Volume 31, No. 2, Jun 2008
Artist Book Reviews
Most of the books reviewed here are available at Printed Matter, at 195 10th Ave. (between 21st and 22nd St.), New York, NY 10011. www.printedmatter.org
REFERENCE
Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing collection, edited with an introduction by John M. Bennett, with additional introductions by Bob Grumman and Dr. Marvin A. Sackner (Columbus, Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University Libraries, 2008, $30.00 paper) showcases some of the highlights of the Avant Writing Collection I which many of the poets and writers also delved into visual media, and others have been treated as performance texts. This volume reflects the collection from 1968 to 2006, in which John Bennett has selected 89 poems from 11 countries—but what poems–and what a joy ride. There is a small universe of visual poets in the world, who know and appreciate each other, and perhaps this volume may extend that universe and make some artists or poets realize they belong to this universe. Beautifully printed and designed, this volume belongs to every art as well as literature collection, or at least every avantgarde collection anywhere. To pay, send $30.00 check to “The Rare Books & MSS Library - OSU” and send to:
John M. Bennett, Rare Books
6070 Ackerman Library
610 Ackerman Rd.
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43202 USA
Children’s Corner, artists’ books for children was founded as an archive by OPLA Archive (Oasis for Art Books) founded in Merano, Italy. To celebrate this 10th anniversary of the largest Italian collection in this genre, this catalog was created by Valerio Deho, Giorgio Maffei, Barbara Nestico and Annie Pissard to document the exhibition of artists’ books for children designed by Munari, Warhol, Haring, Veronesi, Remy Charlip, Ann Rand and Paul Rand, Enzo Mari, Annette Messager and so many more. (Mantova, PubliPaolini, 2007, dist. by Corraini, 35.00 euros) The catalog is accompanied by a CD which has the images of the books and is distributed by Edizioni Corraini, Via Ippolito Nievo 7/a, Mantova, Italy.
SMALL BOOKS
Scram Bleds by Richard Kostelanetz (Columbus, OH, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2008, $10.00 paper is a series of split and scrambled words arranged in two paginations, for a book in two directions at once. The key to unscrambling the words is in the typography, which is in a different font on each page.
The Beginning by Ola Rindal (New York, Hassla Books, 2007, $12.00 paper) is the first book by this photographer. He captures color and light beautifully, and some double pages have a narrative for the viewer, but others are isolated and experimental. The rainbow on the cover is a good omen for this talented photographer.
Kawabata Makoto (Chicago, Temporary Conversations, 2008, $2.50 paper) focuses on an interview with Japanese musician Makoto of the band Acid Mothers Temple with a short introduction about the Japanese psych rock scene from which his music emerged, the first in a series. Temporary Conversations is a new series where each booklet will focus on a single interviewee or subject, and with limited editorial condensation, since their philosophy is that the interview is the primary source of information and inspiration.
Asher Penn: “The Philadelphia Drawings” (Vancouver, 2007. $5.00 paper) is a series of drawings in pen and pencil, about love, sex, music and booze in the city of Philadelphia. These are bold, detailed, and well produced.
Speculative Modelling with Diagrams by Stephen Willats (Utrecht, 2007, $18.00 paper) is a conceptual work about producing models for everyday living, and Willats’ intentions of creating diagrams which have the function of defining a model of practice and the possibility of a work within a community or physical environment, or both. For instance, he diagramed three installations for an office building, an art museum, and a housing block. A fascinating study, as are all Willats’ bookworks.
War and Pleas by Sarah Tew (Brooklyn, 2005, $7.00 paper) presents a seemingly innocent poem about the infamous tale of George W. Bush’s presidency and his failures in the Iraq War. Coupled with wit and humor, each line of text is accompanied by a page of photocopied images, illustrating the hegemonic prowess of the Republican Party, and its corrupt leader in this very playful satire. It is well made, packs a punch with found and created imagery, and sends its complaints into the atmosphere and environment. Probably more powerful today than when it was done.
