Sheila Hicks Mile High Club

a wide, flattened arch of tan silk embroidered in a checkerboard pattern with the thick strands discernible in each square, shifting to a field of smaller nubs at the curved edge hangs on a white wall. it was originally made to fit the curved walls and ceiling of the upper deck of a boeing 747, where it would be the back wall of a first class lounge area. air france commissioned the panels from sheila hicks, who kept this one until her husband donated it to moma in 2017
Sheila Hicks, Panel for the interior of Air France 747 upper deck lounge, 1969-77, silk on cotton, 51 3/4 × 157 × 2″, a 2017 gift to MoMA from Melvin Bedrick, the artist’s husband

Yesterday art historian Michael Lobel posted Sheila Hicks’ bas relief panel of embroidered silk, four meters wide, which MoMA says is the only survivor of the 19 panels Hicks made for Air France between 1969 and 1977. Lobel has jokingly assigned me the case for tracking down any other remaining panels. So instead of not finding one Jasper Johns Short Circuit flag, I can now not find eighteen back walls from the upper deck first class lounges of Air France’s first generation of Boeing 747s. I am ON it.

Continue reading “Sheila Hicks Mile High Club”

Primary Information: Buy Things, Send Cash

a tan softcover book cover, horizontally or rather, cinematically, oriented, and mostly blank, with slides of a changing painting on the upper right, and below it, a 1990 quote from robert gober: "For about a year, between 1982 and 1983, I painted on a small board. Over this board I had mounted my camera, and as I changed the painting I would take slides of the process. So that in the end nothing remained but the photographic record of a painting metamorphosing."
the cover of Slides of a Changing Painting, 2025, a book of Robert Gober, published by Primary Information

“For about a year,” Gober explained in 1990, “between 1982 and 1983, I painted on a small board. Over this board I had mounted my camera, and as I changed the painting I would take slides of the process. So that in the end nothing remained but the photographic record of a painting metamorphosing.”

a two-page spread of robert gober's slides of a changing painting with photos of a painting of a tree against a thick leafy green backdrop with a sleeveless sundress slipped onto its forked trunk, and a white flag or towel or pillowcase suspended from an upper branch, published in may 2025 by primary information

Gober first showed Slides of a Changing Painting as a 3-screen slide projection work for just one week [??] in May 1984, at Paula Cooper Gallery. I saw the work first at the Walker Art Center. It’s been central to major retrospectives of Gober’s work, and to understanding his larger project, many, many seeds of which are contained in the Slides.

But it’s the extraordinary book version of Slides of a Changing Painting, coming out in a few days from Primary Information, that has been looming so large in my present. It was shipped early to annual subscribers, and it gives an unprecedented chance to see Slides slowly, one phase at a time, in a way that the actual work avoids by design. But the sheer heft and density of the book— it is small, beautiful, and nothing but images—also gives a chance to get lost in the world Gober painted into—and then out of—existence.

Slides of a Changing Painting is somehow just $30, and it’s $25 on pre-order, but it feels like it should be $50 or $100. Which, about that. Executive director Matthew Walker just sent out an email announcing that Primary Information is one of the many arts non-profit organizations that suddenly had their NEA grant canceled, blowing a $40,000 mid-year hole in their tiny budget.

For nearly 20 years, Primary Information has been publishing and republishing highly important artist texts, bringing them back into the discussion at cost. They have an entire slate of books to come. So when you order, if you’re able, why not pay double, or triple, of 10x, with a donation at checkout, and help keep Primary Information’s work going? Or buy some solid and yet not exorbitant fundraising editions. Or just straight-up slip them a tax-deductible donation.

