Lee Henderson | To Conjure From Vapour

Lee Henderson
To Conjure From Vapour
Toronto, Canada: Nothing Else Press, 2017
80pp., 13 x 8 x 3.5 cm., boxed
Edition of 125 numbered copies

Created while Henderson was the 2017 Canadian artist-in-residence* at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Dufftown, Scotland, To Conjure From Vapour is a tarot deck of metaphysical whisky tasting notes. The work conflates the "tasting note" used in whisky promotion with communion with the spirit world (spirit as alcohol, spirit as soul).

The new work in Henderson's solo exhibition An Abridged Sonic History of Global Conflict, which opens tomorrow, mines similar territory. Henderson presents rock music merchandize in the form of custom embroidered patches, all bearing band names which are borrowed from military operations and armed conflicts.

Joy Division, for example began life as Warsaw, but the band changed their name after the release of an album by the short-lived punk outfit Warsaw Pakt (who were themselves named after the Cold War pact The Warsaw Treaty, a collective defence agreement between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955). The name Joy Division refers to the brothels at Nazi Concentration Camps where inmates were forced to service officers and other prisoners. Despite the allegations of facism for this choice, when the band re-named themselves following the death of singer Ian Curtis, they selected the moniker New Order, with it's own Nazi connotations.

Megadeth is a misspelling of Megadeath, which refers to one million human deaths, usually caused by a nuclear explosion. The term was used by scientists strategizing likely outcomes of nuclear warfare. Gang of Four borrowed their name from the leftist political group, which came to prominence during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes, including the death of 34,375 people.

Fugazi singer Ian MacKaye cites Mark Baker's book Nam as the origin of their band name. The term is an acronym for "Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In", a not-uncommon plight for a soldier fighting in Vietnam.

The innocuous and twee-sounding band name The Cardigans comes from the 'hero of the Crimean War', James Thomas Brudenell, the seventh Earl of Cardigan (1797-1868) who went into battle wearing a buttoned knit jacket.

Other bands are named after military planes (the B52's, U2, Enola Gay, Foo Fighters, sort of)
sites of historic massacres (Nanking, Tienanmen Square Dance), chemical and biological warfare (Napalm Death, Anthrax), and historical figures (such as Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian Archduke whose assassination triggered the start of the first World War).

Henderson's designs for the patches emulate military aesthetics: flag-like stripes, military insignia chevrons, and other vexillographical criteria. They are arranged on banners consisting of army green, camouflage fabrics and are categorized by conflict. A pair of Cold War banners, for example, includes patches for Mutually Assured Destruction, Iron Curtain, CCCP, The UK Subs, Charm Offensive, The Subversives, and of course the Cold War Kids.

North America has been called a death-denying society, but much of Henderson's practice involves an investigation into the intermingling of death and popular culture, perhaps most effectively in his epic video collage Palliative Care, which edited the entire run of the NBC senior sitcom The Golden Girls to include only references to death (see post, here). These two projects continue that concern, with a particular focus on promotional language.

An Abridged Sonic History of Global Conflict opens Saturday February 8th, at Zalucky Contemporary in Toronto, and continues until March 7th. The opening reception is from 4 to 6 pm on Saturday. For more information, visit the gallery site, here.


* The 2020 artist-in-residence will be announced later this month.

Buckminster Fuller | Tetrascroll

R. Buckminster Fuller
Tetrascroll
West Islip, USA: ULAE, 1977
82.6 x 93.3 x 14.4 cm.
Edition of 34 signed and numbered copies [+ 6 AP]

Buckminster Fuller's first illustrated book was developed from a teaching method based on the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" that he created to explain some of his theories to his daughter Allegra.

The work consists of twenty-one lithographs, on Rives BFK paper, bound in twenty-six sections, each an equilateral triangle bound by Dacron polyester (most commonly used in sail-making). According to the (very detailed) "Craft Horizons" article above, Fuller drew directly onto the lithographic stones, while speaking with two secretaries. "The stone invites me to work", he said.

The pages were hinged together in such a way that they could produce a number of different shapes when unfolded, including a circle. When it debuted in January of 1977 it was presented two different ways, at concurrent exhibitions. At Ronald Feldmann Fine Arts it lay flat on plinths in the centre of the gallery, like two very large triangles. At the Museum of Modern Art, it was stretched across a wall, rounding a corner and continuing on the adjacent wall.

A second edition, also published by Universal Limited Art Editions, was released in 1981, two years before Fuller's death at the age of 87. It was made available in an edition of 375 signed and numbered copies. A trade version, billed as Tetrascroll: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, A Cosmic Fairy Tale (available to read at Google Books, here), was released a year later.