All the Shits by Asher Penn (Brooklyn, 2008, ed. 100, $5.00 softcover) are a series of photographs of iron-on slogan T-shirts. Black and white really works for these common, yet philosophical statements of quotidian activity.
An Abecedarium for Our Times, edited by Radhika Subramaniam, (New York, Apexart, 2008, $5.00 paper) is the result of an invitation to 26 writers and artists to contribute to an “abecedarium for our times” –a chapbook for re-visioning our words and our world.
Contributions are by Ammiel Alcalay, Kenseth Armstead, Todd Ayoung, Carmen Boullosa, Mel Chin, Yvette Christiansë, Ernest Concepcion, Susan Daitch and Nissim Ram, Annabel Daou and David Markus, Felipe Ehrenberg, Chitra Ganesh, Nathalie Handal, Pablo Helguera, Vijay Iyer, Ligorano/Reese, Pia Lindman, Jill Magi, Morgan Meis and Daupo, Naeem Mohaiemen, Simonetta Moro, Sergio Muñoz-Sarmiento, Martha Rosler, Gregory Sholette, Clive van den Berg, Marina Zurkow In his introduction he cites similarities and differences, but allows the reader to find a new way of reading through it, creating a new language, but this is political, social and experimental, with the impulse to disarticulate the limbs of our language. E-mail the editor: radz.subramaniam@gmail.com to purchase a copy.
Redfoxpress announces additional five titles to their “C’est mon dada” series:
Julien Blaine: 50 & + /Poèmes de années 50
Jean Delvaux: Eloge d’Océana
Keichi Nakamura: K
Vittore Baroni: Don’t You Rock the Dada-O
Reed Wood: Work Anonymously
Each of these books in 4 x 6”, 40 pages, cardboard cover, screenprinted and/or collage; laser printing on ivory paper. We suggest any collection to subscribe and receive each book with invoice. To view images online, see: www.redfoxpress.com/dada.html
GENERAL
Hours and Ours by Jessica Jackson Hutchins (Portland, OR, Small A Projects, 2008, $35.00 oversize) is a series of drawings created in 1999 from a sketchbook, with collages, text, photos all involving diaristic, journal-like drawings–she thinks with her brush, and she is a product of this age. Some drawings have over-all collage, others are in a corner or the bottom edge. A nice collection, beautifully designed and reproduced.
Some Fallen Umbrellas and Something Else, no. 1 by Michalis Pichler (Marseille, April 2008, $2.00 paper) is a kind of newspaper sized series of photographs of broken umbrellas found on January 18, 19, 25 and February 3, 2006 in Brooklyn and Manhattan, NY. Printed on white, thin paper like a newspaper, this obviously is Umbrella’s favorite book in a long time. The photos are black and white and sit in the upper area of each page. The bottom of the page is blank. A nice Maciunas-like idea!
A Wikipedia Reader by David Horvitz (Los Angeles, aSDF, 2008, $25.00 paper) is too difficult to thoroughly explain in a few sentences. To briefly summarize, a diverse group of artists were asked to conduct a Wikipedia search, and then to continue onto other articles through linked words, creating a “string” of ideas. The final form is a reader containing these articles.
Contributions by Uta Barth, Ginny Cook, Krysten Cunningham, Ken Ehrlich, Luke Fischbeck & Sarah Ra Ra, Brendan Fowler, Emilie Halpern, Lindsay Ljungkull, Guthrie Lonergan, Laurel Nakadate and John Sisley.
“This project exists in both digital and print form. The digital version contains the entire project unedited. The book, because of spatial reasons, is abridged. It also contains some images that are not in the digital version. The first printing is an edition of 100, each numbered”. - from the publisher
1334 Words for 1334 Students with a story by Colm Toibin and conceived by Micah Lexier (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, 2008, $2.00 paper) is a short story by acclaimed writer Colm TóibÃn, with Micah Lexier’s latest project, where he invited the students of Cawthra Park Secondary School, in Mississauga, Canada to handwrite single-word passages from TóibÃn’s texts. The text written specifically for the 1,334 students involved, tells the story of a young man who finds work as barber in Spain. It’s a brilliant project where collaboration created correctness and understanding of “the word”.