Hang Together: White Columns 2025 Print Portfolio Just Dropped

five silkscreen editions in white columns 2025 portfolio include a watery black and white rendition of luigi mangione's mug shot by sam mckinniss; a purple and green line-intensive drawing of a willem dekooning woman and a sassy amy winehouse with a dekooning-esque hand up; a pink haloed moon reflecting across a blue sea in a dark blue sky by ann craven; a triptych of picassoid forms with a scribbly, fuzzy undercurrent by arthur simms, and a black on yellow sketch of a long-lashed sun, with radiating beams all around.
White Columns 2025 Print Portfolio, silkscreen prints by [clockwise from top left] Sam McKinniss, Rachel Harrison, Ann Craven, Arthur Simms, and Tabboo!, dimensions variable, ed. 100, via whitecolumns.org

The White Columns 2025 Print Portfolio just dropped, and it looks like a thousand bucks. Each. And yet it’s only a thousand bucks for the whole thing. If ever there was a portfolio designed to hang together instead of hanging separately, it’s this one. With Tabboo!’s sun and Ann Craven’s moon; and Craven’s moon and whatever is radiating on the right side of Arthur Simms’ triptych. And the way Simms’ framed head or whatever resonate with Sam McKinniss’s Luigi mugshot. But most of all,

sam mckinniss's grey and black toned brushy rendition of luigi mangione's mug shot feels like a nod to warhol's most wanted men paintings.
cheap Luigi is the new free Luigi: Sam McKinniss, no title, 2025, 12 x 19 in., signed and numbered ed. 100
rachel harrison has made a whole series of ink pen-like drawings of amy winehouse, with an emphasis on hair, eyes, and here, a sharply manicured hand. this purple and green silkscreen also has a de kooning woman with large, uneven eyes and a pasted on smile. between them both there are four green-clad breasts very much bringing the color to the composition
Rachel Harrison, no title, 2025, 24 x 28 1/2 in., stamped and numbered ed. 100

the way McKinniss’s Luigis and Rachel Harrison’s DeKooning Woman & Amy Winehouse just feel like a call to action. So act now, gallerists are standing by.

Simone Prouvé’s Jean Prouvé Table

in a featureless white setting, a bent metal rectangular dining table with a base in weathered red paint has a translucent gray top, which turns out to be steel mesh laminated between two sheets of safety glass. each leg sits on a small square of rust colored iron, hinting, i think, at the artcurial auction house description of a newer iron frame. the red table is by jean prouve, the top is by simone prouve, his daughter, and it is being sold from her estate in may 2025
Prouvé X Prouvé dining table, 72 x 202 x 92 cm, painted steel, iron, stainless steel, laminated glass, from the estate of Simone Prouvé, selling 27 May 2025, Lot 84, at Artcurial

See, maybe not this one specifically, but this is the kind of FrankenProuvé collab vision I’m talking about.

It sounds like Simone Prouvé made this dining table by taking a base from her father, reinforcing it with an iron frame [which is now rusting], and putting a laminated glass and woven steel top of her own, based on an idea from “self-described Goth” architect Odile Decq, for whom Prouvé wove a steel facade for MACRO in Rome. So that’s around 2006-7.

27 May 2025, Lot 84, Table de salle à manger, est EUR500-800 [artcurial]

Jean Prouvé’s Kit of Jean Prouvé Parts

a large squarish lacquered metal sliding door with a vertical wooden handle stands behind an ensemble of metal components from jean prouve furniture: three red painted drawers, a perforated aluminum drawer, and maybe four bent aluminum shelf/sheets, in a sale of the estate of simone prouve at artcurial in may 2025

What’s even more intriguing than Jean Prouvé’s [Daughter’s] Jean Prouvé sideboard is the next lot in the Artcurial sale: a bunch of Prouvé parts.

What could you make with a sliding sideboard door, five shelf/plates, and four drawer/boxes, toute from la famille Prouvé? I am seriously tempted to cook something up.

27 Mai 2025, Lot 32, Jean Prouvé, Ensemble d’éléments en metail, EUR800-1000 [artcurial]

Jean Prouvé’s Jean Prouvé Sideboard

27 Mai 2025, Lot 31a, Jean Prouvé Bahut « tout aluminium n. 151 », designed c. 1951-2, artcurial via @pwlanier

This « tout aluminium n. 151 » Prouvé sideboard is being sold among a bunch of textile and other design objects from Simone Prouvé, Jean’s daughter. So it could have only ever been hers and still accurately described as “Famille de l’artiste, puis par descendance.”

