David Hammons: Body Prints, 1968-1979

[David Hammons]

David Hammons: Body Prints, 1968-1979

New York City, USA: The Drawing Center, 2021

136 pp., 22.6 x 15 cm, softcover

Edition size unknown

Before the assemblages, installations and performances (Bliz-aard Sale, for example) for which he later became known, David Hammons began his career making monoprints of his own body. These were made by greasing his own body - or the body of another person - with margarine and baby oil, and pressing or rolling body parts against paper, then sprinkling the surface with charcoal and powdered pigment. The technique was often combined with silkscreens and collaged found objects. 

David Hammons: Body Prints, 1968–1979 is the first title to focus exclusively on these early works on, presenting thirty-two body prints which introduce the major themes of the artist's fifty-year career. The publication features a conversation between curator and activist Linda Goode Bryant and artist Senga Nengudi, as well as a photo essay by photographer Bruce W. Talamon, who documented David Hammons at work in his Los Angeles studio in 1974.

Available for $28 US, from the publisher, here. 

Heresies

Heresies Collective

Heresies #1: a feminist publication on art and politics 

New York City, USA: Heresies, 1977

Magazine / Periodical Soft cover

114 pp., 8.5x11", softcover

Edition size unknown

The premier issue of the feminist journal focusing on art and politics debuted in January 1977, featuring Tijuana Raid by Martha Rosler, Feminist Abstract Art by Harmony Hammond, Female Experience in Art by Ruth E Skin, A Pink Strip by Amy Sillman and the Pink Glass Swan by Lucy Lippard. Lippard wanted the journal be called Pink until artist Mary Miss proposed a quote popularized by Susan Sontag: “New truths begin as heresies.”

The first issue opens with a mission statement ("...we believe that what is commonly called art can have a political impact, and that in the making of art and all cultural artifacts our identities as women play a distinct role"), and closes with a selected bibliography on Feminism, Art and Politics.

Twenty-seven issues were produced over sixteen years, each with a single theme, style and perspective. Topics included feminist theory, art, politics, patterns of communication, lesbian art and artists, women's traditional arts and politics of aesthetics, violence against women, working women, women from peripheral nations, women and music, sex, film, activism, racism, postmodernism, and coming of age.

Artists whose works or writings were featured in the magazine include Laurie Anderson, Louise Bourgeois, Ana Mendieta, Howardena Pindell, Adrian Piper, Pat Stier, and many others.

Along with Lippard, initial members of the Heresies Collective included Joan Braderman, Elizabeth Hess, Ellen Lanyon, Arlene Ladden, Lucy R. Lippard, Marty Pottenger, Miriam Schapiro, May Stevens, and Mary Beth Edelson. 

Edelson died this week at the age of 88. Read her Art News obituary, here: 

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/mary-beth-edelson-feminist-artist-dead-1234591774/

Michael Dumontier | Yellow Flower

Michael Dumontier 

Yellow Flower

Toronto, Canada: Paul + Wendy Projects, 2021

2 x 30" 

Edition of 30 [+ 5 AP] signed and numbered copies

The 59th edition by Paul + Wendy Projects is a laser cut aluminum, powder-coated yellow flower, with a nail and black string. The work is accompanied by a card, numbered and signed by the artist. 

The work is available from the publisher, here, for $250 CDN. 

Micah Lexier | Leporello Nº 02

Micah Lexier

Leporello Nº 02

Gothenburg, Sweden: ll'Editions, 2021

[10] pp., 99.0 × 14.2 × 2.3 cm., boxed

Edition of 250 numbered copies

Released late last month, this handsomely produced boxed work is the second in ll'Editions' series of accordion fold works, following a project by Heimo Zobernig. The next work in the series is by Fiona Banner. Designed by Lundgren+Lindqvist, the work features die-dut elements, foil embossing, and perforations.  It is numbered via rubber stamp on the verso of the box. 

Leporello Nº 02 is available from the publisher, here, for 25.00 EUR.

"A number of years ago Micah Lexier purchased a small paperback publication about the game of dominoes. The very end of the book consisted of a series of pages that reproduced a complete set of twenty-eight domino tiles. The images were printed on right-hand pages, four to a page, while the left-hand pages were blank. The idea was that you were supposed to cut these images out of the book and glue them to empty matchboxes to create your own do-it-yourself set. That sequence of pages, combined with the quality of their reproductions, was the inspiration for Lexier’s leporello. To that, he added two favourite print techniques – perforations and die-cut holes – to create a set of ten domino tiles. Lexier chose the denomination of each tile and its order in the leporello so that none of the thirty-four die-cut holes line up with each other, allowing each hole to be misread as a printed white domino dot."

- publisher's blurb

Les Levine | What Can Your Federal Government Do For You?

Les Levine

What Can Your Federal Government Do For You?

New York City, USA: M. L. D’Arc Gallery, 1976

23″ x 28.5″

Edition size unknown

The poster for Les Levine’s 1976 exhibition, What Can Your Federal Government Do For You?, at the East 57th Street gallery that exhibited works by Levine, Eleanor Antin, Roger Welch, Allan Kaprow and others. 

Available from Art Metropole, for $75, as part of their current exhibition of artists' posters. This title was around ages ago when I was at Art Met, but Levine's work has been reevaluated a few times since then. AA Bronson's response to the Instagram post was "So cheap!". 

Takako Saito | Hat Chess Game

Takako Saito

Hat Chess Game

Self-published, 1990

40.6 × 53.3 × 68.6 cm

Edition of 10 [+2 AP] signed, numbered and dated copies

Reimagined chess sets were a staple of Fluxus, which George Maciunas once described as "a fusion of Spike Jones, gags, games, Vaudeville, Cage and Duchamp." Marcel Duchamp was a chess player reportedly at the 'master' level (“while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists,” he famously said of the game) and taught John Cage so that they could play together (once in public, on stage in Toronto, documented by another Fluxus artist Shigeko Kubota).

Yoko Ono's all-white set (Play it By Trust) remains the best known, but the artist most dedicated to exploring the possibilities of game was Takako Saito, with hat chess being her least compelling. Her other sets include Grinder Chess, Spice Chess and a game where you can only distinguish your pieces from your opponents through smell (Smell Chess).

Hat Chess Game (also known as Hutschachspiel) is a bowler hat which is signed and numbered on the inside brim of the hat. It was produced in an edition of 10 black hats with 2 artists proofs in grey. The miniature set of wooden chess pieces are situated on a tiny hand painted chess board pattern.

The work is available from Raphael Levy for €4,000, here.

Brian Eno turns 73 today