February 2017 Archives

Reading a Dan Graham interview transcript about magazine articles as artworks, and contemplating the [so far] failed campaign for Giant Meteor '16, I thought of Mel Bochner's and Robert Smithson's In The Domain Of The Great Bear, published in the Fall 1966 issue of Art Voices. This edition of Better Read is two excerpts from that work, which I imagined as a diptych.

PDF scans of In The Domain Of The Great Bear can be found in various places online [pdf]. The version I like is on Mel Bochner's own website [pdf], because it preserves the appearance of the work as originally published. Bochner spoke about Domain at a 2005 Smithson symposium at the Whitney Museum. I was at that symposium, but the New York-centric historian who said visiting the Spiral Jetty site doesn't matter, the film is enough, and Nancy Holt's nonchalant comments about adding more rocks to the Jetty have obliterated all other memories of that day. Fortunately the talk was later adapted as "Secrets of the Domes" and published in the September 2006 issue of Artforum.

serendipitous update: I happened across the John Wilmdering Symposium at the NGA from last Fall, where art historian Justin Wolff talked about Rockwell Kent's End of the World lithographs, which were made for Life Magazine. For a story, though, about a very popular program at the then-new Hayden Planetarium, where scientists would speculate on the many ways the earth could be destroyed. So this was not just Smithson; it was a Hayden thing. Great [End] Times. [oh, spoiler alert?]

Download Better_Read_012_Bochner_Smithson_Domain.mp3 [9:36, mp3, 13.8mb, via dropbox greg.org]

I do not know how this slipped by me all this time, but Cucula is a Berlin organization that works refugees to make furniture. It started in 2013 by making Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione designs out of the wood from refugee shipwrecks on the Italian island Lampedusa.

Lampedusa, of course, became synonymous with the first widely publicized tragedies of massive refugee deaths in perilous transit. Cucula, a West African word meaning, basically, colabo, was started by designers Corinna Sy and Sebastian Daeschle, first to help Nigerian and Malian refugees fleeing war in Libya to stabilize their situation in Germany. Actually, their first idea was to help the refugees build furniture for their rooms; the refugees said they'd rather have jobs, danke.

The first products were Mari's Sedia I, and were apparently called Lampedusa Stuehle. On the webshop now, though, they're called the Ambassador. Whatever the nuance of the shift, it makes me think of how time, geographic shifts, and the exponentially worsened plight of refugees has kind of swamped the Lampedusa brand.

Actually, what it really does is make me uncomfortable by aestheticizing and productizing the deaths of so many people. I fully support the mission of Cucula. I will not be shaken in my support of efforts to help refugees, especially those who have been through so much and have traveled so far at such great danger. I am a longtime admirer of Enzo Mari, and applaud his support for Cucula's use of his designs beyond their original, DIY-only context.

But the transformation of wrecked ships into premium, virtue-signaling, small batch designer furniture gets rightupthisclose to Ai Weiwei levels of disaster pornsploitation for me. The only thing that makes it work, imho, is that it's actually refugees learning the skills, doing the work, and reaping the benefits. I hope. [Curbed reports that Mari's license stipulates that only refugees can make the furniture, which in this case adds to the layers of complication, partly because the refugees cannot officially be classified as employees who earn wages.]

How many kinds of complicated are there again? Because it feels like a couple of designers stepping in to fulfill a moral obligation we all [should] feel, and doing it in an impossibly, obviously, unscalable way. And the rest of us, our role is to shop.

No. I don't mean no, don't shop. I mean, no, the rest of it. Why not take Cucula as an imperative, an example of the value of individual and collective care and involvement in building communities with and for refugees? If a designer can organize a workshop that supports a team of refugee craftsmen by building esoteric furniture, there is something you can do, too.

Meanwhile, maybe the Cucula solution is two-fold: first, get some stock-standard Autoprogettazione furniture made from regular pine. None of it is particularly expensive, considering, and the Bambinooo extended mini-chair with built-in storage bin is especially nice. Also go full Lampedusa-meets-Piet Hein Eek, and get a custom chair made entirely out of wreckwood. Then start inviting some refugees to dinner.

