Loud Objects | Noise Toys

Loud Objects
Noise Toys
Brooklyn, USA: Physical Editions, 2017
Dimensions unknown
Edition size unknown

Founded in 2005 by Tristan Perich, Katie Shima, and Kunal Gupta, Loud Objects aim to "make electronic music visible". The Brooklyn-based trio is known for building their own audio hardware, often onstage, while an overhead projector displays their actions to the audience.

Similar to the FM3 Buddha Boxes (see next post), these circuitboard synths feature looped drones in miniaturized versions of the music chips the band uses in their live performances. They are available in five different sounds: "Butterfly", "Sunrise, "Manatees", "Broccoli" and "Oracle".

They are available for $30 each, or a set of five for $120, at the group's band camp site, here:

https://loudobjects.bandcamp.com/merch/noise-toys-5-pack-special

Camila Oliveira Fairclough | Sticky Fingers

Camila Oliveira Fairclough

Sticky Fingers

Paris, France: We Do Not Work Alone, 2016

15.5 cm.

Edition size unknown

Stamped plastic cocktail stirrers, as part of the "Usual Objects by Artists" series. 

Available from the publisher, here, for 5 €.

Jenny Holzer | Inflammatory Essays: Shriek When the Pain Hits During Interrogation

Jenny Holzer
Inflammatory Essays: Shriek When the Pain Hits During Interrogation
Berlin, Germany: Texte zur Kunst, 1996
5 x 6.8 x1.27 cm.
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies [+ 20 A.P.]


Pewter with engraved text, and the artist's incised signature with edition number on the verso (along with the manufacturer: C. Roule Design, New York).

Estimated value: $2000 US.

Hannah Moffitt | Matchbook

Hannah Moffitt
Matchbook
Guelph, Canada: Self-published, 2017
5 x 5 x 1 cm.
Edition size unknown

Handmade motivational matchbooks as recruiting tool. The front cover reads "Call for the meek, the timid, the shy and the compliant. Be the you you've always wanted." The inner flap: "Learn to be decisive, assertive and independent. Midnight @ Guelph Covered Bridge (Gordon & Wellington)". On the back of the book it reads "May the bridges you burn light the way" and the spine identifies the organization as the "Wellington Count Coalition of Pyromaniacs".

Vienna Pighin | Single Use Functioning House Key

Vienna Pighin
Single Use Functioning House Key
Toronto, Canada: ESA, 2017
5 x 2 cm.
Edition size unknown

A resin cast of the artist's personal house key is available at the Toronto Art Book Fair, at the booth for Etobicoke School of the Arts, organized by Matthew Varey. The accompanying key chain identifies the title, which suggests both a warm, welcoming gesture, and perhaps a bit of a trap.

Oddly, the other purchase I made yesterday is a book called Hardcore Architecture, which uses Google Street View to present the homes behind the addresses in hardcore zines from the eighties where one would write away to purchase DIY cassettes, 7" singles or band merch.

⁄ edition Toronto

In advance of the 1/edition fair next week,  I will try post as many books and multiples as possible in the coming days from participating artists and publishers. Send photos and information to ddyment@rogers.com of works that will be launching at the fair.

Co-founded by Division Gallery Director Gareth Brown-Jowett and Magenta Foundation President MaryAnn Camilleri, /edition Toronto is "dedicated to the promotion of art book publishing, in all forms, while building an appreciation for artworks produced in editions of more than one."

The inaugural fair runs from October 28th to the 31st, concurrent to Art Toronto, Canada’s international art fair at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

 ⁄ edition is directed by Magenta Magazine editor and collector Bill Clarke. The advisory board consists of myself, Art Metropole curator Nasrin Himada, and the artists Paul Butler, Charles Stankievech and Danielle St. Amour. Co-presenters include Art Metropole and Art Toronto. Vendors include:

