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MMDC3: Angie Keefer

MMDC

MMDC3: Angie Keefer

Price: $23

Book pages selected by Angie Keefer. This is the third issue in a publication series documenting libraries. For every issue another artist is invited to make a selection acoording to his/her specific interest. Editing by Julie Peeters and Keefer; design by Peeters. Edition of 700. Published by Kunstenbibliotheek (Gent) and BILL Magazine

Over 100,000 titles are housed in the Kunstenbibliotheek, which brings together the library collections of KASK & Conservatorium, SMAK, Design Museum Gent, STAM, HISK, and Gentle Gidsen, with a focus on contemporary art, art theory, design, landscape architecture, and urbanization. Kunstenbibliotheek also contains a special collection of artists' books and the collection Karel Geirlandt. 

 

Discovery! Installation View Flint Jamison Paid 2023

Flint Jamison

Discovery! Installation View Flint Jamison Paid 2023

Price: $13

A publication made following the exhibition Installation View produced by Flint Jamison and shown at Paid from March 25 to April 6, 2023.

Colophon:
Flint Jamison
Installation View
Paid
2023

Publishing: Device
Distributing: device.gmbh
Archival Printing: Device
Photographing: Nick Strobelt
Writing: Flint Jamison
Writing: Sean Lockwood
Copy Editing: Katherine Pickard
Designing: Flint Jamison
Laser Engraving: Sean Lockwood
Letterpress Printing: Flint Jamison Woodcut
Printing: Flint Jamison

Edition of 85.

Bill, #4

Bill

Bill, #4

Price: $40

BILL is a magazine of photo stories. Prioritizing visual reading without distraction, all the images that appear in the magazine are printed without accompanying text. It’s published by Roma Publications. The magazine is offset printed by monks in Germany and every contributor can occupy 16 pages on a different paper stock. 

George Tourkovasilis comes back at Akwa Ibom, Radio Athènes, Melas Martinos, Cinzia Ruggeri through the lenses of Ilvio Gallo and Occhiomagico, SC103’s first runway, Inge Grognard xx eyes, aspic and eggs by Adrianna Glaviano, the contact sheets of Santi Caleca, Eyeballing Rosalind Nashashibi, magazine spreads from Anders Edström, Curtis Cuffie, Hans Hollein.

Bill, #3

Bill

Bill, #3

Price: $40

BILL is a magazine of photo stories. Prioritizing visual reading without distraction, all the images that appear in the magazine are printed without accompanying text. It’s published by Roma Publications. The magazine is offset printed by monks in Germany and every contributor can occupy 16 pages on a different paper stock. 

The third issue of a yearly magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Belgian graphic designer Julie Peeters. In this special archival issue, the stories are sourced from the book collections of RareBooksParis—a low key Instagram account which shares the rarest fashion books—and Peeters herself, and can be read as a dialogue between two personal libraries. With contributions by Shoichi Aoki, Martin Margiela, Liza Zimmerman Bloom, Joshua A. Walker, Robert Mangold, Takeshi Fujimori, Ettore Sottsass Jr., Robert Morris, Anders Edström, and more.

Text courtesy Roma Publications.

Veneer No 12

Veneer

Veneer No 12

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

Edition of 1000.

Bill, #2

Bill

Bill, #2

Price: $26

BILL is a magazine of photo stories. Prioritizing visual reading without distraction, all the images that appear in the magazine are printed without accompanying text. It’s published by Roma Publications. The magazine is offset printed by monks in Germany and every contributor can occupy 16 pages on a different paper stock. 

The second issue of BILL includes contributions by Linda van Deursen, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Jason Dodge, Archiv Hans Hollein, Inge Ketelers, Jochen Lempert, Raimundas Malašauskas,Bart Julius Peters / T L P S, Reto Schmid, Megan Francis Sullivan, Tadanori Yokoo by Tadashi Kurahashi, Ann Woo, Jiajia Zhang and RareBooksParis (advertiser).

Text courtesy Roma Publications.

MMDC2: Sophie Nys

MMDC1

MMDC2: Sophie Nys

Price: $0

Book pages selected by Sophie Nys. This is the second issue in a publication series documenting the Middelheimmuseum Library in Antwerp, BE. For every issue another artist is invited to make a selection acoording to his/her specific interest. Concept, editing, and design by Julie Peeters and Nys. Edition of 1000. Published by Middelheimmuseum (Antwerp, BE) and Roma Publications (Amsterdam, NL). This is a complimentary publication, courtesy the Middelhiemmuseum.

 

Bill, #1

Bill

Bill, #1

Price: $26

First issue of an annual magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Julie Peeters. Twelve contributors present new or previously unpublished work. BILL prioritizes visual reading without distraction, the images that appear in the magazine are printed without any accompanying text. Contributors to the first issue are: Jochen Lempert, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Katja Mater, Elena Narbutaite, Rosalind Nashashibi & Vivian Suter, Arthur Ou, Scott Ponik, Adam Putnam, Johannes Schwartz, Algirdas Šeškus, Linda Van Deursen and Stand Up Comedy.


Text courtesy Roma Publications.