I Want to Know the Habits of Other Girls by Dewayne Slightweight (Chicago, 2008, $10.00 softcover with ribbon binding, 43 x 28 cm.) Is a twenty-minute opera, based on the comic of the same name, performed by Dewayne and four life-size sewn and stuffed “friends” – Gilda Radner, Limbo Tomboy, Gordon Gaskill, and The Great Auntie. At the center of this project is the longing for community, a family of lovers, each person attracted to the idea that one’s happiness depends on everyone else’s: an imagined queer community. How can we strongly imagine things we have never experienced, and use these yearnings, hopes, and desires as a political force? The oversize comic comes with a CD recording of the opera, and is made to be played alongside with the reading of the book, for your own looking/ listening pleasure. A striking pleasure.
9-11/9-11: A Tale of Two Cities/A Tragedy of Two Times by Mel Chin (New York, M. Chin/MOREless Books, 2002, 2008, $9.00 softcover) recalls the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York which forever scarred the trust of American people, while the Chilean Military coup of President Allende ushered in 17 years of autocratic rule that left more than 3,000 dead and countless victims of torture, and that happened on 9-11 in 1973.
In his dark and intensely compelling comic, Mel Chin creates a tale of two cities, a tragedy of two times, weaving a story of love and hope wrecked by overt and covert manipulations of power. This special look at 9-11/9-11 is presented as part of a global dialogue about the human impact of these collective traumas.
Life Extreme - Eduardo Kac & Avital Ronell: An Illustrated Guide to New Life (Paris, DisVoir, 2007, $39.95 paper) in which Kac encounters Avital Ronell, a philosopher who has gone beyond traditional philosophical themes to focus her attention on issues such as the telephone, drug addiction, television, tests, stupidity, and the greeting. Both authors provoke the emergency of new cultural practices. Here they collaborate on Life Extreme, at the crossroads between a natural history of human-created beginnings, alternative evolution, and the private lives of real but rarely-seen creatures. Of course, Kac is famous for his green bunny, yet their earliest documentation goes back to the 17th century. Many others were first created in the 21st century. These unique plants and animals tell a different story about life on planet earth.
They have unearthed quotations from such thinkers as Montaigne, Gertrude Stein, Paul Eluard, Ovid, Carl Sandburg, Sappho, Martin Buber, Nietzsche, and Andy Warhol, among others. Pared with some of these unearthly man-made animals and plants in full color, this is a book for the explorations!
A Parody of Existence by Sean Raspet (New York, Daniel Reich Gallery, 2007, $25.00 paper) shows Raspet’s meaning of “neutrality” itself as significant in its implication of the blank slate or a tabula rasa presumed to be inherent in representation, in that (to depict something “truthfully” is to depict it ’as it is’, presumably without ideological bias). Switzerland’s neutral status becomes a great example for Raspet’s work in relation to notions of the symbolic and the real. Raspet’s work draws from a preoccupation with an item and those traits inherent to it; he articulates this source into a ’parody of existence’. Indeed this preoccupation harkens back to antiquated notions of phenomenology in German metaphysics, as well as other lofty, but discarded philosophical systems of the past which are often capriciously adopted by Raspet to be applied to an arrangement of present day items. These systems themselves become yet another item in a vast panoply of assemblage.
Raspet’s sculptures present arrangements of objects, typically on a neutral black background that references the notion of a void. In these arrangements, the objects reveal the strangeness of the process of their depiction and preservation. Small bronze objects, for example are encased in cubes of hair gel, which suspends the resulting patina that then radiates from the object, giving it an aura-like glow. However there is a perverse nature to distillation that transcends the represented object itself. Ultimately, the work reveals the metaphysical manner of our thinking about the world in the present age of late-capitalist image culture. Raspet’s essay is “On the Origin of Existence” and you can take it from there.
