nail-biting boredom of repetitive brain injury

The injury of your useless mind, stuck to the track

Clinging onto years of that's not yours that's mine, give me it

Total Control Racing, TCR

Going round and round, under the bridges

Slowing down, it's all about technique

Hand shandy chic, under five seconds flat

The tragedy of the male-less fucking man

Yesterday, the Sleaford Mods released their 12th LP, UK Grim. In a four-star review, the NME states "their dumpster fire melodrama remains vital". 

The W.C. is billed as White Columns' "in-house 'zine, which functions as codas to our exhibitions and public programs." Previous issues have been authored by Billy Childish, Simon Evans, Aubrey Mayer, Primary Information, etc.

Issue #45 features a text by Scott King, chronicling an obsession with the Sleaford Mods, alongside images of the duo by famed photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. The edition is numbered but not signed (the above copy was signed a year after publication, on 9/11). 

The issue sold out quickly. A second edition of 150 copies was later released, now selling for around $250. 

A third edition is available from the White Columns website, here, for $25 US. 

Bob and Roberta Smith | Pointless

Bob and Roberta Smith
Pointless
London, UK: Imprint 93, 1994
[18] pp., 22 cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

A photocopied artist's book consisting of connect-the-dots illustrations and accompanying misspelled texts. Includes a pencil rubber-stamped with the title.

Published by Matthew Higgs' under the auspices of his Imprint 93, which ran for 6 years and produced works by Billy Childish, Martin Creed, Jeremy Deller, Peter Doig, Ceal Floyer, Elizabeth Peyton, Chris Ofili, Jessica Voorsanger, Stephen Willats and others.

The New York Artists’ Memorial Garden

In late April, the Art Production Fund and White Columns launched a joint venture called “The New York Artists’ Memorial Garden”, featuring benches by Laurie Anderson, Judith Bernstein, Barbara Bloom, Rafael Ferrer, John Giorno, Hans Haacke, Joan Jonas, Alex Katz, Glenn Ligon, Zoe Leonard, Jonas Mekas, Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono, Elizabeth Peyton, Jack Pierson, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lawrence Weiner and others.

Based on a curatorial initiative of Matthew Higgs, “The New York Artists’ Memorial Garden” is an extension of an existing NYC Parks “Adopt-A-Bench” program, which allows individuals to create a personal memorial for a loved one in a public space. Thirty-four New York- based artists were invited to dedicate a park bench to a person – or an entity – of their choosing.

The subjects of the dedications include author and activist James Baldwin, filmmaker Maya Deren, musician Alice Coltrane and art historian Linda Nochlin. Martha Rosler dedicated hers to David Antin, whom she describes as "Poet, mentor, friend, foe".

The benches are located in Jackson Square Park, open from 6am to 1am daily, and on view for the next ten years.

William Wegman

William Wegman signing prints at White Columns today, for the 2019 White Columns Print Portfolio, which also includes works by Alvaro Barrington, Katherine Bradford, Scott Covert, Arthur Jafa, Caitlin Keogh.

Contact White Columns to purchase, here.

(Image courtesy of matthewhiggs2015).

Martin Creed/Matthew Higgs | Issue 13

Martin Creed/Matthew Higgs

Issue 13

San Francisco, USA: The Thing Quarterly, 2010

41.5 x 32 x 1 cm. 

Edition size uknown

A boxed picture-disk record featuring the Martin Creed song "My Advice", mixed by David Cunningham and featuring vocals by Creed and Anouchka Grose. Creed's portrait adorns the A-side and the B-side features an image of artist/curator Matthew Higgs, with what seems to be his sole contribution to the collaborative project. 

Imprint93 at Printed Matter

Imprint93, an archive exhibition of Mattew Higgs' stellar mail art publishing venture opens tomorrow evening at Printed Matter, from six to eight pm. 

Artist, writer and current Director of White Columns, Higgs published and disseminated over fifty works under the banner of Imprint93, between the years 1993 and 1998. Higgs invited artists to create works of art that could fit inside an envelope to be distributed, unsolicited, by mail to an informal group of friends, artists, and curators. Mostly printed on an office photocopier, Higgs self-financed the production and mailing costs. 

The artists involved were often at the beginnings of their careers, working on the periphery of the then emerging 'YBA' movement. Their subsequent success speaks to Higgs' keen eye and knowledge of the scene. The exhibition features the work of Fiona Banner, Martin Creed, Jeremy Deller, Peter Doig, Ceal Floyer, Alan Kane, Hilary Lloyd, Paul Noble, Chris Ofili, Elizabeth Peyton, Bob and Roberta Smith, Jessica Voorsanger and Stephen Willats, and many others. Highlights include Martin Creed’s Work no. 88 (1994) - a crumpled ball of A4 paper that the Tate Gallery returned flattened inside an envelope, 'rejected' as an unsolicited donation.

Originating at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2016, this presentation marks the first North American showing of the project in its entirety, including many rarely-seen works and related ephemera. 

Accompanying the exhibition are reissues of editions by Jeremy Deller, Peter Doig, and Martin Creed (signed and numbered, edition of 50 each), as as well as a second printing of Elizabeth Peyton's Untitled Imprint contribution, a zine featuring video stills of Kurt Cobain performing in 1993.