Cornelia Wyngaarden: Artist File

Cornelia Wyngaarden

Cornelia Wyngaarden: Artist File

Price: $20

Multimedia artist Cornelia Wyngaarden (CA) has made film, video, and sculpture on a number of subjects. Most prominent perhaps has been her explorations of queer identities, female subjectivity, and the disruptive potentialities behind various new media formats. Her use of literary figures and tentpoles alongside historical events and contexts have grown into an interesting new kind of magical realism, one that both confronts and exploits theoretical/formal institutions. This book is compiled of various ephemera and print material from her archive.

Edition of 300.

 

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Sourcebook: The Serenity of Madness

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Sourcebook: The Serenity of Madness

Price: $40

Edited by Weerasethakul himself, this publication offers a collection of perspectives on the multi-faceted practice of one of the leading artists and filmmakers of his generation. Encompassing the full complexity of the artist’s practice across media, The Serenity of Madness compiles a wide range of source materials and texts that have informed his work over the last two decades, including personal photographs, email conversations among friends, excerpts of websites and scientific studies, and poetry. The publication also features interviews by the film curator Andrea Lissoni, the art curator Gridthiya Gaweewong, and the Thai political activist Withit Chandawong.

The Serenity of Madness invites readers into Weerasethakul’s intimate exploration of his influences—in his words, “like a stream of consciousness, suffocated by the data.” It opens up new perspectives on an artistic practice that is anchored in stories often excluded from history in and out of Thailand: voices of the poor and ill, marginalized beings, and those silenced and censored for personal and political reasons.

With Alaina Claire Feldman and Kate Fowle. Interviews with Withit Chandawong, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Andrea Lissoni. Text by Amara D. Angelica, Mo Costandi, Robert Destatte and Jeannie Schiff on Limasite85.us. Federico Garcia Lorca, Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, Jenjira Pongpas, Maddie Stone, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.


Text courtesy ICI.

The Inventors of Tradition II

The Inventors of Tradition II

The Inventors of Tradition II

Price: $50

From the duo behind Atelier E.B.:

At the intersection of art, design and social history, 
Beca Lipscombe & Lucy McKenzie: The Inventors of Tradition, now available in a second edition, is a subjective study of the history of the Scottish textiles industry since the 1930s. For decades, textiles were Scotland’s primary industry and export, and Scottish wool, cashmere, tweed, leather, lace and tartan have been famed throughout the world for even longer. Formatted like a scrapbook, this volume brings together design swatches, product shots, film stills, interviews and the archival materials of individuals and companies in the Scottish textiles trade. In response to this wealth of material, the artist Lucy McKenzie (born 1977) and designer Beca Lipscombe (born 1973) have produced a series of new works including clothing, furniture and accessories in collaborative partnership with Caerlee Mills, Begg Scotland, Hawick Cashmere, Laura Lees, Jannette Murray, Mackintosh, Muehlbauer and Steven Purvis.

Edited with text by Catriona Duffy, Lucy McEachan. Text by Nicholas Oddy, Linda Watson.

Text courtesy D.A.P.

On Reading

Andre Kertesz

On Reading

Price: $15

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING DESCRIPTION IS TAKEN FROM AMAZON. NO LINK AS THEY BITE.

André Kertész (1894-1985) was one of the most inventive, influential, and prolific photographers in the medium's history. This small volume, first published in 1971, became one of his signature works. Taken between 1920 and 1970, these photographs capture people reading in many parts of the world. Readers in every conceivable place―on rooftops, in public parks, on crowded streets, waiting in the wings of the school play―are caught in a deeply personal, yet universal, moment. Kertész's images celebrate the absorptive power and pleasure of this solitary activity and speak to readers everywhere. Fans of photography and literature alike will welcome this reissue of this classic work that has long been out of print. 68 duotone photographs


Secondhand paperback.

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Price: $12

WARNING: ONE OF THESE IMAGES IS BLURRY BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON IT SO WE REQUEST YOU USE YOUR IMAGINATION.

This edition covers the first two seasons of Saturday Night Live, with a cast consisting of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Coe, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, Michael O'Donoghue, and Gilda Radner. F
eaturing interviews, scripts, photos, and ephemera. 

These books were made to give the show a life outside the screen. In the 1970s, consumer-recording devices didn't exist, so if you missed a show you missed a show. No re-runs. One vital element is the way in which the collective energies of humor, performance, sound, music, and set design come together and is translated from a live format to a still or flat one. The books are also important examples of how documents or support publications relate to an existing institution, but can exist independently in its own form.

Secondhand paperback. 

Monty Python's Big Red Book

Monty Python

Monty Python's Big Red Book

Price: $10

The Monty Python books were made to give the show a life outside the screen. In the 1970s, consumer-recording devices didn't exist, so if you missed a show you missed a show. No re-runs. One vital element of these books is the way in which the collective energies of humor, performance, sound, music, and set design come together and is translated from a live format to a still or flat one. The books are also important examples of how documents or support publications relate to an existing institution, but can exist independently in its own form.

The Monty Python books, c. 1971–1974. Most were designed by the great Derek Birdsall* with Katy Hepburn, but this edition is done by Hepburn herself. As an aside, Birdsall became a member of Monty Python for a period while they made the books. We once read that making him part of the team was one economic model they established in order to get him paid. Secondhand paperback. 

*Birdsall speaks more about Hepburn in this great interview.