The Back Room: An Anthology, ed. By Matthew Stadler (Portland, OR, Clear Cut Press, 2007, $15.00 softcover) collects documents of the ongoing conversations of the back room of Michael Hebb and Naomi Pomeroy in Portland from family suppers (for 20) to word-of-mouth invitations. Some were commissioned by and for the back room, others emerged from conversations started there, and a few merely bear a family resemblance.
Gore Vidal, Moira Roth, Randy Gragg, Lawrence Rinder and many more are included. The collection is meant to inspire and inform copycat efforts in other cities. This could be called “the supper party” but it led to a wonderful anthology of writings about art, culture, life as well as a collection of color photographs as a visual essay by Stephanie Snyder. Great summer reading too.
Another Kind of Record: The Merger, the Indictment, and The Girl by Pat O’Neill (Los Angeles, The Ice Plant, 2008, $30.00 paper) is by an artist who has been involved in Los Angeles culture since the late 1960s. A founding father of the city’s avant-garde film scene, an influential professor at CalArts and an optical effects pioneer, he is best known for experimental films like Let’s Make a Sandwich (1982), Water and Power (1989), Trouble in the Image (1996) and The Decay of Fiction (2002)–playful but technically rigorous works that fit comfortably alongside those of Stan Brakhage and David Lynch. Whatever the medium, O’Neill’s work often hinges on a “perceptual ambiguity” achieved through layers of image, sound and texture. This first artist book, Another Kind of Record, compiles dozens of superb collage drawings, found texts and digital composite prints O’Neill has gathered and altered over the last several years. Intersecting his own elaborate pencil drawings with graphic and textual fragments of bygone print media (educational illustrations, advertising, reference charts, sheet music), this recent work occupies a fantastical terrain somewhere between the collages of Bruce Conner and the drawings of Raymond Pettibon. As a whole, the collection functions as both an artist’s book and an abstract supplement to O’Neill’s remarkable oeuvre, having a rhythm of its own which reflects the layered sensitivity of the artist to life, to environments, and to humanity–always with a sly subtle sense of humor.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Service Entrance by Michael Cataldi (New York, 2007. $25.00 paper) is a book of photographs of the main entrances and service entrances of every building on Broadway below Chambers Street in New York City, Manhattan. Service Entrance has no distinct front or back from whence one would start to flip through the pages. The layout of the book, with all the right reading pages corresponding to the specific cover, (either service or entrance), suggests a less hierarchical structure for interpreting this divisive architecture. First we had doors, then we had windows, now we have service entrances, and this is a very good view. Signed and numbered for each set of reading pages–back or front.
1 + 1 = 11 by Eun Sun Lee (Seoul, Korea, Seoul Literature Forum, 2005, $30.00 paper) is a series of photographs of the same pair of shoes constantly being altered after every page until nothing is left but a gaudy floral-patterned surface. The bottom of the shoes are on the left side of the book and the white athletic shoes are on the right. And then there were none–but what a journey! Terrific photographs, terrific progression.
Whatever I Like by Cathy Busby (Beijing, Pickled Art Centre, 2007, $16.00 paper) celebrates the exhibition of these color photographs of “message t-shirts” worn by many in China (and in Japan too) usually in English with messages such as “any dream will do” or brand names such as Versace or Armani or Airwalk. The messages reflect the newly found opportunity or an idealized freedom of expression or just clips from rock music. Nice concept, good essay, a little book with a punch!
Tokyo, etc. by Futoshi Miyagi (Brooklyn, 2008, $15.00 paper, handsewn, signed and numbered) is an album of color photos with foldouts depicting beautiful woods, lakes, cherry blossoms, beaches, photos of young men, shoes, streamers, and aerial goodbyes. A return to Tokyo after living in New York shows a very positive approach to his re-entry in Japan.