But it cannot be the case that she had to buy it retail, right? And just because Artcurial is only going with the date it was designed, and the EUR60-80,000 estimate seems low [sic], I’m—caveat emptor—sticking with this title format.

27 Mai 2025, Lot 31a, Jean Prouvé Bahut « tout aluminium n. 151 » [artcurial via @pwlanier]
Previously, related:
Eileen Gray’s Eileen Gray Table
Gio Ponti’s Gio Ponti Shelf

Koyo Kouoh RIP

a screenshot of an instagram post of an elegant Black woman with thin, straight braids in a white dress, with her arms crossed over her crossed legs, sitting on a low bench in an art space, with several elements of a painting behind, presumably it is an official portrait of koyo kouoh, the director and chief curator of zeitz mocaa, the south african contemporary art museum which posted it to instagram while announcing news of kouoh's sudden death

Extraordinary and sad news, that Koyo Kouoh, most recently of Zeitz MOCAA, and the curator of the next Venice Biennale, has died. Aruna d’Souza posted the Zeitz MOCAA Instagram announcement on bluesky.

Having never seen a show of Kouoh’s, I found the most insight and inspiration from her two-part interview in 2024 with Charlotte Burns for Schwartzman &’s What if…!? podcast. I’ve listened to it multiple times since.

Just a person of extraordinary and urgent thinking and action, now gone.

The Art World: What If…?! Season 2, 9, Koyo Kouoh, Part 1 [schwartzmanand]
The Art World: What If…?! Season 2, 10, Koyo Kouoh, Part 2

James Lee Byars Dog Cage

In a way, it’s the quintessential experience of James Lee Byars’ art: clicking through a letter to Sam Wagstaff, written three words at a time on an endless stack of envelopes grabbed? left over? from the Green Gallery, where he showed in 1967, piecing together a plea to stage a museum show of a room—just a small one, though—entirely covered in gold, “A state of complete simplicity/ costing not less than everything. Love B.”

Then the next page in the digitized archive is this:

an undated black and white press photo of a qing dynasty dog cage made of the most ornate cloisonné with jade rings along the bars, tiny hooks on the finials for silk draperies, and little wheels, like you're going to pull it along behind you, a 1964 acquisition by the philadelphia museum of art, which found its way, via james lee byars, into the sam wagstaff papers at the archives of american art, correspondence, box one, folder 9
a jpg of a pdf of a scan of a press photo by a.j. wyatt of the philadelphia museum of art’s most important acquisition of 1964, a qianlong era (1736-95) cloisonné, jade, and gilt bronze dog cage, preserved in the Sam Wagstaff Papers as UAN AAA-wagssamu00041-000035 by the Archives of American Art

followed by this:

the verso of a press photo from the philadelphia museum of art for a dog cage has a letter from james lee byars written over the handwritten and stamped notations from the museum, in a multitude of different handwriting sizes and directions, and what i can read is half in byars' abbreviations, so who even knows, but this feels like a situation where digitization should make something more accessible, but instead, i just feel dazed and paralyzed by the overlapping texts, where to even start, and why? from the sam wagstaff papers at the archives of american art
i have no idea: a jpg of a pdf of a scan of the back of the dog cage press photo, onto which james lee byars has written sam wagstaff a letter, or a note and a hundred annotations, or, i don’t even know where to start, you probably have to go straight to the Archives of American Art and examine UAN: AAA-wagssamu00041-000034 yourself in person. If you do figure it out, lmk

And now I don’t know whether to keep trying to decipher Byars’ five sizes and orientations of abbreviation-filled handwriting; to scour the world for my own archival photo of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Imperial cloisonné dog cage; or to just head straight to Philadelphia.

a color photo of an 18th century cloisonne, gold, and jade dog cage made during the qianlong emperor's reign, elaborately decorated with finials, little wheels, little hooks for hanging silk curtains, an obscenely beautiful and useless object, in the philadelphia museum of art
Dog Cage (Goulong), Qianlong Dynasty (1736-95), brass, gilt, cloisonné, jade, 45 1/2 in. high, from the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which somehow has negative object info on it

So for now, I’m rereading a bunch of Byars recollections from the 2014 retrospective at MoMA PS1, and just blogging it out.