The endorsements on the back cover are the best synopsis, though:

“Its back is too hard” —F. R. Gumby

“I laughed a lot” —S. J. Perelman (no relation at all) 

“For me perhaps the finest book written in the English language since Bleak House” —
F. R. Leavis (in 'Talking about Middlemarch,' 1958)

“Pass the butter” —Coleridge (Table Talk, 1816)

“Super”—David Frost (from and idea by Anthony Jay; additional material by: Austin Mitchell, Robson and Macpharlane, Alan Hutchinson, Stephen Jay Greenblatt, Larry Cryer, John Watt, Roger Hancock, Kenneth Being, Roger Last, George Clarke, Parnell and Holocaust, Len Ashley, Terry Bayler, Brian Tipping Codd, Johnnie Booth, Madge Ryan, Bruce Hebbern, Syd Lottery, Terry Hughes, David Paradine, Christopher Thynne, S. Bedford, Sheridan Morely, Tim Brooke-Taylor, William Wright, Neil Shand)

“Bottom” —A. J. Ayer (age 4) 


Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photo Works 1973-1983

Allan Sekula

Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photo Works 1973-1983

Price: $40

Long out of print, this seminal collection of essays and photographs are by artist, theorist and filmmaker, Allan Sekula. Originally published by the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1984, in these essays and images Sekula sought to portray the inextricable bond between labour and material culture, drawing deeply on Marxist theory to argue passionately for a collective model of progress. Sekula taught at California Institute of Arts (CalArts) from 1985 until his death in 2013, and from that insider's position he critiqued photography and the circumstances of its production and consumption, exposing what the medium failed to represent—women, labourers, minorities and the institutional structures that reinforce cultural biases.

Allan Sekula (1951–2013) was an American artist, whose work spans multiple media: long form photographic series (Aerospace Folktales, 1973; School as a Factory,1980; War Without Bodies, 1991/96), critical texts (The Body and the Archive, 1986 and Debating Occupy, 2012) and film (The Forgotten Space, 2012).


Text courtesy MACK.

The Difficult Whole: A Reference Book on the Work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

The Use

The Difficult Whole: A Reference Book on the Work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

Price: $39

In 1966, architect Robert Venturi published Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, a manifesto that became one of the twentieth century’s most important statements about architecture. Drawing on both vernacular and high-style sources, Venturi introduced new lessons from the buildings of architects who were well known, like Michelangelo and Alvar Aalto, and those whose work had then been forgotten, like Frank Furness and Edwin Lutyens. Arguing against the diagrammatic forms that dominated the field at that time, Venturi made a case instead for “the difficult whole.”

Fifty years later, this book offers a fresh analysis and thorough re-evaluation of Venturi’s landmark work and its legacy. Through a radical rereading of material from the archives of Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates, the editors propose a credible alternative to contemporary architectural discourse, one that takes account of Venturi’s arguments and offers a way forward. Featuring essays, as well as close analyses of twenty-eight projects by Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown, The Difficult Whole is sure to spark discussion—and inspiration—throughout the worlds of architecture and design.


(Text via University of Chicago Press)

 

Veneer No 11

Veneer

Veneer No 11

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

Edition of 1000.

The Use

Chris Mann

The Use

Price: $10

The Use is a book of writing by Chris Mann. It is also a translation of his ongoing web project THEUSE.INFO. Materially, it is as humble as a book can get. Exposed glue binding, newsprint, pocket sized—it almost apologizes in your hand. A life of work presented like a small phone book, good call.

The writing is undomesticated and has difficult pages, pages that sometime track their own difficulty. Take this one I picked almost at random:

“…how you talk to a machine (you know, whether fiction plus fiction counts as Nonfiction, (i mean artificial intelligence consists in expecting our experience of any industrial cognitive array to be different to our experience of, Law say, or, Economics, and Nobody understands law, nobody understands economics. this is called a Loop, or Copyright, dialup Disco. (i mean you Could call this, The Diagnosis (the powerpoint definition of acquisitive redundancy, all ambient delay and petty denIal, an amylnitrate alias outsource of(Success is the argument that it was Always better not to think, the Effect effect (with the witness as Output (one of those moody taxonomies the proud are so prOud of (, though as the witness is the last moment of nostAlgia .. its the Signal is the bitch. not even bOring ..”

As with most of Mann’s work, the sentences are made from language foraged partly from everyday American speech and partly from technical and academic corridors. The above excerpt gives you a good sense of how the words run a course between extremities and comes to sound like a mind-solving-problems, a mind most drawn to problems that cannot be solved. It has been said, “Chris Mann specializes in the emerging field of compositional linguistics, described by [himself] as ‘the mechanism whereby you understand what I’m thinking better than I do.’”

The book comes with a set of postcards designed by Barbara Bloom. Edition of 1000.


(Text via Yale Union)

 

MMDC1: Philip Metten

MMDC1

MMDC1: Philip Metten

Price: $0

Book pages selected by Philip Metten, photographed by Johannes Schwartz. This is the first issue in a publication series documenting the Middelheimmuseum Library in Antwerp, BE. For every issue another artist is invited to make a selection acoording to his/her specific interest. Edited and designed by Julie Peeters. This is a complimentary publication, courtesy the Middelhiemmuseum.

