John Lennon | The Lennon Diary 1969

John Lennon

The Lennon Diary 1969

New York City, USA: Roaring Fork Press, 1970

[unpaginated], 4 x 3.25", softcover

Edition size unknown

The Lennon Diary 1969 was published as part of Aspen #7 (The British Issue), which also included a flexi-disc of Yoko Ono performing the three-part track Song For John. Other artists included in the box were Peter Blake, Ossie Clarke, Ian Hamilton Finlay, David Hockey, and Eduardo Paolozzi.

From an intended series of "Diaries of the future", the work is a facsimile of a 1969 pocket diary, filled in November 1968, and not published until 1970.

Lennon's diary entries are more or less identical, with only a few variations: “Got Up, went to work, got home , watched telly. ” Occasionally he adds “fucked the wife“.

Lennon died on this day in 1980, 

Destroy All Monsters | Geisha This

Destroy All Monsters

Geisha This

Detroit, USA: Book Beat Gallery, 1995 

100 pp., 8.5 x 0.5 x 11", softcover

Edition size unknown

Destroy All Monsters was a noise-rock, performance art band formed in 1973, by University of Michigan art students Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Niagara, and filmmaker Cary Loren. They were influenced by Futurism, Beat Culture, Sun Ra, the Velvet Underground, and monster movies. The group took its name from a 1968 Japanese kaiju film, directed by Ishirō Honda.

The original line-up performed in the Ann Arbor area, and their only release was an hour-long cassette, which was only available through Charlton Burch's Lightworks magazine. 

Kelley and Shaw left the band in 1977 and were replaced by members who had previously performed with The Stooges and MC5, adding to the notoriety of the group. Rock critic Lester Bangs described their music as "anti-rock". Further cementing their legendary status among noise-rock fans, was a three CD collection compiled by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, released in 1994.

Continuing the revival of interest in their output is this compilation of Destroy All Monsters magazine, released a year later. The volume reprints seven issues of the 'zine, one previously unpublished. The title also includes a flexi-disc containing unreleased tracks. 

I believe this is the second edition. The first (published in an edition of approximately 800 copies) was reportedly hand-assembled and featured a metallic gold cover by Niagara. The third and final edition features the same graphic, but in black and white. 

In 2011, Primary Information released a comprehensive compilation of all of the DAM publications. It was released in an edition of 3000 copies and is out-of-print. 

"The images that drove us were the strange combinations of film noir, monster movies, psychedelia, thrift-shop values, and the relentless anarchy of an over-stimulated pop culture." 

- Cary Loren

David Shrigley | Get Your Sh*t Together

David Shrigley

Get Your Sh*t Together 

Los Angeles, USA: Chronicle Chroma, 2022

240 pp., 23.62 x 3.05 x 31.24 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

Billing itself as "the largest-format book to date on Shrigley's prolific work", Get Your Sh*t Together was released last month, on October 22nd. The book is organized into chapters with titles such as "Stupid", "Nonsense", "Dirt", "Fear", "Paranoia", "Love", and "Self Delusion". 

The artist went on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last week to promote the book, the first time a visual artist has ever appeared as a guest on the show, which is now in its 21st season. The host mentioned owning some of Shrigley's multiples, such as a tea-towel (Third Drawer Down?) and some things in their kid's rooms. 

During the pandemic, Kimmel's bedroom appeared via Zoom, revealing that he owned another famous artist edition: John Baldessari's Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts). See this post for details. In another instance, actor Jason Schwartzman appeared on the show wearing a Cheeto Pin made by my friend and former colleague Nathan Saliwonchyk and Sebastian Butt. See post here. 

William Wegman | Writing by Artist

William Wegman

Writing by Artist 

New York City, USA: Primary Information, 2022

352 pp., 28 x 21 cm., softcover

Edition of 4500

"Writing by Artist is the first collection to focus on William Wegman’s lengthy and deeply funny relationship to language and is filled with previously unknown and wildly entertaining texts, drawings, and early photographs spanning the early 1970s to the present.

Not your standard book of essays, the publication was meticulously edited by Andrew Lampert to feature works incorporating words in one form or another. In some instances, the text is simply a caption or a few hand-written words, but all of the selected works hinge conceptually and pictorially on writing and language.

Writing by Artist offers a wide range of entry points into the artist’s universe. There are early photographic works, which may be familiar, but from there, things delightfully unravel with absurd non-sequiturs typed on Princess Cruises stationary, imagined restaurant reviews, witty annotations to a curator’s essay, musings on ancient footwear, deliberate mistranslations, reworked greeting cards, fictional advertisements for real life products, and other surprising prose forms.

Ultimately, Writing by Artist alters the logic and pushes the boundaries of what artist writing can be—shedding new light for those only familiar with Wegman’s later work, while serving as a welcome reminder of the artist’s madcap inventiveness for the already enlightened. In short, what you do or don’t know about William Wegman now conveniently fits into this strangely beguiling collection."

- publisher's press release

William Wegman turns 78 today. 

A limited number of signed copies are currently available from the publisher for only $30.00, here. 

Lawrence Weiner | Ducks on a pond

Lawrence Weiner

Ducks on a Pond: Towards a theatrical engagement

Ghent, Belgium: Imschoot Uitgevers, 1988

[unpaginated], 5 ¾ x 8 ¼", hardcover

Edition of 25 signed and numbered deluxe hardbound copies

Composed as a story told with text, text drawings, photographs and illustrations, this artist book features one of Weiner’s most infamous typographs: “WE ARE SHIPS AT SEA/NOT DUCKS ON A POND”. In addition to the trade paperback, a deluxe edition of twenty-five signed and numbered copies were produced. 

The title is published by Imschoot, whose other books in the series include works by John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Hanne Darboven, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Peter Downsborough, Albert Merz, Christoph Williams, and others (see below). 

View the contents of the books here. 

Lawrence Weiner died on this day last year, at the age of 79. 

Micah Lexier | Dot

Micah Lexier

Dot

Glasgow, UK: WAX366, 2001

10 x 15 cm,

Edition size unknown

Published by David Bellingham's imprint WAX366, to coincide with the exhibition "Micah Lexier / Holes, Dots, Letters, Numbers, Puzzles, Envelopes, Pads of Paper" at the Glasgow School of Art Library, from May to July of 2022. 

The work references both Yoko Ono's A Hole to See the Sky Through and the event scores of George Brecht, and continues Lexier's interest in shapes and names of shapes. 

David Bellingham | A Hole To See The Ground Through

David Bellingham 

A Hole To See The Ground Through

Toronto, Canada: Paul + Wendy Projects, 2022

10 x 15 cm.

Edition of 200

The 65th edition from Paul + Wendy Projects is "a transposition of Yoko Ono's 'A Hole to See the Sky Through'". See previous and next post. 

The work is available from the publisher, here, for $10 CDN.