Rosemarie Trockel | Moscow-Boston

Rosemarie Trockel
Moscow-Boston
Boston, USA: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1991
3.75 x 4.25 x 1"
Edition of 37 (+3 AP) signed and numbered copies


Commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Art for their "Limited Editions Series", this faux crocodile patterned leather Russian billfold was produced following the artist's first trip to the USSR, made with the staff of the ICA. The object included inside the wallet (pills, coins, bills, a coupon, a black and white photograph with a handwritten note, a postcard mailed from the US, a bill, a ticket, a hand-scrawled note, etc.) are intended to imply a narrative.

Available for $1594.53 from D&E Lake, here.

London Art Book Fair announces Martin Creed performance

"The London Art Book Fair 2014
Whitechapel Gallery

Opening night: Thursday 25 September 2014, 6pm

This free fair at the Whitechapel Gallery presents the best in international contemporary art publishing.

Browse artists’ books, rare art publications and catalogues from over 80 publishers. Enjoy a packed programme of talks and events over the weekend, including print and bookmaking workshops and signings by leading artists and authors.

The opening event of the London Art Book Fair will feature a live set by Turner Prize-winning artist and musician Martin Creed. Treating the audience to a short performance of his catchy, humorous songs, Creed will kick-off a full weekend of performance, talks and workshops.

See the full exhibitor list, events programme and special projects at: thelondonartbookfair.org

Opening: Thursday 25 September, 6-9pm (featuring a special live performance from Martin Creed)
Hours: Friday 26 September, 11am–9pm / Saturday 27 & Sunday 28, 11am–6pm

Follow us on Twitter @TheLABF"

- press release

Roula Partheniou & Joy Walker | Full Circle

Roula Partheniou & Joy Walker
Full Circle
Toronto, Canada: Canadian Art Foundation, 2014
13.5 x 13.5 cm
Edition of 1000

The Canadian Art Foundation's annual Gala Dinner and Auction is being held tonight at the Kool Haus in Toronto. Artists involved include John Armstrong, Dean Baldwin, BGL (representing Canada in Venice next year), Sarah Cale, Tammi Campbell, Greg Curnoe, Michel de Broin, David Harper, Spring Hurlbut, Eleanor King, Nestor Kruger, Arnaud Maggs, Ken Nicol, Laura Simon, Miles Stemp, Zin Taylor, and many, many others. Tickets for the event are $600, which includes cocktails, dinner, dancing and the live and silent auctions. Click here for information, or about absentee bidding.

Each year an artist is invited to produce the gala 'environment'. Previous artists have included Micah Lexier, An Te Liu, vsvsvs, Karen Azoulay, Jon Sasaki, John Oswald, etc. This year Joy Walker was invited, who proposed a collaboration with Roula Partheniou.

The pair address "colour, light and shape" with an ambient video, gobo light centrepieces and a limited edition artist book that collectively explore "perceptual shifts, pattern, states of flux and everyday objects at play."

The beautiful book comes housed in a foil-stamped card stock envelope and each spread presents a different shape, with a mirrored cover endpaper completing the first and last. Additionally, another simple shape sits in between the pages (poorly illustrated with the fast snapshots above).

David Shrigley Turns 46 Today

Jon Sasaki | In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock on the morning

Jon Sasaki
In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock on the morning
Toronto, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2014
9 x 7 x 3 cm
Edition of 50 signed and numbered copies.

Two potatoes wired to power a science toy clock broadcast a distressing message.

Packaged in a clear plastic box, the work includes the altered clock (a wired LCD screen, copper and zinc electrodes), extra nails and an instruction sheet. Potatoes are not included. The piece can be set up in under two minutes (unpacking video to follow shortly).

“[The buyer] becomes complicit: they have to stab these two potatoes with electrodes and watch the system run itself down. It’s tragedy, but really only tragicomedy. If it were a sentient being it would be tragedy. It’s comedy because it’s just a potato. There’s something heartbreaking and funny about empathizing with an inanimate object.”

- Jon Sasaki, Canadian Art Magazine, Summer 2014

Launching later this month at the London Art Book Fair and available now from nothingelsepress.com for $95.00 CDN.



Bio:

"Jon Sasaki’s multidisciplinary art practice brings performance, video, object and installation into a framework where expectation and outcome never align, generating a simultaneous sense of pathos and fun. His work employs reason-based approaches reminiscent of conceptual art while investigating romantic subjects; in this juxtaposition, Sasaki creates humorous, self-exhaustive systems caught in cycles of trial and error. Throughout his performance-for-video works, Sasaki assumes the role of a somewhat naive everyman, performing Sisyphean tasks with a mildly uncomfortable, self-effacing positivism. Sasaki holds a BFA from Mount Allison University and he was an active member of Toronto/Vancouver–based collective Instant Coffee from 2002 to 2007. Sasaki has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Galerie Clark, Gallery TPW, the Art Gallery of Ontario and Latitude 53."

jessicabradleyinc.com

www.jonsasaki.com

London Art Book Fair event: Pablo Bronstein, Jeremy Deller and Ruth Ewan

At noon on Saturday September 27th, the London Art Book Fair features a panel discussion with Pablo Bronstein, Jeremy Deller and Ruth Ewan. Critic and writer Ossian Ward moderates a conversation with the artists on the topic of how to navigate, look at and experience contemporary works of art.

Titled Ways of Looking, the event is £5/£3 conc.

For more information, visit the gallery website, here.

Vanessa Maltese | Ornament Swatch

Vanessa Maltese

Ornament Swatch

Toronto, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2014

18.2 x 6 x 4 cm (closed), 1.8 x 4 x 55.5 cm (extended)

Acrylic on wood, hinges

Edition of 15 signed and numbered copies

$550.00 CDN

Drawing on motifs that have cycled through her recent body of work, Maltese likens this hinged sculptural edition to “samples you might flip through if you were interested in ginger-breading the roof of your house or something. It’s reminiscent of a kids toy, which I am into, as it is a rather useless object at the end of the day."

Bio:

Vanessa Maltese was born in 1988. Currently based in Toronto, she holds a BFA from OCAD University. She is the recipient of the Drawing and Painting Medal from OCAD U in 2010 and the winner of the RBC Painting Competition in 2012. Maltese is represented in Toronto by Cooper Cole.

Visit her website here, and the Cooper Cole site, here.