Holiday Fun

This weekend La Superette pops up again for two fun filled days of holiday shopping, music, and art!  La Superette will open this Friday December 4th for musical performances (no shopping) and will continue on Saturday December 5th from noon-8pm and Sunday December 6th from noon-6pm at 210 Front St. New York, NY 10038 in the South Street Seaport.  It looks like two art mag / art zines will be sold this year: Threads and How to Stay Warm in the Winter.  Secret Project Robot will have an art installation in the space and I will be selling goods from Edible Winter: Snowballs, Walnuts, Icicles, Coal, and Pine Cones next to some rad new friends from Supercore who will be selling chili and cider.  So stop by for some artist made presents, great music, and delicious food this weekend!

The annual Giftland gift sale at Printed Matter begins this weekend.  Originally conceived in the 1980s by CoLab/Collaborative Projects,  this years event will be curated by Denise Kumpferschmidt and Joshua Smith of Apartment Show.  You can shop for goods beginning this Friday December 4th through December 24th.  The Holiday Party is on Saturday December 19th from 5-7pm.  Check the Printed Matter website for a list of participating artists.

LA SUPERETTE 2 0 0 9 RETURNS TO SOUTH STREET SEAPORT
Saturday, December 5th, 12pm-8pm
Sunday, December 6th, 12pm-6pm
At 210 Front Street, corner of Front St. and Beekman St. in Manhattan, in the South Street Seaport.
Special performance kick-off night (no shopping) on Friday December 4 th, 9pm-midnight
– La Superette 2009 will transform a space at 210 Front Street for three days, creating a temporary
NEW YORK
store that will present a huge selection of artist-made multiples from around the country. Now in it’s 11th year,
La Superette is one of the few crafty events with a non-commercial goal: to support and distribute the works of
independent artists and designers. The variety of items include hacked clothes, assemblage accessories,
housewares, artists books and CDs. Emerging once a year, just in time for holiday shopping, La Superette offers
the most unique and affordable shopping experience for hundreds of shoppers year after year. This year, more
than ever, is a time to celebrate the craftiest and be a part of an event that represents the true spirit of New York
City. La Superette 2009 includes live performances by Arpège (Nick Hallett and Ray Sweeten), Anwar Pruitt,
Maria Chavez, Carrie Dashow, Pixel Form, Todd Bailey, NAUM f/ Antoine Catala, David Linton, and David
Galbraith. La Superette 2009 will also feature Rainbow Cloud City (an art installation created by the
collaboration HappyFun, Erik Z., and Rachel Nelson), Edible Winter Snowballs, Coal, Icicles, Pine Cones, and
Warm Drinks by Rachael Morrison, and a free ScrapCycle gift-wrapping station by Analogous Projects.
This year’s participating artists include: Ann LePore, Amanda Mayoff, Ben Fino-Radin, Carrie Dashow, Secret
School and the K.I.D.S., Cindy Yoon, Daphne Bernard, A Rarer Borealis, Daina Platais Ortiz, unxyloid, Hadas
Hinkis, deChow, Jennifer Sullivan, kaboom!press, Kimm Alfonso, Katherine Tali Hinkis, Chiu, RingMan,
Canine Orthodontia, Lilah Freedland, LoVid, Loren Siems, Melissa Barrett, Michelle Rosenberg, Molly
Dilworth, Madeleine Fix, Miss Chief, Neg-Fi, Mustache Sisters, Nathaniel Kassel, Peter Jacobson, Raquel
Hecker, Steven Anglin, Samantha Merritt, sallykismet, Sanjay, Susie Reiss, teamtichenor, heartfast
La Superette History
La Superette was founded in 1998 by two students at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. The immediate huge success of the
event carried La Superette all the way to NYC, where it has been an institution since 2001! La Superette has been hosted by
many galleries and organizations in NYC.
2002: La Superette debuts its NY days at free103point9 Brooklyn
2003: Despite a big snowstorm, La Superette attracts 500 shoppers at a two-weekend event at Deitch Projects and Participant Inc.
2004: Art and pop stars attend La Superette at the Tank – they wait in line like everyone else
2005: La Superette expands the shopping days to include a long list of live performances at Exit Art
2006: La Superette spreads out and collaborates with Eyebeam on a day of shopping, music, and workshops
2007: La Superette celebrates three weeks of music, video, and sales at Chashama
2008: La Superette infiltrated South Street Seaport in collaboration with LMCC
2009: La Superette returns to South Street Seaport in collaboration with General Growth Properties and LMCC
About Ignivomous

http://www.ignivomous.org

Ignivomous is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that presents, nurtures, and develops new genres, art forms, mediums and extremes
of expression. Ignivomous focuses on five main areas for promotion and distribution:
(1) production of live events and exhibitions
(2) production and distribution of media objects
(3) creation and fostering of web-based projects
(4) establishment of an electronic tools resource base for use by artists
(5) aesthetic and technical education programs.
About Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

http://www.lmcc.net

For 35 years, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) has been the leading arts presenter, advocate, and service provider to artists and
arts groups throughout Lower Manhattan. LMCC was founded by David Rockefeller and other business and civic leaders in 1973 and
was housed in the World Trader Center until 9/11. The Council, which was created shortly after the Twin Towers were built, was
established to humanize the architecture of the World Trade Center Plaza.
LMCC grew as downtown grew and today is Manhattan’s largest and farthest-reaching arts council, bringing diverse cultural experiences
to new audiences in unexpected ways and serving as a gateway to culture, information, and resources across the entire borough.
IGNIVOMOUS