(Text via Roma Publications)

 

Writings by Daniele Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub

Daniele Huillet/Jean-Marie Straub

Writings by Daniele Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub

Price: $32

A text is spoken; it merges the sphere of ideas, from which it comes, with an immediate and sensible sphere of bodies that give life to them, with a nature that sustains these bodies, and that they in turn nourish by naming it. The body, in which language resonates, becomes the body of the text itself and protracts its speaking.

Here trees are trees and become trees. We learn by taking pleasure in the sublime essence of colors (leaf-green, earth-brown, sky-blue, bronzed-skin...), of timbres (voices, birds, steps...), of textures (flesh, fabric, earth...), the irreversibility of gestures. 

These shots are rich in their concerted poverty: here’s how. 

—Anne Benhaïem from introduction to "Conception of a Film"

Sequence Press is pleased to announce the publication of the writings of the filmmaking couple Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, presented for the first time in a critical, English-language edition. Two of the most exacting directors of the past fifty years, Straub and Huillet are renowned for their meticulous adaptations of works by giants of Western art and literature: Sophocles, Corneille, Bach, Hölderlin, Cézanne, Brecht, Schoenberg, Kafka, Pavese, et al. The publication coincides with the first complete U.S. retrospective of their films opening on May 6 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the concurrent exhibition, Films and Their Sites, at Miguel Abreu Gallery.

Jean-Marie Straub came of age as a slightly younger contemporary of the French New Wave. Like those directors, he began his career writing film criticism. “Writing about films,” Jean-Luc Godard later said, “was already a way of making films.” This volume thus begins with Straub’s early film criticism from the 1950s and traces the evolution of over five decades of writing activity, from manifestoes and trenchant declaratory texts, to detailed descriptions of working methods, letters, questionnaires and select interviews and oral interventions. 

Writings opens with an introduction by Sally Shafto that provides an in-depth look at Straub and Huillet’s beginnings, within the context of the emergent filmmaking forces of the time. The book highlights their rigorous methodologies as translators of key texts, and the precision work required to adapt those translations for the screen. As Straub himself said“We are the only European filmmakers, filmmakers of European nations. We make films in Italian as well as in French and in German. Who else can say that?” The book brings us behind the scenes and reveals how their publication practices mirrored those of their film production and distribution, as they often made distinct versions of the same film using alternative takes and different languages.

In addition to the published texts, the book comprises a richly illustrated Atelier section featuring three full length annotated film scripts, along with other pieces of writing, such as letters to their collaborators, shooting diagrams and schedules, lab notes, and press kits, all of which bring the reader into the heart of Huillet and Straub’s creative process. The volume closes with a Portfolio of intimate photographs of the filmmakers at work, with onsite observations by their long-time director of photography and collaborator, Renato Berta, and a detailed filmography.

Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet resolutely eschewed a Hollywood style of spectacle filmmaking to create some of the most raw and beautiful, as well as innovative and profoundly moving films of our times. Their writings open up a further understanding of their essential contributions, and their unique place in film history.

Text courtesy Sequence Press.

Pierre's Magazine: The Magazine of the Artist's Institute

The Artist's Institute

Pierre's Magazine: The Magazine of the Artist's Institute

Price: $30

Made collaboratively with Pierre Huyghe, the first issue of The Magazine of The Artist’s Institute interweaves the artist’s recent work and research interests, covering topics as varied as genetic engineering, new realist philosophy and the science fiction of Philip K. Dick.

Contributors include A. E. Benenson, Stephen Blackwell, Ali H. Brivanlou, Etienne Chambaud, Ian Cheng, Angelique Corthals, Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson, Tristan Garcia, Camille Henrot, David Horvitz, Pierre Huyghe, Jenny Jaskey, Jonathan Lethem, Alex Mar, Vladimir Nabokov, Vincent Normand, Fernando Ortega, Jean Painlevé, Sean Raspet, Martin Roth, Dorion Sagan, Dash Shaw, Fabrien Giraud and Raphaël Siboni, and Karl Sims.

Text courtesy The Artist's Institute.

Seth Siegelaub Beyond Conceptual Art

Seth Siegelaub

Seth Siegelaub Beyond Conceptual Art

Price: $60

Curator, writer and dealer Seth Siegelaub (1941–2013) is legendary for his promotion of Conceptual art in New York in the 1960s and ‘70s. Acknowledging the unusual scope and essentially unclassifiable nature of his manifold interests and activities, this volume shows how Siegelaub’s projects and collections are underpinned by a deeper concern with printed matter and lists as ways of disseminating ideas. The book’s chapters explore the various facets of and connections in Siegelaub’s work, from his groundbreaking projects with Conceptual artists and his research and publications on mass media and communications theories to his interest in handwoven textiles and non-Western fabrics.

It also highlights his collecting activity, which culminates in a unique ensemble of books on the social history of textiles and a textile collection comprising over 750 items from around the world. The survey also reflects on current practices through contributions by contemporary artists, such as Mario Garcia Torres and writer Alan Page, who co-created a new work inspired by Siegelaub’s bibliographic project on time and causality. With essays by art historians and curators, a previously unpublished conversation between Siegelaub and artist Robert Horvit and an annotated chronology, this comprehensive survey pays homage to one of the most distinctive characters in 20th-century exhibition-making.