CUCULA [cucula.org, h/t monique]
Meet CUCULA, the Berlin Furniture Company Seeking to Empower Refugees [curbed]
Previously, related: Enzo Mari X Ikea Mashup, Chaper: The Last [or not, obv]

Untitled, 1993, 70 x 190 cm, image: bruun-rasmussen.dk

Olafur Eliasson painted this in 1993. It's apparently one of six roughly door-sized paintings in a series or group. I've seen a couple of early Olafur paintings, and I am puzzled by them.

This is another painting from 1993, which apparently did not sell at B-R in 2011. It also has atmospheric and landscape-ish fields of color behind traced elements of domestic architecture.

Beauty, 1993, installed at the Long Museum Shanghai in 2016, image: olafureliasson.net

1993 was also the year he made Beauty, which he first showed in a garage, I believe. I'd say he was exploring a lot of different directions in 1993 and chose one.

Frakkastigur, 1996, from a suite of five photogravures produced by Niels Borch Jensen

But then, that painting also reminds me of a couple of collaged image photogravures Olafur made with Niels Borch Jensen, which have always puzzled me, too, and those are from 1996.

the rest, image via nbj

Other prints from the suite have probably gotten more attention for how they seem to map out Eliasson's project going forward, but I keep wondering about the collagey ones.

Vestmannaeyjer street covered with ash with lava fountains behind, 1973, image: usgs

A few years ago I found some stunning and very similar-looking photos of a January 1973 volcanic eruption on Heimaey, an Icelandic island where a third of the fishing village Vestmannaeyjer was buried in lava and ash.

image via heybehappy

The USGS published a booklet about how the destruction was minimized by fire fighters hosing down the face of the wall of lava with seawater as it advanced through the town, slowing it down. Olafur would have been 6, and I imagined the incident would have been formative. And I started re-considering his work through an unexpectedly autobiographical lens. When I proposed this to him, though, he didn't buy it.

completely unrelated: Riverbed, 2014-15, installed at Louisiana Museum, DK, image: Anders Sune Berg via olafureliasson.net

I still wonder, though. And I do wonder about Olafur's early work, including those paintings. If no one's gonna look into it, maybe I will.

Mar 7, 2017, 870/​752
Olafur Eliasson: Untitled, 1993, est. 200-300,000 kr [bruun-rasmussen.dk]

David Hammons, Rock Head, 1998, image via: hairisforpulling

In 1992 David Hammons took clippings from the floor of a barber shop in Harlem and affixed them to the crown of a melon-sized stone from Harlem. He brought the stone back to the barber shop for a haircut alongside his friend and muse, the Lower East Side poet John Farris. The performance is known as Haircut. Hammons has made several similar sculptures of black hair attached to stone, then trimmed and cut with tramlines, which have been titled Rock Head or Stone Head. They are inspired by history and their surroundings. Black living is at their core. They honor uniqueness and celebrate the individuality of each piece Hammons creates.

"Made Solid is a collection of leather products designed and handmade in Los Angeles by Peter Maxwell and Mia.
Our design is inspired by our history and our surroundings. Western living is at our core.
We honor uniqueness and celebrate the individuality of each piece we create.

"The name Made Solid references the connection we create through our creative process and the end result of our labor. Making a solid connection between the raw leather our hands touch and the well used pieces our friends love is our constant goal.

...

"We are connected to our surroundings, bringing natural elements to our work. Ocean, sand, stone and sky are referenced.

"We bring our lifestyle to our work."

In 2013, Maxwell and Mia conceived "one of their most popular and recognizable pieces" in collaboration with "one of their oldest friends," Los Angeles designer Cristy Pitoc. Their Leather Wrapped Stones are sourced locally, "selected for shape and color," and vegetable tanned leather is stretched around each stone with the wet molding technique used in saddle making. The edge is stitched, beveled and burnished by hand. "The leather is bound to the stone for life."

