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…

Preview and Benefit for The NY Art Book Fair

The Fair opens up early this Thursday night from 6-8pm for a preview at PS1.  Following the preview is a benefit party at Deitch Studios with “industrial punk-and-dub duo, I.U.D. (Lizzi Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance and Sadie Laska of Growing). DJs Tim Lokiec and Gary Murphy play vintage house. Tickets begin at $20 and include limited artist editions by Elmgreen & Dragset, Jutta Koether, Tom Sachs, and Mungo Thompson.”  You can get the $20 ticket with a signed and unnumbered edition by Tom Sachs (“This commemorative ticket edition by Tom Sachs for The 2009 NY Art Book Fair can be put to good use as a multiple-bit screwdriver after the party is over”)  here.

Events at The NY Art Book Fair

There are going to be a ton of events happening all weekend at the NY Art Book Fair.  In addition to book signings, exhibitions, table after table of art books, magazines, ephemera, etc., The Classroom (curated by David Senior of the MoMA Library) promises interesting performances every hour on the hour.  Schedule is as follows:

Thursday night at The Preview (6-8pm) (Oct. 1):

6:30-7:30pm – Bruce High Quality Foundation: Explaining Pictures to a Dead Bull

Friday (Oct. 2):

12-1pm – Bongout Gallery: gallery and printmaking workshop

1-2pm – Joachim Schmid: Bilder von der Strasse / Pictures from the Street

2-3pm – Michalis Pichler: presents his book Un Coup de Des Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard / A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance

3-4pm – Daniel Barrow: The Face of Everything: a live animation

4-5pm – Red76: The Pop-Up Book Academy

5-6pm – Ellie Ga: The Fortunetellers

Saturday (Oct. 3)

11am-12:30pm – W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy): Teach-in

1-2pm – J&L Books: Variety Show: a one hour show with 12 acts

2pm – Rick Myers: Mirror | Feedback | Section

2-3pm – John Miller: The Middle of the Day

3-5pm – Friends of the Fine Arts (FFARTS): Life Drawing Session

5-7pm – Red76: The Pop-Up Book Academy

5pm – Jennifer Sullivan: Fall Collection ***

Sunday (Oct. 4)

11:30am-12:30pm – Center for Book Arts: Bookmaking Workshop

12:30-1:30 – Center for Book Arts: The Handmade Multiple

1:30-2:30 – Filip Magazine: Letters from the Last Coast

2:30-3:30 – Triple Canopy: The Invisible Grammer: A Tribute to Aspen’s ” Time Silence and Reduction, and Language” issue on its 42nd Anniversary

3:30-4:30 – Ugly Duckling Presse: Reading of Notes on Conceptualisms (Vanessa Place and Robert Fitterman)

Ongoing

Stan Shellabarger will be making/performing his Walking Book Project.

Miller & Shellabarger perform Untitled (Sewing) on Sunday throughout the day.

In addition to these FREE events is the Contemporary Artists Books Conference which costs a whooping $100 for the two days of panel discussions and lectures, and $20 for each separate event.  Of interest to ArtMag is the session titled: Zines: Institutional Collecting, Zine Makers, and the Fine Line of Art at 2pm on Saturday October 3rd.

***I will be participating in Jennifer Sullivan’s Fall Collection fashion show.  The fashion show is a launch party for issue one of her new magazine Threads, which she co-edits with the artist Jenn Brehm.  “Fall Collection [is] a street-style inspired runway show featuring an eclectic collection of NYC based artists and designers modeling their own personal styles and wearable art creations.  Sullivan will MC as models work the runway, along with musical accompaniment and attitudinal inspiration provided by DJ Andrew Steinmetz.”  Jenn Brehm will be on hand selling this awesome new art & fashion magazine. (the fashion show starts at 5pm on the first floor of PS1, not 6pm as I had posted previously)

Joachim Schmid  – Bilder von der Straße – Pictures from the Street

Reanimation Library Reopening

This Saturday September 26th The Reanimation Library opens its doors once again with a celebration from 6-10pm.  The Reanimation Library was created by Andrew Beccone and the collection is made up of books that have fallen out of circulation and have high visual content.  The opening is shared with neighbor Proteus Gowanus, an interdisciplinary gallery and reading room. If you haven’t been for a visit yet, this is a good opportunity to check out these wonderful resources in Brooklyn.  Snacks and drinks will be served but BYOB is encouraged.

Subway and driving directions can be found here.