Text courtesy D.A.P.

Today we should be thinking about Jo Baer, Thomas Bayrle, Jimmie Durham, Robert Filliou, Haim Steinbach, and Rosemarie Trockel

The Artist's Institute

Today we should be thinking about Jo Baer, Thomas Bayrle, Jimmie Durham, Robert Filliou, Haim Steinbach, and Rosemarie Trockel

Price: $30

Today we should be thinking about reflects on the first six seasons of The Artist’s Institute, which took place between 2010 and 2013, and covered artists Robert Filliou, Jo Baer, Jimmie Durham, Rosemarie Trockel, Haim Steinbach and Thomas Bayrle. Narrated by Anthony Huberman, it documents the legacies and contemporary conversations that surround these artists today.

Text courtesy The Artist's Institute.

Arts For Living

Arts For Living

Arts For Living

Price: $30

Arts for Living offers an alternative, multifaceted history of an iconic cultural institution, The Abrons Arts Center. Located in New York City’s Lower East Side, the center was designed by Prentice and Chan, Ohlhausen, and built during the crisis-ridden 1970s as a community art center with educational facilities for a local low-income population. A rare interview with architect Lo-Yi Chan that elucidates the design process as well as essays by Alan Moore on the East Village art scene that arose out of the 1970s fiscal crisis and Kim Förster on pedagogical programs in architecture for youth in New York are accompanied by a color-photo essay by Jason Fulford depicting the current social life of the arts center. Designed by Geoff Han, and including original archival documentation, Arts for Living is an important architectural case study of a public space designed to foster community life in a multiethnic, changing neighborhood.

(Text via RAM Publications)

 

Marking The Dispossessed

Marking The Dispossessed

Marking The Dispossessed

Price: $25

Danielle Aubert's Library of The Dispossessed examines the lived experience of one hundred used copies of "The Dispossessed", a 1974 science fiction novel by Ursula Le Guin. It takes the form of polyphonic group readings (during which each reader is reading from a different copy of the Library), a book of readers' marks, and an instrumental interpretation of the markings, composed by Jason Treuting of So Percussion and Mobius Percussion.

The used, mass market paperback has little value. This particular volume—"The Dispossessed"—is available cheaply or for free as an e-book (Amazon), audio book (Audible), PDF or TeX file (Anarchist Library). Most of the books collected for The Library of the Dispossessed were purchased from online resellers. They are marked by previous owners (New Tecumseth Public Library, Kate Wilkins, Lee W. Smith); bear messages from past readers (“good move!,” “I’m going to vomit,” “don’t ever let yourself be owned”); and carry miscellaneous scraps of paper (a boarding pass, a reminder to pick up Jess at 9:00). 

Sometimes subtitled “An Ambiguous Utopia,” "The Dispossessed" is the story of a physicist, Shevek, who travels from his anarchist home planet, Anarres, to a sister planet, Urras where he encounters things he hasn’t experienced before, such as class difference, gender hierarchy and everyday signs of excess, like the complicated layers of packaging around a box of chocolates. The citizens of Anarres created a new language and a society devoid of possessions, and thus no owners. This book dispossesses the originals of the 100 different copies of The Library of The Dispossessed by extracting the comments as a new text from the books’ content, page by page.

Danielle Aubert is a member of CLANADA, a graphic design group that examines materials, methods of production, and specificity of place. This publication was made possible with the support of the Lewis Center for the Arts (Princeton University, NYC).

(Text via Passenger Books)

Fantastic Architecture

Fantastic Architecture

Fantastic Architecture

Price: $28

Primary Information is reprinting the seminal book, Fantastic Architecture, making the book widely available for the first time since it was originally published: first in 1969 by Droste Verlag in German (with the title Pop Architektur) and later in 1970 by Something Else Press as Fantastic Architecture. Edited by Dick Higgins and Wolf Vostell, this artist’s book/anthology explores the boundaries between pop art and architecture through writings and projects by key artists and thinkers of the 1960s and earlier—from John Cage and Buckminster Fuller to Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Beuys.  It will retain the book’s unique design, specifically its Mylar inserts, which add unique depth and elaborate the publication’s content. Edition of 3000.

Contributors to this publication are Ay-O, Joseph Beuys, Erich Buchholz, Pol Bury, John Cage, Philip Corner, Jan Dibbets, Robert Filliou, Buckminster Fuller, Geoffrey Hendricks, Richard Hamilton, Raoul Hausmann, Michael Heizer, Jan Jacob Herman, Bici Hendricks, Dick Higgins, K.H. Hoedicke, Hans Hollein, Douglas Huebler, Milan Knizak, Alison Knowles, Addi Koepcke, Franz Mon, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Gerhard Rühm, Diter Rot, Carolee Schneemann, Kurt Schwitters, Daniel Spoerri, Frances Starr, Jean Tinguely, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Lawrence Weiner, Stefan Wewerka. 

Text courtesy Primary Information.

