Philadelphia Art Book Fair 2017

The Philadelphia Art Book Fair 2017 opens today at noon and continues until 8pm, and again on Saturday May 6th from 10am to 6pm. The event is co-presented by the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center and The Print Center and showcases a wide range of exhibitors, "from large and small photography and art book publishers to individual artists and institutions, local, national and international." Admission is free.

Exhibitors include:

Aint–Bad
Alex Lukas & Leah Mackin / DBQ
Aperture
Basic Edition
BOMB Magazine
Brandon Dean
Brilliant Graphics
Brownbook
Bywater Bros. Editions
Candor Arts
Center for Creative Works
Conveyor Editions
Dancing Foxes Press
Daylight Books
Ditta Baron Hoeber
Endless Others
Fall Line Press
Gabriela Basyuk
Gabriella Grill & Adam Amram
Got a Girl Crush
Gratuitous Type
Hartford Photo MFA
HOMOCATS
In the In-Between
Institute of Contemporary Art / University of Pennsylvania
Jeffrey Stockbridge | Kensington Blues
Judith Stenneken
Justin Kimball, Tom Young & Nicholas Meyer
Katie VanVliet
Kayrock Screenprinting
Leslie A. Grossman
Locks Gallery
Lodima
Lunar Insurrection
MACK
Marianne Dages: Huldra Press
Math Magazine
Nomadic Bookshelf / My Idea of Fun
Oranbeg Press
Paper Crown Press
Paradigm Publishing
Passenger Pigeon Press
Pellinore Press
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Photo Arts Center
PhotoBookArts
Planthouse
Purgatory Pie Press
Risolve Studio
RITA
Saint Lucy Books
Sarah Nicholls
Selfish Magazine
Shannon LaRue
Shortt Editions: Paul Shortt
Soft City Printing
Sometimes Publishing
Space 1026
Spurl Editions
SWAG PURGATORY
Sybil Press
TandM Arts - Blaise Tobia
TEN09
The Photo Review
The Print Center
Tiny Revolutionary Press
TIS books
Title Magazine
TR Ericsson Books/Publications
Ulises
Unnatural Kingdom
Upon
Vox Populi
VUU Studio
Wilt Press
Yoffy Press
Zatara Press


For more information, visit the fair's website, here.

A.R. Penck | Graphik, Keramik

A.R. Penck
Graphik, Keramik
Berlin, Germany: Galerien Michael Schultz/Kattrin Kühn, 1993
30 x 26 x 8 cm.
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

Penck died Tuesday, at the age of 77, after a lengthy illness. Read the ARTnews obituary here.

Hungarian Schmuck

László Beke and Dora Maurer [editors]
Hungarian Schmuck 
Cullompton, UK: Beau Geste Press, 1973
[78] pp., 28.8 x 20.8 cm., perfect bound
Edition size unknown

Priced at 0.70 p (due to the "intricacies involved in reproducing the material [...] and the amount of food consumed during its making"), the third issue of Schmuck focused on artists from Hungary.

Participating artists include Gabor Attalai, Imre Bak, Istvan Balint, Laszlo Beke, Peter Donatgh, Miklos Erdely, Peter Eötvös, Tibor Gayor, Béla Hap, Agnes Hay, Tamas Hencze, G.Jovanovicz, Gyula Konkolty, Peter Legendy, Peter Lajtai, Janos Major, Dora Maurer, Gyula Pauer, Geza Perneczy, Tamas Szentjoby, Endre Tót, Peter Türk, and Janos Urban.

Schmuck Iceland

David Mayor, Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion [editors]
Schmuck Iceland
Cullompton, UK: Beau Geste Press, 1972
[50] pp., perfect bound
Edition size unknown

The second issue of Schmuck, and the first to focus on a specific country, contains work by four Icelandic artists: Kristjan Gudmundsson, Hreinn Fridfinnsson & Hlif Svavarsdottir, Sigurdur Gudmundson.