Design Dept./Irrégulomadaire/Even Later/ Encore Plus En Retard/ Agenda 2008 by Susanna Shannon (Paris, Irregulomodaire, 2008, $30.00 paper) is a collection of photographs chronicling the typography of France’s public spaces, and presented in the format of a daily planner. The date book is practical, but the photos taken by Susanna Shannon would be beautiful on glossy paper; they are pixelated and yet these signs show the international nature of Paris in all its glory.
I Can’t Believe a Girl is Playing Me Metallica by Valerie Phillips (London, Longer Moon Farther, 2008, $30.00 softcover) is Phillips’ fifth book, which frames a favorite subject, Viktoria, a striking and unusual girl “lost in her own peculiar world.” Phillips shot Viktoria over the course of five years in England and Norway, including trips to Viktoria’s childhood home in the Norwegian forest. Through the course of the book, Viktoria’s imaginative, unpredictable spirit is revealed, both “magical and ordinary.” Signed on the title page.
Hitler Moves East : Artist’s Cut by David Levinthal and Garry Trudeau (New York, NY: JMc & GHB Editions. 2008, $25.00 softcover) is a book composed of photographs and primary source material utilized in the creation of David Levinthal and Gary Trudeau’s groundbreaking book Hitler Moves East. Originally published in 1977, Hitler Moves East was the result of a collaborative project between artist and writer. In the Artist’s Cut version, Levinthal has revisited earlier photographs that led to the making of the book as well as work that was used as source material. Served up in newly edited edition, containing numerous images left out of the original, Artist’s Cut acts as an artistic reworking of the seminal themes which made the original a cultural touchstone: appearance versus reality, reportage versus fiction, and photographic realism versus staged fantasy”. - comments from the publisher Ian Hamilton Finlay would have loved this work, especially because he loved Panzer tanks so much.
Dark Prospects by Charles Beronio (New York, Printed Matter, 2008, $10.00 softcover) takes as its source material issues of People, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. While retaining the form of the magazine, the artist dismantles the medium’s visual language by blacking out all references to corporate branding, time (both textually and visually), textual references to location, and facial features of the magazines’ featured stars and advertising props. What’s left is an unforgiving and stuttering sequence of detonated images and textual fragments supporting a skewed visual narrative of lifestyle and politics—modern life stripped bare.
An Internal Garden and an External Brain by Roxane Hopper and Thomas Hodge (Chicago, Lowel-Level Vision Books, 2007, $25.00 softcover) brings together the photographs of Roxane Hopper and the short fiction of Thomas Hodge for a study of the transformative nature of that light which has been turned inside out (if for but a moment). Each spread in the book is a pairing of color snapshots of interiors (as reflected in mirrors, in televisions, pushed through screens) coupled with black & white paper negatives pulled from the walls of these same rooms after adapting each travelogue of light, punctuated by Thomas Hodge’s gravity defying, hyperbolic short story Gorilla Hair, which was composed in Marfa, Texas at the same time as Thunderbird Motel as described in the story. Photographs by Roxane Hopper and text by Thomas Hodge. Brilliant collaboration and beautifully produced.
Untitled Book #4 by Eve Fowler Untitled Book, 1994-1998 (Los Angeles, 2008, $20.00 paper) is a collection of artist Eve Fowler’s portraits from 1994-1998. Printed on newsprint and stapled together, the images have a gritty, spontaneous quality; by accentuating the surface, Fowler cleverly keeps the viewer at a distance from her subjects. The gritty feeling of the images coalesces with the way the oversize book is created. 28 x 21.5 cm. The portraits are confrontational, but keeps the viewer away a good part of the viewing. You cannot get under the skin of these people. And that is what makes it successful.