Snow

Lutz Bacher

Snow

Price: $45

Ever since her career began in the 1970s, this Bay Area artist has drawn upon fragmentary information from popular culture and her own life to produce works that play with the instability of identity and the all-around trickiness of images. In artist’s books, installations, sculptures, videos, photographs, paintings, and screen prints, Bacher uses images and objects in a physical, visceral manner. Bacher’s mixture of bodies and ideas, pop and personal, while always remaining somehow elusive, feels entirely relevant to problems in art and life now. In this publication, she has compiled her work from 1975 to 2013 into a hefty volume of seemingly digital files from an inventory. It is accompanied by a new essay by Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith. Eds. Gregor Muir, Sophie von Offers, Beatrix Ruf.

Text courtesy JRP Ringier.

Michael Asher January 26-April 12, 2008

Michael Asher

Michael Asher January 26-April 12, 2008

Price: $35

Michael Asher spent seven years researching the exhibition history of the Santa Monica Museum of Art to create the installation documented in this catalog. The end result was a reconstruction of every temporary wall that had been built for every exhibition mounted at the museum until its re-location in 1998. The result was a conceptual history, displayed in its most physical sense. Included in the catalog are the floorpans for each show, installation views of the walls' framing by studs, and essay by Miwon Kwon, who writes on Asher's sensitivity to situation, rather than than display. Published on the occasion of Asher's installation at the Santa Monica Museum of Art (2008). 

Currency

Rae Armantrout

Currency

Price: $15

TREATMENT

The relationship between a handsome young broker
and a lovely young curator
is in trouble.
Before they can marry, he must
come to tolerate,
then feel guarded affection for
a good natured buffoon
who populates dioramas
with stuffed mouse couples in period dress,
then for an assortment of others,
some less likeable,
who also take passionate interest
in an activity that generates no profit


WikiNew YorkerBOMBLetterpressed edition of 250.

Serving Compressed Energy With Vacuum

Anne-mie Van Kerckhoven

Serving Compressed Energy With Vacuum

Price: $23

Published in conjunction with an exhibition at Kunstverein München, this catalogue is presented as an integral part of the show, augmenting it through the presentation of subjects, aspects, and themes which are better suited to the printed medium or demand another kind of involvement. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven’s works involve painting, drawing, digital media, and video, and reflect her fascination from a female point of view with the representation of women in mass media, the connections between sex and technology, different knowledge systems, and the unconscious. Besides numerous works, projects, and images, the book includes insightful explanations by the artist.

Please read more about the artist's show AMVK (castillo/corrales, Paris, FR, Sept 2015), organized by Yale Union (Portland, OR).

Text courtesy Idea Books

Les Chroniques Purple

Les Chroniques Purple

Les Chroniques Purple

Price: $50

(Text below from Idea Books):

In 2013, the ‘Les Chroniques Purple’ project, a collaborative effort spearheaded by Elein Fleiss, was published every day online for a period of exactly one year, with its 49 invited authors – artists, photographers, writers and poets—producing more than 400 texts and works in that time. Published now in book form, the texts, along with drawings and images, are arranged chronologically, one for each day of the year. The result is a sort of journal wherein the process became more important than the result, the windows into everyday observations, personal occurrences and recurring themes that its various authors experience like scattered fragments of reality and dreams. 

John Knight

John Knight

John Knight

Price: $20

Essays on the work of Los Angeles-based artist John Knight. With Anne Rorimer, Dan Graham, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Kim Gordon, Jay Sanders, Marie-Ange Brayer, Birgit Pelzer, Isabelle Graw, Alexander Alberro, Andre Rottmann. For specific, in-depth discussion on the artist and his oeuvre, go here.

Vertikal Klub

Willem Oorebeek

Vertikal Klub

Price: $60

"Vertikal Klub" is an ongoing project of Willem Oorebeek, begun in 1994, with its latest iteration having been shown at Yale Union (July 2015, Portland, OR). This book, Vertikal Klub, serves as the manual for future installations. A blueprint for a relationship—between human form and how its form translates to print. Like much of his work, the artist establishes connections that are both clear and abstract, pushing the boundaries of absurdity along the way. 

The figures in "Vertikal Klub" are cut from advertisements, selected based on a set of rules (looking forward at camera, full length). Some figures you're given entry into their history with text, but layered, in a graphic form. Some are left as complete strangers, as strange forms, empty. The lithographic reproductions are raw and a little crudely presented, but clearly made by hand, and finished by tool. It's a map, to something familiar that goes off the road, too. Edition of 500 numbered copies.

Willem Oorebeek (NL), artist, whose work is based in the myriad techniques associated with the printing process. Multiplicity, seriality, and reproduction are some of the recurring themes emphasized. Image and language are brought together as comparative tools and as combined forms as a way of revitalizing the nature of representation, in both figure and symbol. 

Theater for Beginners

Richard Maxwell

Theater for Beginners

Price: $15

By the director Richard Maxwell of New York City Players (NY)*. A practical, and poetically written guide to theater—direction, actors and acting, process, stimulus, and philosophy in making works for stage. Compactly made and very fun to read, the physical manifestation of the book is kind of a concise representation of the prose style, and, in some ways, Maxwell's approach to stagecraft. A book for those skeptical about live performance, or for those that are interested in a deeper understanding of the "why" behind it all.**

*Maxwell and actor Bob Feldman performed a reading of the book at Stand Up Comedy, June 2015.
**There's a great review on Amazon about this book, it goes ":-)))").

