I’d low-key wanted to see this exhibition of Wade Guyton lithographs at Crousel when it was announced, and by the time it closed yesterday, several people who would know were reporting on its awesomeness. So the FOMO built to a high finish.
It’s taken a bit to sort out what’s actually going on. The project takes its unwieldy title, Galerie Matthiesen, Ausstellung, Edouard Manet, 1928, 6. Februar bis 18. März, Vol. II, from the catalogue of an exhibition in Berlin.
[The show was the first public viewing of Le chien “Bob”, which is more than excuse enough to repost this awesome little painting.]
Guyton took ten copies of the catalogue—which somehow varied in page count, size, and even exhibited works—and over printed the pages with a bitmap file. When this happens in inkjet, Guyton considers them drawings; here, they are lithographs, produced with a foundry in Zurich. The result is ten unique sets of lithographs, and ten reassembled volumes.
The first two books, along with the 121 unique prints from Vol. 2, were the show. That included a vitrine with two books, which I understand to be the book versions.
I’d say they’re facsimiles, but what, really, are lithograph facsimiles of lithographs? The artist, we’re told, is “Thinking of a book as an exhibition and an exhibition as a book,” and so here are two of each, for less than an Uber to and from the airport.
I don’t need to have missed the show after all.
Wade Guyton, Galerie Matthiesen, Ausstellung, Edouard Manet, 1928, 6. Februar bis 18. März, Vol. II, ran from 16 October til 18 November 2023 at Galerie Chantal Crousel’s rue Charlot space [crousel]
Previously, Guyton X Manet-related: Wade Guyton Simulacrum Facsimile Object