"Use as a paper weight, worry stone, doorstop, art object - whatever it is to you."

Wrapped Leather Stones have been featured in design-appreciative blogstores, literarily themed artisanal and locally sourced menswear emporia, and well curated home and lifestyle shops to, I'm sure, appropriately contemplative acclaim.

For the Holiday 2016 season Made Solid Leather Wrapped Stones were also curated into the Love, Pop-In Stores at select Nordstrom locations and at Nordstrom.com:

A paperweight? A conversation piece? A work of art? It's up to you, but this smooth Los Angeles-area stone--wrapped in rich, vegetable-tanned American leather secured by sturdy contrast backstitching--is sure to draw attention wherever it rests. A traditional hardening process gives the leather a beautiful ombré effect. Like all Made Solid leather pieces, this one is cut, shaped, sewn and finished by hand in artist Peter Maxwell's Los Angeles studio. Using vintage leatherworking tools and traditional saddle-stitching techniques, Maxwell aims to create beautiful designs that embody both simplicity and functionality, and that develop rich character and patina over time.

Earlier this week Nordstrom confirmed they would no longer carry the licensed merchandise of Ivanka Trump, citing poor sales. Yesterday Ivanka's father tweeted in outrage over the haters' and losers' slights, and the White House press secretary literally said Nordstrom's decision to discontinue stocking Ivanka was an attack on the president's policies and family. Discount clearance stores TJ Maxx and Marshall's also both dumped the toxic, failing brand. Today as I type this, the other White House flack is violating federal law by literally declaring a commercial promoting Ivanka's brand and telling people to go buy it.

Untitled (Sold Out) (2017) consists of things that actually did sell at Nordstrom, namely a Made Solid Leather Wrapped Stone. So whatever it is to you, it is now also a declared, limited edition inspired by [our rapidly unraveling] history and its surroundings. Though I will endeavor to pin it down, the size and location of the edition is presently unknown. Both small and medium Made Solid Leather Wrapped Stones purchased from both seasonal appearances at Nordstrom are included, but Made Solid Leather Wrapped Stones purchased elsewhere, are not, no matter what their size.

Fakes already abound, but if you believe you have an example of this artwork, please provide images and appropriate documentation of the provenance, and I will gladly issue a signed certificate. Requests for confidentiality will be honored.

The Vermeil Room in the White House as redecorated by Pat Nixon's plumbers, photo c.1992, LOC via Phillips-Schrock

The White House needed renovation and redecoration, and the Nixons were determined to put their mark on the place. By 1969, the French interiors commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy were worn from use. Also they were detested by politicals as reminders of a martyred rival. H.R. Haldeman and new White House curator Clement Conger set out on an aggressive fundraising effort to remake the White House and its collections, a campaign publicly led by the First Lady Pat Nixon. The period room-style appearance of the White House to this day largely reflects Mrs Nixon & co's work.

Based on my Google Books previews of it, this story of "the Dismantling of Camelot" is meticulously told by Patrick Phillips-Schrock in his 2016 book, The Nixon White House Redecoration and Acquisition Program: An Illustrated History.

Vermeil Room a la Boudin, c. 1964, image: whitehousemuseum.org

Phillips-Schrock's account of the 1971 redecoration of the Vermeil Room on the ground floor of the White House is representative. From a caption of a photo of Boudin's Kennedy-era design: "The room was expensively finished in painted surfaces in blue and white with vitrines lined in white silk. Conger found it offensively French..." [p.74]

From an interview with Conger: "What we have done in 'face-lifting' the Vermeil Room is to change the room from a very dark blue--which is rather depressing--to a light green-gray, the appropriate color as the background for vermeil, which is gold. You use blue with silver, but never such a dark blue!" [p.76]

The room was reconceived as an early 19th century sitting room, with a table at the center "attributed to the workshop of Duncan Phyfe, it was on loan until a donor could be found to purchase it."