LA Paradise

Alix Vollum

LA Paradise

Price: $17

Artist Alix Vollum works under many guises. At the moment, her most visible might be here. This newsprint booklet mimics the alternative LA Weekly, highlighting the most visually arresting sections, its ads. Vollum reworks the signifiers, creating her own (reams and reams of) text and reflecting back the imagery into a pleasurable cloud of hedonistic mumbo jumbo. It's both a tempting reminder into the numbing glory of the marketplace, and a warning against its voodoo seductions. Looking at this is kind of like sniffing a popper. Signed edition of 500.

Veneer No 10

Veneer

Veneer No 10

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

It’s about currencies, and has a tone-on-tone, letterpressed cover that works so well with the season’s neutrals, but is pretty difficult to make out. But once you concentrate hard enough, it rolls into the contents inside, anyway, so you’re safe. With Perry I-Pei Tsao (flywheels, high energy rotational systems and storage), His Excellency the Governor General in Council (Canadian Loonie and Toonie coins), Lvcoyote (hardware reviews by this guy who is an expert in such things and works in IT for a school district), F. J. Vine & Dr. D. H. Matthews (magnetic anomalies in ocean ridges), The Great Central U.S. Shake Out (earthquakes and how to react to them), Otto Hadac (complicated chemistry analasys broken out in simple to read diagrams and charts that talk about a different kind of wave), Martin Khout, Igor Schreiber, Milos Marek & Milan Kubicek, Diane Body Schultz & Philip Dikeman (flute competitions), Gisle Fosse (enamel density), Geoff Haskey, John F. Wilder, Judit Polgar vs. Viswanathan Anand (with letterpressed visualizations of their chess boards in a rapid matchup), Barry Loberfeld, Franz Von Stuck, Jeanne d’ Arc. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 9

Veneer

Veneer No 9

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

The Gardens of Pixar, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Chirs Abani, Nnorom Azuonye, Michael Echeruo, Okey Ndibe, Michael Mbabuike, Chike Obi, Residents of Yellowstone County Riverbed vs. Exxonmobil Oil, A. Clifford Edwards, A. Christopher Edwards, John W. Edwards, Chevrolet Cobalt 2009 SS, Wave-adaptice modular vessels, Uluburun shipwreck stowaway house mouse, Vases, Vaccines and antibiotics in colds. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 8

Veneer

Veneer No 8

Price: $0

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

This issue is made available free of charge (pretty much) by Veneer due to problems with the cover. My feeling is this issue has something to do with tough, tactile and abstract materials, being unyielding, stretching, hardness. Margaret Thatcher, mathematics of St. Louis's Gateway Arch, chemical agents in iron, Eurasia, nomenclature, Andre Kertesz polaroids. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 7

Veneer

Veneer No 7

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

About touch, and being bound. Reiki, laundry laborers, Esperanto, instructions for putting things together, an entire section in Braille that's shockingly meditative (for non-Braille readers), Manganese significance for humanity across the ages, graphs and symbols and sets - they touch, too. There's magnet in this one. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 5

Veneer

Veneer No 5

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

This one is visuals-heavy. An accounting of possibly the world's only Oakley sunglasses collection (outside of Oakley), sea cucumbers, Sadhana yoga practice, 4-day cassoulet, UFOs and the US Navy, HIV prevention as physics. With Ilsa Nodham, Eric Snow, Chester C. Grusinski, Frank Y. Wang, Dr. Lynn Fendler, Adrian Piper. Letter pressed cover, 2009 calendar insert, comes sealed with industrial foam and bagged. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 4

Veneer

Veneer No 4

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

A conversation between farriers; screenplay/stills from ATL; sand dune mysteries; what's up with Antwerp; gamma rays. Embossed shiny pearl cover, titanium square embedded in back. With Matt Taimuty, Tina Gordon Chism & Antwone Fisher, Ely Sassoon, Nathalie M. Vriend, Carl B. Collins, Daniel Baumann. Edition of 1000. 

Veneer No 3

Veneer

Veneer No 3

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

Made up of all glossy ads. The notorious issue wherein Ve sent invoices ($1928.57) to companies for said ads that hadn't been purchased. CZ diamond embedded in cover and pages, glitter sprayed cover. Supposedly scented but i didn't smell anything, so... Shrinkwrapped. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 2

Veneer

Veneer No 2

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

Politics of Czech freetekno and rave; a diary of life with death as it relates to particle physics; Dublin drinks; kidney stones; history of Ceylon tea; "Ultramoderne." Lucky Dragons/Gæoudjiparl 5" vinyl. With Lukas Wimmer, Shari Roman, Chris Dahlen, Maxwell Fernando, Leagues O'Toole, John Cowhie, Robert Smithson. Edition of 1000.

Veneer No 1

Veneer

Veneer No 1

Price: $20

Veneer (or, alternately, Ve) is cultural critique via gesture, phenomena, documentation, and detritus. It's also the arithmetic of print and its possibilities, with an emphasis on technical minutia stretched to the edge of absurdity as its epistemological approach. Every issue holds secrets and gifts to the reader; cards, photos, posters, confessions. It will make you ask "why should I care?" And then you keep reading, because if you didn't care, you wouldn't care. This is tight stuff—freewheeling discipline that made an object worth keeping, and further evidence that intellectual curiosity will always always take you places you never thought relevant or possible. Quarterly.

