Happy Birthday to Paul Van Kooy

 

Happy Birthday to Paul Van Kooy, of Paul+Wendy Projects. 

Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber | Wound Salt

Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber

Wound Salt

Sackville, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2023

4.5 x 9.5 cm.

Edition of 50 signed + numbered copies

Very pleased to announce a new edition by Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber, an engraved glass salt shaker. It’s available here, for $65.00 CDN. 

Is putting salt on a wound good or bad? The idiom suggests the “rubbing in” of unpleasant circumstances, but in practice can function as a home remedy for speeding up the healing of wounds and cuts. A great gift for both friends and foes.

Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber are founding members of The Royal Art Lodge, and have continued a collaborative practice since the collective disbanded in 2008. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. They were shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award in 2014. Dumontier and Farber’s work is included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery and Winnipeg Art Gallery as well as Takashi Murakami, Tokyo, Japan; La Maison Rouge, Paris, France; Centro De Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, Spain. See more of their work here. 

Wound Salt is the first of four projects we’ll announce this month, leading up to a Multiples Pop-Up Shop in Toronto on the 17th. 

Happy Birthday to Michael Dumontier

Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber | Tear of Sorrow / Tear of Joy

Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber 

Tear of Sorrow / Tear of Joy

Toronto, Canada: Paul + Wendy Projects, 2023

20 x 30" each pillow

Edition size unknown

The first Paul + Wendy Projects project was a silkscreen print by the Royal Art Lodge, called Poster Making. It was one of the group's final works, when the collective had winnowed down to the trio of Marcel Dzama, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber. 

Their next two editions were prints by Dumontier and Farber individually, and they worked with the artists on another six projects, ranging from rubber stamps to puzzles. 

Tear of Sorrow / Tear of Joy is the 72nd edition from Paul + Wendy Projects, a pair of screen printed pillowcases by Dumontier and Farber. The works are heat set with non-toxic fabric ink on 100% cotton and  accompanied by a card, signed by the artists (see above, bottom). 

The crying eye graphic has previously adorned a pair of mugs, for Border Crossing magazine (see earlier post, here). 

The pillow cases are available for $90 CDN, from the publisher, here. 

Neil Farber

Happy Birthday to Neil Farber.

Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber | Library

Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber

Library

Montreal, Canada: Drawn & Quarterly, 2021

108 pp., 7.4 x 7.3", hardcover

Edition size unknown

The final collaboration between the Royal Art Lodge (then consisting only of Dumontier, Farber and Marcel Dzama) was an accordion-fold, oblong book titled The Books I've Read, published by Martha Street. It's a long screen-printed drawing with some unique additions in pen. I framed my copy and hung it high over some other works in the bedroom of my previous house. Once I was drinking the final bit of cola from a bottle and had to tilt my head back, and I noticed a title I hadn't seen before: "I'll Give You A Punch." Alone in the room, I laughed out loud, almost enough for the Coke to come out through my nose. 

The paintings in this title continue the idea of imagined books, simply rendered and with handwritten titles. Produced between 2013 to 2021, the paintings are reproduced here in a 1:1 scale. The over-a-hundred examples include deadpan jokes, sly observations and the duo's typical clever wordplay. For example: 

The Third Anniversary Of Our Fourth Kiss

My Sing Alongs Were Now Sing Alone

Amoral But Artistic Photographs

You Won't End Up Where You Plan But You Still Need The Plan

My Way Is The Highway

I Have a Medical Condition That Makes it So I Don't Have to Talk to You

My Mom Made Me Out of Food

Things Changed For The Better Then Quickly Changed Back

Slippers Advocate 

Jen and Ed Kernaghan are thanked in the colophon and I suspect the Toronto collectors own many of the original works reproduced here. I accompanied Michael and Neil to their home once, for a nice dinner, and their front rooms are covered floor to ceiling with these paintings, as the poor iPhone pics below will attest.