John Curin book signing tonight

[John Curin]
John Currin
New York City, USA: Gagosian, 2016
136 pp., 25.4 × 32.3 cm., hardcover
Edition size unknown

Published in late 2016, John Curin features over forty-five color reproductions of the artist's paintings from 2011 to 2015, and an essay by James Lawrence. The book is available here, for $100 US.

The artist will be signing the catalogue tonight between 6 and 8pm at the Gagosian Shop in New York (976 Madison Ave). The event will also feature the launch of seven new prints by Curin.

To attend, please RSVP to Currin@gagosian.com.

#1 Schmuck Presents Real Schmuck

David Mayor, Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion [editors]
#1 Schmuck Presents Real Schmuck
Cullompton, UK: Beau Geste Press, 1972
[64] pp., clamp-bound
Edition size unknown

Schmuck magazine debuted in 1972 with this issue, mimeographed and held together with two plastic clamps.  Mayor lays out his intentions for the project, writing that the magazine will include "feedback from the humming wires of global activity":

"Schmuck wants the real meat and no fancy dressing. I have no specic ideology to push and would like to see Schmuck develop, if not as an open forum for discussion of some of the problems relating to art, at least as a vehicle for artists to present their ideas as well as their art (when the two don’t overlap!)."

Contributions include excerpts from Carolee Schneemann's 1972 Beau Geste Press book Parts of a Body House, Ken Friedman's Notes on Concept Art (“Concept art is not so much an art movement or vein as it is a position or world-view, a focus for activity”) and What is Housework? by Egg Placement Group. Other contributors include Anthony McCall, Graham Keen, Hammond Guthrie, Monte Cazazza, Michael Gibbs, Opal L. Nations, Michael Hollingshead, Yael & Felipe Ehrenberg, Chris Welch, David Mayor, Jim Parker, Marc Chaimowicz, Richard Kriesche and Nilan Kunz.

The issue featured six inserts, including a flyer for the exhibition Fluxshoe.

Carolee Schneemann and Felipe Ehrenberg (far right) photographed by Anthony 

McCall in 1972 working on her Beau Geste Press book Parts of a Body House. 

Schmuck

Founded and edited by David Mayor, Felipe Ehrenberg and Martha Hellion, and serving as the in-house magazine of the prolific Beau Geste Press, Schmuck aimed to foster international relationships between artists, and to "circumvent the conventional strictures of good taste that had been imposed upon artistic production."

Ehrenberg described his motivations in a letter to artist Paul Brown, then editor of the magazine Transgravity:

"The main reason we (anybody) set up our press was to cut out all the grievous bullshit about submitting work "for consideration"...the act of submitting work of any sort for the approval of any editor carries implicitly a series of concessionary attitudes, detrimental to the work".

With this democratization in mind, Mayor would issue a call for for submissions, which would be collected in preparation for mimeographing, printing, and rubber stamping. After a couple of months the collating would take place, often aided by their friends, visitors and even children.

The name Schmuck is the Yiddish word for penis, or North American slang for a foolish or contemptible person.

Eight issues were produced over a five-year span, including six which were dedicated to a particular country (Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland and Japan). The issues were always at least co-edited by an artist or artists from the country highlighted. Plans for a Latin American and Los Angeles issue were never realized.

Several artists affiliated with Fluxus contributed works, including Robert Filliou, Dick Higgins, Milan Knizak, Takehisa Kosugi, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi, Ben Vautier and Wolf Vostell. Other contributors include Carolee Schneeman, Tibor Gayor, Endre Tót, Jiri Valoch, Henri. Chopin, Marcel Broodthaers, Christian Boltanski, Wolfgang Feelisch, etc.

The labour-of-love periodical featured hand-pasted covers, object-inserts and printed multiples. Originally distributed through the mail, copies now sell for a few hundred dollars, with complete sets asking as much as ten thousand.

An exhibition of Beau Geste Press publications opened in February at the CAPC in Bordeaux, France. It continues until the end of this month. The eight issues of Schmuck will be featured here between now and then, along with some other publications from Beau Geste.