World of Warcraft as told by an avatar and his guy; document forgery, true crime, Mormons, Lucifer; analysis of the Canon Powershot SD800; the philosophy of "singularity"; radiation poisoning in Goiania, Brazil; the French. Letterpressed cover and inserts. George Kuchar centerfold. With Flint Jamison, James Voges, Geoff Haskey, Sandra & Jerald Tanner, Kevin Kelly, L. David Roper & Marco Antonio Sperb Leite. Edition of 1000. 

Bulletins of The Serving Library #6, Winter 2013

The Serving Library

Bulletins of The Serving Library #6, Winter 2013

Price: $20

David Reinfurt, Stuart Bailey, and Angie Keefer organize The Serving Library. An itinerant structure, it can be a library, exhibition, or set of actions, in different places that may provide a contextual backdrop for varied information.

Bulletins of The Serving Library are published as individual PDFs in the six months prior to formal distribution as a published compilation. The content is variable, but our take is that most contributions limn the fissures within cultural practices. Historical, contemporary, maudlin, and frighteningly close. The itches you can't scratch and the shadows you never saw.

This fashion issue, also serving/related to the exhibition White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart, Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (Feb-July 2013) organized by Anthony Elms. With Angie Keefer, Robin Kinross, Joke Robaard, Brian Eno, Nick Relph, Eli Diner, Chris Fite-Wassilik, Stuart Bailey, Sarah Demeuse, Adolf Loos, Kuki Shuzo, Sanya Kantarovsky, Perri MacKenzie, Anthony Elms. 

Sasa [44] Annual Report 2012

Specter Press

Sasa [44] Annual Report 2012

Price: $9

Specter Press makes and publishes books on, for, and by artists. Designers Sulki and Min Choi have managed to retain an aura of mystery, balancing institutional work with more elusive projects. File under: Puzzling, South Korea, Impossible To Find, Rare, Making You Cry.

The Korea-based conceptual artist compiles annual reports of his activities, purchases, and general living. An on-going archival project that takes a different form in each volume. He didn't eat/spend as much this year. What might we glean from the paucity of receipts, and from the blurred type throughout? (No, you're not imagining that the thing is soft and impossible to see in these images. Also in real life, not as bad, but it's blurry.) One way of looking at what makes up a life. Edition of 100.

 

Format

Sarah Crowner

Format

Price: $20

Painter Sarah Crowner's artist's book collects source material and ephemera related to her current work. Though it can be a cloying term, it's true there's a handmade element brought to bear upon the abstract geometric histories explored. Applied with a buoyancy, though, that feels more like a necessary tool for application of ideas that help redraw frameworks—an opportunity to re-look, with purpose. Crowner's actual paintings, however, take on an entirely different dimension; recommended viewing on a parallel, but separate trajectory. 

Provence: Issue R (Autumn/Winter 2009)

Provence

Provence: Issue R (Autumn/Winter 2009)

Price: $19

Provence (FR) is "an eight-issue magazine dedicated to hobbies," (P-R-O-V-E-N-C-E). Mostly informal in its writing style, but the rhythm and approach to its design and primary content is unpredictable with each issue. Printed with a high-gloss cover stock that gives a serious dash of elan, its interior pages reflect a calculated chaos of ideas that pull from the best traditions of low magazine culture. There's a sense of the daily life, extrapolated into the heady impacts of visual culture on it; also the other way around. A stellar roster of writers, artists, and friends contribute.

We decided to stock this particular issue because of a story with/by/on Ghislain Mollet-Vieville, critic, collector, and "art agent" of conceptual and minimal art. His style (and the man has style) of organizing and showing is quite amazing for its ability to embody the complexities of the work he lives and promotes. Many other fascinating stories are also in this issue, recollections that are revelatory through a personal experience with something small, or big. There's a lot about fashion (Takeji Hirakawa interview), or mode, maybe, in this one. Hard to say. 

Prism of Reality, Issue Number 3

Prism of Reality

Prism of Reality, Issue Number 3

Price: $15

Prism of Reality, a publication about art—how its made, who makes it, how its read, why its made—in a concise, but in-depth format of two essays, two conversations, and four artist-written reviews. 

With Lucy Lord Campana on collecting the future; Christopher Carlton on reading John Kelsey's junk mail; and Rasmus Roehling on the physical impossibility of the broad in the mind of someone living. Reviews by Travis Diehl, Steve Kado, Candice Lin, Kevin Rodgers, Ken Tam, Keith J. Varadi on Joshua Oppenheimer, Pierre Huyghe, Gala Porras-Kim, Cynthia Girard, Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, Jason Rhoades, Samara Golden. Letterpressed cover. 

 

Prism of Reality, Issue Number 2

Prism of Reality

Prism of Reality, Issue Number 2

Price: $15

Prism of Reality, a publication about art—how its made, who makes it, how its read, why its made—in a concise, but in-depth format of two essays, two conversations, and four artist-written reviews. 

With Ian James on moving mass and space in recession times; Jon McCurley in conversation with Steve Kado on traffic in Toronto. Reviews by Greg Hayes, Nick Kramer, Lakshmi Luthra, Matt Siegle on Fiona Connor, JJ Peet, K8 Hardy, Peter Molyneux. Hand silkscreened cover by Josh Mannis.