Ooga Booga Opens a Reading Room at the Swiss Institute

The opening celebration for the Ooga Booga Reading Room at the Swiss Institute is this Sunday November 29th from 3-6pm.  Ooga Booga is a shop in L.A. that features all sorts of independent art publishing – artist’s books, art magazines, ephemera, etc.  The exhibition will be on view from December 1st through February 13th.

‘Best of 2009′ issue of Artforum out now!

My favorite Artforum issue of the year is out now – the “best of” issue.  This year Charlotte Gainsbourgh is included in the top 10 music category and there is a new section devoted to the best of dance.

Performa: Futurist Library

Serge Becker is installing a Futurist Library at The Swiss Institute as part of Performa09.  It is currently open through November 22nd: Tuesday-Saturday from 12-6, and Wednesdays until 9pm.

Upcoming Events for November 2009

Tuesday November 3rd from 6-8pm Dexter Sinister celebrates the opening of THE FIRST/LAST NEWSPAPER, which is part of Performa09.  They will be producing a newspaper twice a week for three weeks in the Port Authority bus terminal.  Click the link above for more detailed information.

Thursday November 5th is the opening for the Editions|Artist’s Book Fair at X-Initiative.  Tickets for opening night preview cost $50, but The Fair continues through the weekend and is free.  The magazines Blind Spot, and Point d’Ironie/agnès b. will be tabling.

Saturday November 7th from 6-9pm is the opening for One Every Day curated by Printeresting at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in Chelsea.  The exhibit features ArtMag favs Dexter Sinister, Megawords Magazine, and Temporary Services, among many others.  The exhibition is up through December 19th.

Tuesday November 24th Cabinet Magazine hosts a panel discussion at The Kitchen titled Cabinet: Picturing Objectivity.  The event is at 7pm and is free.

Paris Art Magazine Eye Candy

Magazines at a colorful bookstore stand in The Clignancourt Flea Market…

More magazines at The Clignancourt Flea Market…

Art magazines on display at Centre Pompidou…

The magazine rack at Colette before I was asked not to take any pictures…

Bookstand at Merci…

Librarie Florence Loewy (closed for lunch soon after we arrived)…

Les Archives de la Presse…

The magazine rack at the Palais de Tokyo bookshop…

Les Cahiers Purple at the Palais de Tokyo bookshop…

NY Art Book Fair Saturday and Sunday re-cap

On Saturday I participated in Jennifer Sullivan’s Fall Collection event as part of The Classroom.  The Fall Collection fashion show was a launch party for issue one of Threads magazine which Jennifer edits along with artist Jenn Brehm.  I hope to do an interview with Jennifer and Jenn about their magazine in the next few months.  Here are some photographs of the fashion show:

(Clockwise: Jennifer Sullivan, Jenn Brehm, Rachael Morrison, Nathan Richard Wagner, and Ryan Roth)

One of the highlights of The Fair was the Triple Canopy event in The Classroom.  This included a visit from special guest “Robert Rauschenberg,” (even though he died in the spring of 2008) at The Invisible Grammer: A Tribute to Aspen’s ” Time Silence and Reduction, and Language” issue on its 42nd Anniversary. “Rauschenberg” in conversation with Andres Laracuente told the story of his famous drawing Erased De Kooning, 1953.  The story was told beautifully.

In my final tour around PS1 I walked past familiar magazine vendors ZingMagazine, Art on Paper, mono.kultur, the journal, Frieze, Gagarin,…  At the Golden Age stand I found these two new magazines: Proximity Magazine from Chicago, IL and Evergreen from Melbourne, Australia.  I hope to get my hands on them again and give them more attention on this blog.

I also checked out FOIL and IANN, two magazines published by FOIL from Asia:

In addition to all the magazines I perused, I looked at artists books on the tables of some of my favorite independent publishers Regency Arts Press Ltd., and Art Resources Transfer (A.R.T.) Press.  I didn’t get anything from Regency Arts Press this year, but I did speak with Lauren Wittels who told me about two exciting upcoming events.  Open Book is going to be an interactive online catalogue of books made by artists and independent publishers.  The site will be launched in early 2010 and the first open-call for submissions took place on Saturday Oct. 17th X-Initiative in Chelsea.   Also coming up is the Art Book Swap at The Museum of Modern Art on Saturday Feb. 6th, 2010.