The Bruce High Quality Foundation, The Retrospective, which documents and analyzes the life and times of Bruce High Quality (Brooklyn, Bruce High Quality University Press, 2008, $20.00 plus $5.00 postage and handling) where the exhibition was held from 24 April - 13 May 2008 at Susan Inglett Gallery in Chelsea.
Mission Statement: The Bruce High Quality Foundation: An Alternative to Everything, the official arbiter of the estate of Bruce High Quality, is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality. In the spirit of the life and work of Bruce High Quality, we aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man’s desiring. Professional Challenges. Amateur Solutions.
If you are incredulous even with that much, you cannot believe the completeness of this artist book, in which this collaborative has created this alternative artist, this alternative world, this alternative foundation. Another mission statement says: This is the training of today’s fine artist—to write a bio that will become a Biography, a resumé that will become a Legacy, and an artist statement that will become a Mission Statement.
This somewhat loose collective of young artists who have taken the name from Apple Computer’s Bruce High Quality voice that you can use to speak texts on screen. The exhibition was a retrospective of Bruce High Quality after he died–so they are living Bruce’s life in reverse. The works are smart, quirky, hysterical and show that Bruce knows “his” art history very well, since he was there for every movement, every -ism, every other collective.
The chapters cover all the themes of contemporary art from public art to art fairs, from performance art to the art dealer, the last will and testament and finally the dissolution of the foundation. This is all accompanied by black-and-white photos, collages, and documentation. This book is a conceit that works–and makes you laugh–and makes you realize that these 16 distinguished artists have created an extraordinary artist book. To order: $20.00 plus $5.00 postage and handling to Susan Inglett Gallery, 522 West 24th St., New York, NY 10011.
VISUAL POETRY
Text Loses Time by Nico Vassilakis (Moscow, Idaho, ManyPenny Press, 2007, $15.95 paper) is a very good beginning book for anyone to understand what visual poetry can be. Verbal and Visual are presented here treated equally by this talented poet. Though notions of poetics have shifted and swerved, what has stayed solid throughout is that the alphabet, the word – however arranged – contains, within it, dual significance. Nico works with visual poems which are often wordless, while his scores for sound poetry are visual and aural, sometimes creating nonsense so that it seems like music. And then he writes text poetry that requires your attention, as does his punctuation poems, his Negative Alphabet Alphabet that allows you to see how beautiful those letters become in your mind’s eye. His rubberstamp poems are fine–visual poetry excites the eye and the mind. As you stare at text you notice the visual aspects of letters. As one stares further, meaning loses its hierarchy and words discorporate and the alphabet itself begins to surface. Shapes, spatial relations and visual associations emerge as one delves further. And then the Formulas, the visual poetry with a “sock it to ya” makes one leap out of one’s seat. This is a good beginning to a new publishing house owned by Crag Hill, and we hope that Nico never stops doing it.
PICTUREBOX
Picturebox has opened a shop in front of their publishing house in Brooklyn, where they sell these visual books that they publish, comics, and lots of other cool stuff. Located at 121 3rd St. In Gowanus in Brooklyn, we would like to introduce you to some of their publications:
Eddie Martinez & Chuck Webster by those two (Brooklyn, ZieherSmith/Picturebox, 2008, $30.00 for the two volumes) are two friends bound together also in a two-volume, full-color set. One 64-page hardcover features the paintings and drawings of Eddie Martinez who combines fearlessly expressive paint handling with a feel for cartoon imagery and personal symbology, while Webster makes minimal talismanic paintings (almost like tantric paintings) which are formally rigorous and impeccably polished. They represent a kind of yin-yang of contemporary painting. But this is not the only link in the two books. There is an interview with the artists and a selection of their collaborative drawings that appear in both books, so you have to have both to begin the interview in one and finish it in another. Essays by Joao Ribas and Geoffrey Young are also included. ZieherSmith represent both artists.
