Richard Hamilton, Hommage à Chrysler Corp., 1957
Pop Art is:
Popular (designed for a mass audience)
Transient (short-term solution)
Expendable (easily-forgotten)
Low cost
Mass produced
Young (aimed at youth)
Witty
Sexy
Gimmicky
Glamorous
Big Business
-Richard Hamilton writing in a letter dated 1957
(via)
Some advance copies of 2013 will be available for sale at the book launch.
Justin James Reed will also be on hand to sign the books.
The books will be sold on a first come first serve basis while supplies last.
Gagosian Gallery opened an incredible exhibition of Lucio Fontana’s paintings, drawings, sculptures and spacial installations at their flagship location in Chelsea last night.
Fontana is best known for his slashed and gouged canvas paintings although I have never seen them in such a spectacular array of colors and sizes. But the highlight of the exhibition is a set of room-sized immersive environmental pieces presented in the USA for the first time. Run, don’t walk to see theses mind-bending, space-altering installations.
A new comprehensive catalogue has also been published in conjunction with the exhibition.
Lucio Fontana, Ambienti Spaziali is at Gagosian Gallery through June 30, 2012
In what I hope is the first of many future artistic collaborations with Horses Think Press, I am very excited to announce the publication and release of an extraordinary artist book by Justin James Reed entitled 2013.
2013 is being released in a limited edition of 100 hand-printed copies and will make its first appearance at a special preview party on Saturday, May 5 in Philadelphia at PPAC.
The book will also be on view and for sale at C/O Berlin’s Book Days happening at the end of May.
2013 will be available for purchase via the web so stay tuned for that information as well.
2013
9.5 x 13 inches
(241 x 330 mm)
Inkjet Printed with Firefly Ink
Unbound
Soft Cover
24 pages
Edition of 100
The book website and preview can be seen here.
I recently received Chinese Bondage in Peru, a three volume set by Wintergarten LTD with text by Ed Steck.
The books make use of a wide-range of archival and found photographs which are laser-jet printed on newsprint paper, lending the publication an air of the periodical.
Chinese Bondage in Peru is printed in an open edition and is available from the Wintergarten LTD’s website.
Sacha Maric has also been kind enough to send me a copy of his latest self-published project Good Mother and Father.
I’m familiar with Maric’s previous book Trashers which he also sent me a long time ago but I neglected to post about.
The new book Good Mother and Father is a nicely produced hardcover volume featuring black and white as well as color images which explore Maric’s intimate family life with his wife and daughter. The photographs range in style but in general have a mundane, quiet yet mysterious quality to them. The book is printed in an edition of 250 and is available from Maric’s website.
Lastly, check out Clayton Cotterell’s recent publication Unarmed, put out by Ampersand in Portland, Oregon. Unarmed is another familial investigation, this one focusing on the artist’s brother who enrolled in the military in 2007.
John Maus’ strange, funny and somewhat disturbing album came out almost a year ago already but I still find myself listening to it which is quite rare these days.
Surprisingly, you can still stream it here.
Take a look at Shannon Ebner’s online project for Dia, Language Is Wild.
“After lunch I went over to the Whitney. For some reason I wanted to see the biennial. I’m not sure why. Before checking it out I went up to the fifth floor. That’s where they hang work that’s in the permanent collection. I’m glad I did. There was gorgeous late fifties Lee Krasner painting hanging in a room of it’s own. After staring, I walked down to the fourth floor and it looked like people were exercising on a huge black rubber matt that took up the entire floor. There were maybe fifteen people following the commands of a woman who was talking into a microphone… telling the fifteen people what to do. I think the fifteen people following the commands were people who had walked off the street. They kind of just “joined in”. I’ve heard this type of activity in the art world is called “relational aesthetics”… or something like that… It felt like I was interrupting the “relation”. I quickly got out of there. I walked down to the third floor and in the back there was a room filled with an artist’s junk. There seems to be a room filled with an aritst’s junk in every biennial I’ve ever been to. I’m not sure why this artist’s junk was there. I walked around the corner and there were fifty Dana Shultz paintings on the wall. At least I think they were Shultz’s paintings. (I walked by pretty fast). I skipped the second floor and went down to the lobby. What happened to the bookstore? There was none. There were some catalogues thrown out on tables that looked “remaindered”… what was there looked like a bake sale. I walked out of the Whitney having spent less than twenty minutes… fifteen of those standing in front of the Krasner.”
-From Richard Prince’s online diary entry dated 3/25/2012
It seems that Richard Prince is keeping a diary and publishing it online.
It’s actually very funny and quite entertaining.
If you are in the Philadelphia area during the next few weeks, a billboard has been installed in connection with my participation in Of The Ordinary at PPAC.
The billboard is located at the intersection of Oxford Street and 2nd Street through the end of the month. Please drive by and take a look if you have a chance.