One of the first edition "book objects" sold at Christie's recently for $4375 US (against an estimate of between two and three thousand).

John Giorno | LIFE IS A KILLER

John Giorno
LIFE IS A KILLER
Paris, France: Cahiers d'Art, 2017
66 x 66 cm.
Edition of 75 signed, numbered and dated

An archival pigment print published by the gallery and publishing house that was founded in 1926 by Christian Zervos. The work was previously available, in a different colour scheme, in the boxed work POEM PRINTS from 1991 (see post, here).

The legendary Dial-A-Poet, Performance Artist, Activist and star of Warhol's Sleep died of a heart attack in October. Life is A Killer is the on the cover of the current Artforum magazine.

Pilvi Takala | Second Shift

Pilvi Takala
Second Shift
Helsinki, Finland: Garret Publications,
184 pp., 17 x 22 cm., hardcover
Edition size unknown

Coined after Arlie Hochschild's 1989 book of the same name, the term "second shift" describes the labor of women performed at home, in addition to their paid jobs. Hochschild set out to explore the "leisure gap" between men and women and discovered that women still took care of most of the household and child care responsibilities, despite their entrance into the labor force. 

In Takala's survey catalogue (documenting a decade of work), the title refers to this type of unrecognized, unappreciated and uncompensated labour , but also to the artist's methodology: working covertly, often with a double identity. She poses undercover, employing performative intervention to "discern the unwritten rules of communities."

It was announced today that Takala has been selected to represent Finland at the Fifty-Ninth Venice Biennale, which takes place from May to November, in 2021. 

“I am thrilled to be making a new work for the Pavilion of Finland in Venice,” Takala said in a released statement. “My practice is slow, requiring a long research process, so I am especially grateful to Frame for approaching me for a proposal well in advance. The fact that I could start researching early on means I don’t have to make any compromises due to lack of time and can be more ambitious about what I’m making.” 

Jonathan Monk | Untitled (Touch Wood)

Jonathan Monk
Untitled (Touch Wood) 
Paris, France: One Star Press, 2016
15.8 x 7.8 x .07 cm.
Edition of 3 monogrammed and numbered copies [+2 AP]

Available in Birch, Oak and Olive wood, accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate.

"Jonathan Monk’s Untitled (Touch Wood) is modelled after the iPhone 6s, and is available in four different types of wood: Birch, Oak, Olive Wood and Macassar Ebony. As the old superstition goes, sometimes we need to touch these wooden objects for good luck even if it goes against any human reason or rationale: the perfect antithesis to the iPhone 6s."

 -press release. 

Available from the publisher, here, for 500 €.

Monk celebrates his 51st birthday today.

Taryn Simon | An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar

Taryn Simon
An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
Gottingen, Germany: Steidl, 2007
152 pp., 26.2 x 34.5 cm., clothbound
Edition size unknown

Taryn Simon documents places and objects that are typically inaccessible or unknown to a public audience. After what one can only imagine is painstaking negotitations, she visits hidden, forbidden, under-the-radar and the generally inaccessible sites and distills them into a single image.

Her large format photographs (printed on the page in very small reproductions, for some reason) capture things most people have never seen: the AIDs virus in a vile, 48 hours worth of items confiscated by customs agents, containers of radioactive nuclear waste, the CIA’s art collection, the Imperial Office of the KKK, the operating theatre during a Palestinian woman's hymenoplasty (the 'restoration' of her virginity), a simulated city in Kentucky used to conduct battlefield training exercises, the cave of a hibernating bear, and over fifty other oddities.

Salman Rushdie, in his forward to the book, states: “I am always immensely grateful to people who do impossible things on my behalf and bring back the picture. It means I don’t have to do it, but at least I know what it looks like.” Other contributing authors include Elisabeth Sussman, Christina Kukielski and Ronald Dworkin.

The first and second edition were published by Stiedl, with a more recent third edition by Hatje Cantz.

Simon turns 45 today.

Unseen is Bankrupt

The annual photography fair Unseen Amsterdam, which has been held in the Dutch capital since 2012 has declared bankruptcy. It has not been announced formally whether or not this year's iteration, scheduled to take place in the third weekend of September, will go ahead.

The insolvency applies to the parent periodical Unseen Magazine, but not the Unseen Foundation, which is an independent charitable organization. It is unclear how the adjacent Book Fair will be impacted (ie. does it have the autonomy and resources to reboot as a stand-alone should the parent fair fold completely).

Read more in Artforum, here and Artnews, here.