Previously, related? Marie Antoinette’s Dog House

James Lee Byars Did Not Cast The First Stone

I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said today and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

That dinner plate-sized, Junior Mint-shaped Galactic Senate hoverpod-shaped James Lee Byars sculpture that the American Medical Association bought from Robert Mapplethorpe’s estate auction is NOT untitled, it is NOT undated, and it is NOT made of lacquered bronze.

Continue reading “James Lee Byars Did Not Cast The First Stone”

It’s Seven Oranges, Matthew. How Much Could It Cost? $40,000?

a 1966 drawing by ellsworth kelly of seven oranges is seven circles on a page, one in the center, and six distributed evenly around it. a couple barely touch each other, but the center orange overlaps the orange at 10 o'clock just enough to give the entire composition a sense of space and depth. then it snaps back to being seven circles again. via matthew marks gallery
Ellsworth Kelly, Seven Oranges, 1966, graphite on paper, 22⅝ × 28½ in., image via Matthew Marks

Every time I worry this site is just becoming an Ellsworth Kelly fanblog, I recommit to myself to stop posting Kellys when they start going downhill.

That moment is not yet. This 1966 drawing, Seven Oranges, which was a standout in a standout show of plant drawings at Matthew Marks in 2017, is for sale next week at Phillips. I assume whoever bought it is dead or dead broke, because why would you ever just decide to give this up? And for what? $40,000?

[update: did not sell, but on the bright side, they get to keep it. ]

Somehow Pompon Returned

a closeup photo of a pastry shop case shelf, on which rests a puppy-shaped pastry made out of white, piped meringue or cream, with a smiley dog face, and a crumb-sided cake with cookies and cream-lookin frosting and decorations in the background. the sign on the front edge of the shelf reads white and chocolate puppy, and the price is $3.99. via lamignonette's tumblr

It shouldn’t need explaining, but @punk-raphaelite’s reblog of @lamignonette’s collection of lapdog-shaped meringues and pastries put me in a Pompon mood.

After rereading that post and reliving that bonkers 2023 Pompon moment, I thought to check in on the current state of the Pomponiverse. Has even one scintilla of evidence or scholarly discussion turnd up to support the antique dealers’ story that Jacques Barthélémy De Lamarre was painting Marie-Antoinette’s favorite dog?

Désolé, mais non, it has not. But another Pompon has.

Continue reading “Somehow Pompon Returned”

MORE Richard Prince Posters

a screenshot of richard prince's instagram grid circa 2017 includes several photos of tape collages of cut up magazine ads for anti-war posters, interspersed with prince's blurred headshot of a shifty eyed trump, which he put on a building, drove over on the ground, etc.,
2017 screenshot of New Posters on Richard Prince’s IG grid [via]

Early in 2017 I wrote about how Richard Prince was using the Instagram grid to gang images and to stage temporary exhibitions. One I screenshot was of a set of photos he called New Posters; it was made of vintage ads for Marboro Posters, alongside his own blurred Trump poster.

a screenprinted poster by richard prince reproduces a photo of a collaged group of Vietnam War-era posters and their descriptions, from a full-page ad in the back of playboy magazine. Two posters about the conflagration of war, one of a child's drawing about war, and a fourth about targeting and shooting student protestors surround a poster of a nude white guy huddled up with his head buried between his knees. via more publishers dot be
Richard Prince, Untitled (Poster), 2016-17, 98 x 68 cm, ed 25+5AP, via MOREpublishers

Somehow, even though I considered the possibility of IRL posters at the time, I only just now realized Prince did make a New Poster. Untitled (Poster), 2016-17, was published as a small screenprinted edition by MOREpublishers of Belgium.