8/11 (Toronto, Canada)
Afterall (London, United Kingdom)
Akin Projects (Toronto, Canada)
Alicia’s Klassic Kool Shoppe (Toronto, Canada)
Archive of Modern Conflict (Toronto, Canada)
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
Art Gallery of York University (Toronto, Canada)
Art Metropole (Toronto, Canada)
Art Works Consulting (Toronto, Canada)
BALZERI BALZERI (Toronto, Canada)
Blank Cheque (Vancouver / Toronto, Canada)
Brown & Dickson (London, Canada)
Bywater Bros (Toronto, Canada)
C Magazine (Toronto, Canada)
Colour Code (Toronto, Canada)
CRIT Paper (Toronto, Canada)
Critical Distance Centre for Curators (Toronto, Canada)
Dashwood Books (New York, United States)
Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina, Canada)
Ediciones Daga (Santiago, Chile)
ELLEPHANT (Montréal, Canada)
GuyGuyGuy (Toronto, Canada)
Hex Editions (Toronto, Canada)
Holiday Arts Mail-Order School (Toronto, Canada)
HOMOCATS (Brooklyn, United States)
HOTAM (Vancouver, Canada)
IMPULSE [b:] (Toronto, Canada)
Issue Press (Grand Rapids, United States)
JMS Press (Toronto, Canada)
K. Verlag (Toronto, Canada / Berlin, Germany)
Kunstverein Toronto (Toronto, Canada)
Magenta Foundation / Division Gallery (Toronto, Canada)
McIntosh Gallery (London, Canada)
Mercer Union (Toronto, Canada)
Middle Path Prints (Toronto, Canada)
Mondo Books (Tromsø, Norway)
Nicolas Fleming (Toronto, Canada)
Nothing Else Press (Toronto, Canada)
OKAY Collective (Toronto, Canada)
Open Studio (Toronto, Canada)
Other Forms (Chicago, United States)
Parasitic Ventures Press (Toronto, Canada)
Paul + Wendy Projects (Toronto, Canada)
Perish Publishing (Toronto, Canada)
Prefix Photo (Toronto, Canada)
Presentation House (Vancouver, Canada)
Project Gallery Toronto (Toronto, Canada)
Rare Photo Gallery (Toronto, Canada)
Ray-Ray (Toronto, Canada)
Robert Tombs / L’Arène (Ottawa, Canada)
Sagan Editions (Toronto, Canada)
Scrap Books (Toronto, Canada)
Seth Fluker (Toronto, Canada)
Stephen Bulger Gallery (Toronto, Canada)
Steven Beckly (Toronto, Canada)
Swimmers Group (Toronto, Canada)
The Canadian Academy in Rome (Toronto, Canada)
The Power Plant (Toronto, Canada)
Troy Gronsdahl (Saskatoon, Canada)
Wil Aballe Art Projects | WAAP (Vancouver, Canada)
YYZ Artists’ Outlet (Toronto, Canada)
Zach Clark (Oakland, United States)

Jim Dine | Rainbow Faucet

Jim Dine
Rainbow Faucet
New York City, USA: Tanglewood Press Inc., 1966
2 5/8 x 3 3/4 x 5 1/2”
Edition of 75

Dine’s contribution to the Tanglewood Press publication Seven Objects in a Box, which also included works by Tom Wesselmann (Great American Nude), George Segal (Chicken), Allan D'Arcangelo (Side-View Mirror), Andy Warhol (Kiss), Claes Oldenburg (Baked Potato) and Roy Lichtenstein (Sunrise).

Rainbow Faucet is made from sand-cast aluminium, dipped in acrylic paint. Dine often used the rainbow motif in his drawings, paintings and prints (see below).


"When I use objects, I see them as a vocabulary of feelings."

- Jim Dine, interview in New York World Journal Tribune, 1966

"The title and subject of Rainbow Faucet show Jim Dine's interest in fusing imagination and everyday life. Dine chose a faucet as the focus for this piece because he spent much of his youth surrounded by tools in his grandfather's hardware store. The artist appreciates the formal and expressive potential of hardware and tools and keeps a stockpile of these in his studio for inspiration. However, he did not render the piece realistically, but rotated the fixture so that it stands upright. The plumbing fixture tapers to a droopy point and emits a rainbow-striped drop of water. Positioned vertically, the faucet looks goofy and resembles a phallus or an animal sticking out its tongue."