An 18th century lighting fixture in crystal with 10 lights replaced the Kennedy chandelier of bronze and blue tole. Further lighting was supplied by four matching sconces and by two candlesticks given by Mrs. Marjorie Meriwether [sic] Post, which were placed on the mantel. The fine Louis XVI marble fireplace was acquired and installed in 1962. [not too offensively French, I guess. -g.o] Within the firebox were a pair of valuable brass andirons, obtained from Israel Sack of New York. When the room was opened to the public, Conger related, "These are American andirons, so called 'in the Paul Revere Manner' with the flame and diamond lozenge--except they are a little more petite and narrow than the heavier ones of this same design one generally sees." [p. 77]

American Andirons in the Vermeil Room, c.2008, image: CSPAN via whitehousemuseum.org

I mention this because I just googled across it. And because 1971 was a busy year for well-provenanced, Paul Revere-ish andirons. It was the same year Mrs. Giles Whiting bequeathed her Paul Revere (Attributed) andirons to the Metropolitan Museum. Interestingly, Mrs. Whiting's Revere-ian andirons did not have a diamond and flame, but an urn and flame finial. Actually, I don't know if that's really interesting at all. Maybe what's interesting about andirons is not the things themselves, but the complicated narratives into which they are enlisted.

Previously, related: Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), 2014 [greg.org]

When I saw a 2-year-old book titled "Volume 13" I realized I had no idea how much the Gerhard Richter Archive has been publishing. Or what. And at the moment, it turns out to be non-trivial to find out.

They are not all published in English, or in every market, so they are called, variously, Schriften des Gerhard Richter Archiv Dresden, Band whatever, Writings of the Gerhard Richter Archive Volume whatever, and Publications from the Gerhard Richter Archive Dresden, Volume whatever. Yet specific web searches prove insufficient. And the Archiv's director Dr. Dietmar Elger is himself too prolific and accomplished to be of much help in narrowing things down.

Somehow I can find no single list of titles*, so I have made one here. I expect it will be rendered obsolete some day by a database update to the artist's website. Or by a page compiled by the archive itself.

Until then, though, a seemingly brazen SEO ploy feels right at home on a site that, at one point, literally published a weekly index of New Yorker Magazine articles because the New Yorker did not. So greg.org is proud to present The Compleat Publications from the Gerhard Richter Archive Dresden, in chronological order.

Ah, I think I see the problem.

Schriften des Gerhard Richter Archiv Dresden; vol. 1

Sechs Vorträge über Gerhard Richter. Februar 2007, Residenzschloss Dresden (2007, Walther König, Köln)
Documentation of a six-lecture symposium organized on the occasion of the artist's 75th birthday.
ISBN 3865602991
amazon [us] | amazon [de] | gerhard-richter.com

Publications from the Gerhard Richter Archiv Dresden, Volume 1
Volume 1:

Gerhard Richter Text 1961 bis 2007. Schriften, Interviews, Briefe (2008, Walther König, Köln)
The collected writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007, in German.
ISBN: 9783865601858
amazon [us] | amazon [de] | gerhard-richter.com
UK English edition (2009, Thames & Hudson, London) | US English edition (2009, DAP, New York)

New Posters, via richardprince1234

There's a new gang in town. Over the last day Richard Prince has uploaded a series of images to Instagram he's calling, "New Posters." I take New Posters to be a show. New Portraits went from Instagram to IRL. New Posters goes from IRL to IG. It's not the first time, either.

After getting wiped for nip slip a couple of times Prince has taken to treating his Instagram feed as a temporary space; nothing lasts forever. Images go up, and they come down, like a gallery, or a booth in an art fair.

Last May Prince announced a temporary Instagram show of "Ripple Paintings," presented through his book joint, Fulton Ryder. [I emailed to see if they were available somehow, but got no response. No/too slow?] Ripple Paintings were images of watercolored-over cartoons torn from old Playboy magazines. New Posters has a Playboy angle, too, but the show's tightest, most relevant connections are to Prince's own early practice, which he is clearly revisiting.