The Daddy Magazine Room / Installation

Josh Smith takes over the wall behind his outfit: 38th Street Publishers

Farewell to another great Art Book Fair.

Bidoun at The Kitchen

On Monday evening Oct. 26th, Bidoun hosts “an evening of readings, performances, and games to commemorate the release of its current issue INTERVIEW” as well as selected pieces from the winter issue NOISE.  More information on the kitchen’s website here.

Je vais à Paris ce soir!

I will return with photographs and stories of art magazines and books abroad.  I hope to visit Les Archives de la Presse, Librarie Florence Loewy, Librarie des Archives…

The NY Art Book Fair Thursday and Friday re-cap

I was so busy this weekend hanging out at The NY Art Book Fair that I didn’t get a chance to blog.  But here is my attempt at a re-cap of the first two days…

This year there were about 200 vendors spread out in the labyrinth of classrooms at PS1. The Fair opened early on Thursday evening for a preview. I was overwhelmed with the amount of publications to look at, but really excited about returning over the weekend to take a better look.  The benefit party, at Deitch Projects in Long Island City, following the preview was fun.  I attended with artists Jenn Brehm, Brent Owens, and Jennifer Sullivan.  I had never visited Deitch L.I.C. before and the gallery space, which is in a warehouse right next to The East River, is huge. When we entered we all received an editioned Tom Sachs screwdriver with our tickets.  We hung out, listened to DJs Tim Lokiec and Gary Murphy, ate some empanadas and had some drinks.  I.U.D. didn’t play until 11, so I stayed for a bit of their set and then headed home for a good nights sleep before the weekend of events.

On Friday morning I attended The Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference session: ‘Empirical Experience: The Artist, Information, and the Book.’  The panel was moderated by Bernard Yenelouis who began the session with a history of data gathering and it’s relationship to artists books.  In his lecture he mentioned Minimata, Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip, Ed Ruscha’s Royal Road Test, Martha Rosler’s The Bowery in Two Inadequate Descriptive Systems, The Center for Land Use Interpretation’s Points of Interest in Ohio, and Harun Farocki’s still video images, as examples of artists books and projects that use information to get to a new kind of knowledge.

After Yenelouis’s introduction, William E. Jones spoke about his project Mansfield 1962.  Mansfield 1962 started off as a film project.  Jones had pieced together footage from the Mansfield, Ohio police department where they secretly documented a tea-room in the center of town.  The police filmed 8 hours a day and Jones created his own film from the 16mm footage that he shows and following the screening explains the history of the situation.  When Jones was asked to be a part of The Whitney Biennial he realized he would not be able  to be present for each daily screening, so he decided the project should be made into a book.  The second printing of the book Tearoom is available through 2nd Cannons Publications.

Jacqueline Hassink then spoke about her books The Table of Power and Car Girls.  The Table of Power is Hassink’s series where she documents the conference room tables of international corporations.  Car Girls is a series of photographs taken at car shows, of the women or girls who work there.

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After The Conference session I went for a look around The Fair.  The first magazine I stumbled upon was Graphic, a quarterly graphic design magazine from Seoul, Korea.  Graphic explores one theme in each issue and is written in both Korean and English.  Issue no.6 is themed ‘Magazines’ and it contains information about 39 Korean magazines and 61 other international magazines!  I can’t wait to check that one out.  I was really excited to see Korea represented at The Fair and look forward to seeing more issues.

Pyramid Power, from Vancouver, Canada was another art magazine that was new to me and I bought myself a copy of their most recent issue no.6, 2009.  Pyramid Power is an art, design, and literature magazine that is published three times a year and is full of lush images.  The issue I picked up has articles with Jonathan Meese, Mark DeLong & Jason McLean, and Dick Oulton, a commercial photographer from Vancouver whose amazing photographs can be seen below.

I then went over to Motto’s table and spoke with Alexis Zavialoff the head of Motto Distribution.  He showed me a new magazine from France called May, which I later photographed at the Ooga Booga table.  Alexis also gave me a copy of The Index to their One Day Self-Publishing Fair, which is a great resource full of magazines, zines, and books, etc. I have never heard of before.

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It was a really busy day at The Fair.  I also attended two events in The Classroom.  First, Michalis Pichler presented his book Un Coup de Des Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard / A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance. The book is a copy of Stéphane Mallarmé’s book of the same name, however Pichler has cut out all of the words.  In doing so, he creates a visual poem devoid of text.  After Pichler gave a short description of his project we watched a video of the book being played on a player piano, the blank spaces struck the notes and created a song from the text.  It was really interesting to see the book change from text to visual shape to music.

One of the most exciting events I was able to attend in The Classroom was my rediscovery of animator Daniel Barrow. I had seen an animation of his at The Kitchen a couple of years ago as part of an Astria Superak program.  On Friday he presented his live animation The Face of Everything, a story loosely based on Liberace’s lovers.  The animation was absolutely mesmerizing as Barrow narrated and moved images on transparencies over a projector.

Reports on the events of Saturday and Sunday coming soon…