- Smithsonian American Art Museum

Ben Vautier | Theatre d'Art Total

Ben Vautier
Theatre d'Art Total
New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1967
9.5 x 12 x 1.5 cm.
Edition size unknown


“Did I do any Fluxus editions?", Ben Vautier asked in a telephone interview I conducted with him in 1994. "I think Maciunas did them all, for us. I used to send him ideas and I would never know what would happen with them. My ideas were more artistic, and then they always ended up in plastic boxes.” Several other artists have claimed to have not even seen the Fluxus boxed works attributed to them until many years later.

However, this edition inverts that paradigm. Vautier had these cards produced himself, and sent them to Maciunas in a clear plastic bag (the way they appeared in the subsequent Flux Year Box 2, see above). So they were typeset and printed without Maciunas' involvement, and even the label design is an almost entirely unaltered image of Vautier's vehicle, containing none of Maciunas' signature typographic flourishes. Apart from a copyright credit (to Fluxus, notably) all of the text that appears was painted by Vautier directly onto the automobile. It may be the Fluxus edition with the least input from Maciunas.

The box falls into the category of Fluxus multiples that aimed to provide the buyer with the "complete works" of an artist. Other examples include Hi Red Centre's Bundle of Events, George Brecht's Wateryam, and Meiko Shiomi's Events and Games. Vautier called the collection "my complete theatre, from 1964 on..." but the Fluxus Performance Workbook has compiled dozens of others seemingly not included in the boxes, which admittedly varied. The example held in the Harvard collection contains thirty cards, whereas a beat up copy in the Fondazione Bonotto collection contains only twenty-two. The above tiled image, for example, is missing "i did not kill george brecht during the fluxus festival, 1964", a card pictured in an example from Jon Hendricks' Fluxus Codex. 

The cards themselves address a series of concerns central to Vautier's thinking at the time.  These include destruction ("The Destruction of All Art is Art Too, Please Tear This Up"), suicide ("The only piece that lasts forever is death - kill yourself"), plagiarism and influence ("Since 1958 I copy, that's why I signed copying in 1958"), found materials ("Pick up anything at your feet)", the artist's ego ("Whenever you see art think of Ben...", "Art = Ben", "Just Look at Me"), self-doubt and the futility of art ("It's all nonsense", "I Doubt Everything") and his myriad contradictions ("Only I Ben do real anonymous art", "I Sign Everything", "I do not sign anymore").

Future multiples would re-address many of these ideas, including the matchbook to burn museums, the suicide kit and the God box and bottle (below).

The signing of intangible things (the truth, politics, copying) can be traced back to Yves Klein's signing the sky and the Living Sculptures of Piero Manzoni. In 1947, at age 19, Klein and his friends Arman and (composer) Claude Pascal were on a beach in the south of France and decided to divide the world between themselves. Arman chose the earth, Pascal chose words and Klein selected the sky. He then signed the sky in what he considered to be his first art work.

Vautier moved to Nice a couple of years later, and in the late-fifties opened a record store called Laboratoire 32. The boutique quickly became a meeting place and exhibition area where the principal members of what was to be called the Ecole de Nice (School of Nice) got together: César, Arman, Martial Raysse, and Yves Klein. Vautier became close with Klein and set out to sign whatever remained of the world - God, time, chickens, kicking, and perhaps most notably, holes (tunnels, manholes, assholes, drinking straws, etc. - see bottom of post).

The card "I did it in 1949" parodies the rush to be first in the contemporary art world, and suspicion of bogus biography (many Fluxus artists have expressed doubts about some of the dates in Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, for example). The card in which he confesses his copying illustrates his reverence to George Brecht (Cage and Duchamp are widely held as significant precursors to Fluxus, but Brecht was Vautier's contemporary).

Lastly, the boxed work introduces Vautier's concept of "Total Art" with the "Total Art Theatre: Just Look at Me", "Total Art Sculpture: Pick Up Anything At Your Feet", and "Total Art Poetry: Just Say Anything" cards. Vautier would continue performing mundane acts such as eating and sleeping as "total art" works for many years.