Richard Prince, Untitled (Poster), 2016-17, ed. 25, sold out [morepublishers.be]
Previously, related: Marboro Man: New Posters by Richard Prince

Repeat After Venice: Open Group @ 601Artspace

two people stand in front of a wall-sized projection of a ukrainian woman with trees behind her making the sounds of the drones and weapons she's been subjected to since the russians invaded, an artwork by open group, photo from the 2024 venice biennale, polish pavilion, by jacopo salvi
an installation view of Open Group’s Repeat After Me II (2022, 2024), from the Polish Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, 2024, photo: Jacopo Salvi via 601Artspace

Somehow the Ukrainian art collective OPEN GROUP’s powerful installation from the Polish Pavilion at Venice last year is being restaged in New York City, starting tomorrow, Thursday May 8th. The somehow is impresaria Magda Sawon, who has arranged with 601Artspace’s David Howe to show Repeat After Me II (2022, 2024), and Untitled (2015 — ongoing), two works that relate to the ongoing impact on Ukrainians of the fight against the Russian invasion.

OPEN GROUP was a last minute addition to the Biennale, after Poland’s rightwing government was ousted, the Polish Pavilion’s rightwing curator and artists followed. Curator Marta Czyż rapidly invited OPEN GROUP instead.

After the opening Thursday, Czyż and Sawon will give a public walkthrough of the show, in two adjacent 601Artspace spaces, on Friday evening. There is also a talk planned for Saturday the 10th, with Czyż, OPEN GROUP, and Columbia professor Mark Lila. [Obviously it will not be at Columbia.]

OPEN GROUP (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, and Anton Varga), 9 May – 22 June 2025 at 601Artspace [601artspace]

The Monochrome Billboard Book Project

a book made of a cut up and bound billboard sits open on a red table in the foreground of an installation photo of three star books' paris gallery space, where the main object in the photo is the same billboard mounted as a billboard on a wall floating between concrete columns, smooth plywood panels, and glazed exterior walls. the floor is pale pink or flesh colored terazzo. jonathan monk's 2010 The Billboard Book Project.
Jonathan Monk X Vier5, The Billboard Book Project (Paris), 2010, ed. 40, installation view at Three Star Books

Jonathan Monk’s Billboard Book Project with Three Star Books has at least four iterations. It is a billboard entirely about the making of itself, both as a billboard and as a book. The first iteration’s billboard appeared in “Week 47 of Year 2009” in Paris, while the limited edition book, made of cut down billboards—and documentation of an installed billboard—is dated January 2010. Which makes the subthemes project management and the hermeneutics of verb tenses.

Also:

the colophon of jonathan monk's 2010 artist book, The Billboard Book Project (Paris) - The Green Book is open on a table, with a green endpaper on the left side, and a signed photo of a monochrome green billboard, framed, from a platform of the paris metro, on the right. via three star books
Jonathan Monk X Vier5, The Billboard Book Project (Paris) – The Green Book, 2010, ed. 15, the colophon with signed photodocumentation, via Three Star Books

Three Star Books announces an immediate and surprising sequel to “The Billboard Book Project (Paris)”…During Monk’s recent sojourn for the launch of this project, the artist noticed that posters in the Paris Métro were occasionally covered with green printed paper during the interval between commercial advertisements.

a book with all blue pages made of billboard paper, printed on one side with monochrome green, open on a table with the blue verso side on the left, and the green recto side on the right of the spread. via three star books
Jonathan Monk X Vier5, The Billboard Book Project (Paris) — The Green Book, 2010, 26.5 x 43 cm, ed. 15, via Three Star Books

The Billboard Book Project (Paris) — The Green Book is a companion book—though in a much smaller edition, so a companion to only a fraction—of offset printed monochrome green billboards.

There were The Billboard Book Projects in London and New York after this, and I’m happy for all involved. But it’s no disrespect to say—and I’m sure the fifteen people or institutions who own both Paris volumes will back me up on this—The Green Book is the project’s greatest aesthetic success.

Jonathan Monk at Three Star Books [threestarbooks]
Previously, related: Jonathan Monk Brooklyn Heights Streetview
Previously, unexpectedly related: Krisjan Gudmundsson, 200 Pages on Barnett Newman, 2001