Toronto openings

Goin' to Halifax tomorrow and will sadly miss the following exhibitions:

Things Change by Joy Walker, and Separate by Tom Koken at MKG127, which opens Saturday October 19th, from 2 to 5 pm. Visit the gallery site, here, for more information.

Micah Lexier: Old Drawings, New Sculptures at Birch Contemporary, which opens Thursday
October 17 from 5-8 pm. For more information visit the gallery site, here.

Artist Mitch Robertson's framing business Superframe is holding a reception for their new signage space, "Portrait & Landscape" at 100 Geary Avenue from 5 to 7 pm on Friday October 18th. The inaugural project is called band-aid, by Vanessa Maltese.

Ray Johnson

Ray Johnson was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1927 and would have celebrated his 86th birthday today. Eighteen years ago he committed suicide, possibly as his last performance. On January 13th, 1995, he was seen diving off a bridge in Sag Harbor, Long Island, and backstroking out to sea. His body was found the next day. Hundreds of collaged artworks, many containing cryptic clues, were left carefully arranged in his home.

The Music of James Tenney

James Tenney
The Music of James Tenney
Santa Fe, USA: Soundings press, 1984
297 pp., 8.5 x 11., cardstock covers
Edition size unknown

The title, edited by Peter Garland as Soundings #13, can be found on ABE, for between fourteen and a hundred and forty-five dollars, for some reason. A copy signed by Carolee Schneemann (Tenney's partner at the time) sells for $187.50.

Larry Polansky's section The Early Works of James Tenney can be downloaded via Frog Peak, here.

Christopher Knowles | Typings (1974 - 1977)

Christopher Knowles
Typings (1974 - 1977)
New York City, USA : Vehicle Editions, 1979
[110 pp.], 28.6 x 25.8 cm., cloth
Edition of 500, unsigned and unnumbered copies

Typewriter poems, texts and drawings made when the poet/painter was between the ages of 14 and 18.
Diagnosed with possible brain damage (and often referred to as autistic), Knowles was discovered by Robert Wilson at the age of 13.

"In early 1973 a man ... gave me an audio tape ... I was fascinated. The tape was entitled "Emily Likes the TV". On it a young man's voice spoke continuously creating repetitions and variations on phrases about Emily watching the TV. I began to realize that the words flowed to a patterned rhythm whose logic was self-supporting. It was a piece coded much like music. Like a cantata or fugue it worked with conjugations of thoughts repeated in variations."

- Robert Wilson

Wilson cast the teenager Knowles in a number of his productions, including his best known collaboration with Philip Glass, Einstein on the Beach, which contains some texts from this book.

Peter Liversidge | Selected Proposals

Peter Liversidge
Selected Proposals
Edinburgh, UK: Ingleby Gallery, 2013
284 pp, 27.6 x 22.2 cm., softcover
Edition of 1000


For the last twelve years London based artist Peter Liversidge has been hand typing (on an Olivetti typewriter) proposals for projects that may or may not be actualized. He says "It's important that some of the proposals are actually realized, but no more so than the others that remain only as text on a piece of A4 paper." The projects range from proposing the reinstating of the Nor Loch, to asking the Proclaimers to walk another 500 miles.


This publication draws on works from the last 8 years of the artist's practice, instructional scores sent in the mail to institutions or individuals who may choose to enact them. Alongside facsimile reproductions of the proposals, the book features a transcript of a discussion between Liversidge and Whitechapel Gallery curator, Daniel F. Herrmann and a new essay by writer and curator Clive Phillpot.

Next Friday (October 18th) at 8pm, Printed Matter will host a book launch and gin performance by Liversidge. Gin will be served by uniformed staff in editioned etched glasses from a ramshackle-y Gin Stand under white bunting. “The performance lasts for the duration of the gin, once it runs out the performance is over.”

EDITION Chicago

Pictures from the MKG127 booth from the inaugural EDITION Chicago art fair a few weeks back.

Claude Closky | Dessert Plate

Claude Closky
Dessert Plate 
Paris, France: Galerie de Multiples, 2010
Royal Limoges ceramic dish, color silkscreen print
21 cm diameter
Edition of 500


€ 120  each
€ 600   for a set of 6
€ 1100 for a set of 12


Available from the publisher, here.