RIP Shane McGowan. 

William Wegman | Writing by Artist

William Wegman

Writing by Artist 

New York City, USA: Primary Information, 2022

352 pp., 28 x 21 cm., softcover

Edition of 4500

"Writing by Artist is the first collection to focus on William Wegman’s lengthy and deeply funny relationship to language and is filled with previously unknown and wildly entertaining texts, drawings, and early photographs spanning the early 1970s to the present.

Not your standard book of essays, the publication was meticulously edited by Andrew Lampert to feature works incorporating words in one form or another. In some instances, the text is simply a caption or a few hand-written words, but all of the selected works hinge conceptually and pictorially on writing and language.

Writing by Artist offers a wide range of entry points into the artist’s universe. There are early photographic works, which may be familiar, but from there, things delightfully unravel with absurd non-sequiturs typed on Princess Cruises stationary, imagined restaurant reviews, witty annotations to a curator’s essay, musings on ancient footwear, deliberate mistranslations, reworked greeting cards, fictional advertisements for real life products, and other surprising prose forms.

Ultimately, Writing by Artist alters the logic and pushes the boundaries of what artist writing can be—shedding new light for those only familiar with Wegman’s later work, while serving as a welcome reminder of the artist’s madcap inventiveness for the already enlightened. In short, what you do or don’t know about William Wegman now conveniently fits into this strangely beguiling collection."

- publisher's press release

William Wegman turns 78 today. 

A limited number of signed copies are currently available from the publisher for only $30.00, here. 

Robert Breer and William Wegman | Blue Monday flipbook

 

Robert Breer and William Wegman

Blue Monday flipbook

Manchester, UK: Factory Records, 1988

[30 pp], 12.7 x 18.2 cm., softcover

Edition of 350

Factory Records catalogue number FAC235 was a flip-book signed by staff members and sent to friends as a promotional gift for Christmas 1988. It features design by Peter Saville and illustrations by Robert Breer. The sketches are from the music video for Blue Monday 88, which also featured William Wegman's Weimaraner Fay. 

There were reportedly 350 manufactured and 250 distributed. The copies above were signed Factory Records founders Alan Erasmus and Tony Wilson and by artist Robert Breer. 

Copies offered typically range from one to two thousand dollars. Breer's other flip books are in this price range, also. 

Factory Records & Visual Artists

Michael H. Shamberg (1952-2014) was an artist, filmmaker, video producer, and the head of Factory Records US, which he ran out of an office above White Columns gallery at 325 Spring Street. 

From 1975 to 1977, he worked at The Kitchen in New York, as a video assistant. Here he organized screenings and video installations by artists such as Vito Acconci, Dan Graham, Nancy Holt, Lawrence Weiner and Robert Wilson. He was the Director of Photography on two of Lawrence Weiner's 1976 videos: Do you Believe in Water? and A Bit of Matter and a Little Bit More. 

When he began making videos with Factory Records bands such as New Order and A Certain Ratio he invited filmmakers from the art world to direct them. Robert Longo shot New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” in 1986 and Robert Frank filmed "Run 2" in 1989. William Wegman shot one of several music videos for the song "Blue Monday" and Chris Marker shot "Getting Away With It" by New Order side-project Electronic. 

Shamberg asked Kathryn Bigelow to film New Order's 1987 video for "Touched by the Hand of God", a few years before her breakthrough feature films (Blue Steel, Point Break, and Strange Days) and over twenty years before her Oscar winning film The Hurt Locker. 

He invited John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger and Lawrence Weiner to create the posters for New Order events. 

For the rest of the week I'll post examples of album covers, posters and promotional materials designed by Lawrence Weiner, John Baldessari, Barbara Kruger, Robert Breer and others. 

 

William Wegman: Video Tapes, Photographic Works, Arrangements

William Wegman
William Wegman: Video Tapes, Photographic Works, Arrangements
Claremont, USA: Pomona College Art Galery, 1971
32 pp., 38 b&w illustrations, staple-bound
Edition size unknown


The first monograph on the work of William Wegman is a slim catalogue published to accompany the artist's 1971 one-person exhibition of photographs and video works at the Pomona College Art Gallery. The show was curated by Helene Winer, who contributes a text to the catalogue, which also includes a chronology and exhibition history.

"The photographic works are either single or in series of two or more, and fall into several categories. In the works that explore sameness vs. difference, Wegman compares superficially identical items, or twins to emphasize the enormous subtle differences that are naturally present. His works that deal with sameness vs. change concentrate on manipulated differences. The changes are such that the composition as a whole appears the same in all the photographs of a series. This is most surprising in one set of photographs, using objects in the artist's studio. where the altered details are extensive. Almost every item in the scene is in duplicate in one of the two photographs. The comparison of "big and little" in Wegman's terms, involves the use of objects whose only essential difference is size. One such work is a photograph of the artist, posed with various tools. He 1s standing next to a larger man of some resemblance who is holding the same but larger tools in a similar arrangement. The shadow of a duck that appears to be cast on the wall by a crow, in another work, represents the incongruities present in many of Wegman's single photographic pieces."

- Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972

The rare title is available from Jeff Hirsch Books, for $100, here. 

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).

Happy Xmas [War is Over]

I am in agreement with the Brits, who consistently vote Fairytale of New York City by the Pogues with Kirsty MacColl as the greatest Christmas song ever. Also in my top five are John and Yoko's Happy Xmas [War is Over], and the lesser known Christmas at the Zoo by the Flaming Lips (here).

So the recent collaboration between Ono and the Flaming Lips, covering Happy Xmas would (on paper) seem like an ideal addition to my small playlist of acceptable Christmas music. It is not.
While it's likely not the worst version of the song (surely that would go to REO Speedwagon or Celine Dion, though I've heard neither), it is certainly less than the sum of its parts.

If you're curious, or a completist, it can be downloaded at Amazon, here.

Fairy Tale of New York City is available on The Best of The Pogues, below, with a cover by William Wegman.

Artists and their books

Album covers by artists: William Wegman