Right now there are seven New Poster images, and a video and four images (two identical) relating to Donald Trump. [update: I woke up to three. Prince says one was removed by Instagram.] The New Posters are of vintage duotone ads for posters, cut and cropped and masked into various configurations. The image above includes a poster of Jimi Hendrix; an Op-Arty sunburst; a Mailer for Mayor campaign poster; and a very Princey, bikini-clad girlfriend named Greta, straddling a motorcycle. Scraps of white paper and strips of tape mask and frame the composition, occasionally creating palimpsests like, "ORO'S VERITABLE ORG[Y]."

We are all Ryers now: New Posters, via richardprince1234

Other poster groupings up the political ante significantly, like this set, where a nude guy named Ryer huddles surrounded by anti-war and protest posters:

Suppose they gave a war and nobody came
When the bomb goes off, make sure you're HIGHER than the bomb!
War's not healthy for children & other living things
They shoot students, don't they?

From the Vietnam War to Woodstock to Kent State, the cultural context of the late 60s and early 70s has been a regular feature in Prince's discussions of his work. The work itself, meanwhile, is grounded in images circulated in magazines, and ads. Prince has written about "ganging" slides of rephotographed magazine images, "DJ'ing" them into various arrangements and printing the grid of slides on a single sheet. "The 'girlfriends' from the Biker's Magazine were the first 'gangs,'" he wrote in 2014. "The 'gangs' were mounted and framed. It was like having a whole show of a particular subject matter in one frame. Instead of having a whole room of 'girlfriends'... I could have a FRAME of girlfriends."

"Up against the wall: Marboro Posters", image of ganged anti-ware fare in a Playboy tearsheet, c. 1971, via ebay

But there's no sign of Prince ganging within these images: these poster abutments are found, composed by cropping from of a larger grid. The poster ads come pre-ganged. They turn out to be from a mail order company called Marboro Posters, which ran full-page ads in the backs of magazines, including Playboy. Also Saturday Review and Psychology Today. Each ad was a different shuffle of posters; ganging was Marboro's process. Optimizing each ad for the demo of the magazine it appeared in, like merchandising. [Marboro tracked ad response by adding "Dept. PB-15" or whatever to their mailing address.]

New Posters screenshot 2/1/2017, image: richardprince1234

Prince wrote of ganging slides on his giant lightbox. And of his iPhone, with a camera, Twitter, and Instagram, becoming his studio. And Instagram is where he's ganging now, making a whole show of a particular subject in Instagram's frame. And that subject appears to be the Trump-induced return of the apocalyptic terror Prince describes feeling after Kent State. In a birdtalk for a 2013 show of his 90s Protest Paintings at Skarstedt, Prince wrote,

But the Kent State shootings were different. That got to me. The shootings pissed me off and I found myself wandering around the campus trying to come to terms with the murder. Nixon and Agnew were shitheads and already dead people to me. I really thought they were going to try to stage some kind of coup and take over the government. I was ready to pack it up and retreat to the upper parts of the Adirondacks... put a hold on "beauty" and work out and get in shape, stockpile supplies, turn on the ham radio, do some reconnaissance, get camouflaged and ambush, (hit and run)... and guerrilla the shit out of the republican army.
Instead...

The blurred, saturated closeup of Trump has been reverberating in Prince's social media like a fugue since the election, and I haven't known quite what to make of it, except to find it very disturbing. Now images of Prince's new posters of it, along with Trump's dismal quote to Billy Bush, are members of this New Posters Instagang. IG and IRL are feeding each other [though whether these New Poster images will make a jump back to physical, printed form is not clear], and history's all in Prince's grille going, "Hey DJ, play that song again."

richardprince1234 [instagram]
Richard Prince - Birdtalk [richardprince]
Previously, related? If He Did It [It being making Bob Dylan's paintings, that is]
View Source: Richard Prince's Instagram Portraits