The Magnificent Excess of Snoop Dogg Katherine Bernhardt by Katherine Bernhardt (Canada/Picturebox, 2008, $30.00 hardcover) is a large-size, hilarious and beguiling artist book which represents Bernhardt’s vivid imagery with “slashing brushstrokes and dripping, vivid color…used to depict images of women.” Bernhardt made this volume as an album of her work about fashion models and celebrities. She juxtaposes her muses (those models from found photographs) next to her paintings of quick and efficient paint strokes with drips functioning as an addition to the surface which she loves. She juxtaposes her vivacious but cutting portrait of Kate Moss next to the ad from a fashion magazine, which is her main source–and which she respects as much as her paintings. So she allows you as voyeur to see where she got her material and how she uses it in another medium, her own, paint. There is a photo tour of her studio as well, in addition to two essays by Nick Stillman and Lisa Ruyter.
FLUXUS
Robert Watts: Flux Med is an amply illustrated English-Hungarian catalogue of the show at Artpool in Budapest, Hungary which includes an introduction by Francesco Conz and essays written for the exhibition by Geoffrey Hendricks and Larry Miller. Robert Watts was one of the early innovators of intermedia art, and one of the creators of “events” as part of the Fluxus collective. This is a very personal catalog, with biography, chronology, bibliography. If you do not know anything about Robert Watts, then go to the web catalog at www.artpool.hu/Fluxus/Watts/exhibition.html And get essays by Ken Friedman: Robert Watts, Pioneer Spirit; Francesco Conz: Flux Med & Doctor Bob Larry Miller: Dr. Bob: X-Ray Eyes; Geoffrey Hendricks: From Job Interview to FluxLux, a 32 year friendship with Bob Watts and more.
NEW JOURNALS
Now [a project by Rupert Smith] was launched in 2007 with vol. 1, no. 1 (Berlin, Hallso Press Editions, 2007, $12.00 paper) beautifully crafted with a copper embossed title on the black slip-jacket and fascinating black and white photos juxtaposed with solid black rectangles or squares, contributions of 15 artists.
Un Seidicesimo is a new series coming out of Edizioni Corraini in Verona at the economic price of $8.00 each. Its name comes from a typographical measure: a sixteen-page-binding, but it is also a magazine. Each issue has a different author, who treats the opportunity as a project, a kind of gallery on paper.
Issue 1 a by Esther Lee, who lives in Seoul, is red and red all over, talking about 10 l Plastic Garbage Bag, the Moebius strip, losing individual character, violating animal rights, online cyber addiction and so many contemporary issues.
Issue 1 b is by Daniel Eatock which is entitled “Picture of the Week”, a catalogue raisonné of photos from 2003 - 2007. He is interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, etc. A kind of visual diary through photos.
Issue 1 c by Steven Guarnaccia, famed illustrator and designer, who was art director of the NY Times Op-Ed page for three years, besides designing watches, jewelry, rugs, and wall paintings. His pages go from shoes to hands and everything in-between.
Fun Palace no. 1 (Tokyo, 2007, $10.00 paper) is the result of an experiment by Cedric Price, architect from the 1960s. It was a mobile architecture using assembled modules and cranes to allow the public to customize an environment for theater, art, and education to form a new kind of leisure center. This, instead, is now devised to create new inspiration for new relations by the gallery Taka Ishii. In English and in Japanese, this journal covers everything from erotica to radical minimalism, from cartoons to Daido Moriyama.
Corrections and Clarifications (Sept. 2006/August 2007) by Anita Di Bianco (Zurich, Switzerland: Kunsthaus Zurich. 2007, $1.00) is an ongoing newspaper, an edited compilation of daily corrections to international news from September 2001 through August 2007. A reverse-chronological catalog of lapses in naming and tangling of catch-phrases, tracing a more than incidental relation between news mis-speak and consolidated media interests. The bilingual newspaper is in English and German.
Plain Surface, no. 1, Stuart White and Daniel Scott, eds. (Glasgow, 2007, ed. 300) is a Glasgow-based and focused publication showcasing some of the city’s best drawing talent.
