Ten Years Later: Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), 2015

a black and white archival photo of a single brass andiron from 18th century boston, attributed to paul revere jr, with item number and other info written in wax crayon on the transparency, but digitized backwards, from the collection of the metropolitan museum, it became an artwork in 2015 by my declaration, whatever that means.
Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), 2015

I’ve had the tabs open, and I still lost track of the tenth anniversary of Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), the first work to be on view at the Metropolitan Museum. [There was an earlier performance that began as a tweet in 2014—and is ongoing, block a Koch today!]

Untitled (Andiron…) was an early part of a series of experiments with the concepts of appropriation, readymades, and the power (or not) of authorship: they’re declared works of art where I didn’t own or control the physical object or environment.

Continue reading “Ten Years Later: Untitled (Andiron Attributed To Paul Revere Jr.), 2015”

Gonzalez-Torres Candy Porch, 2024

Study for Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Porch), 2024, good candies in wrappers, endless supply, ideal weight 175 lbs

Ten days out, our neighbors have already put a bowl of candy on a table next to their front door. I am baffled. But as leaving piles of candy for the taking season approaches, I was hit by the idea of a Felix Gonzalez-Torres candy pour for Halloween. A Sturtevant show just opened in Paris, so I feel good about putting this out there while you people with porches still have time to shop for 175 ideal pounds of candy.

Sturtevant Zip Zap! 12 Oct – 21 Dec 2024 at Thaddeus Ropac [ropac.net]
Previously, related: How Does Sturtevant’s Candy Pour Work?

Achaeans In Battle In Palazzo

Annabelle d’Huart photo of Cy Twombly’s studio, Roma, 1978 via @paintedout

Claudio Santambrogio just pointed me to some great, moody photos Annabelle d’Huart made of Cy Twombly and his Roman studio in 1978. If only she had Horst’s agent, we would have all been swooning over these for decades, too.

Anyway among the images posted by @paintedout in 2017, is a pair of paintings from Twombly’s 10-panel epic cycle, Fifty Days at Iliam, which is in the Philadelphia Museum. Heroes of the Achaeans [left] and Achaeans in Battle, are at the Nos. 2 and 4 the cycle, and they both look pretty done.

In 2018, the Museum and Yale University Press published a monograph on Fifty Days, in which curator Carlos Basualdo interviewed d’Huart about her visit to Twombly’s studio. The Museum acquired five of d’Huart’s prints, including the image above.

Untitled (200 x 157), 2019, jpg, the Philadelphia Museum’s c.2019, 200px image of Twombly’s 10×12 ft Achaeans in Battle, 1978, expanded to 800px. They quietly got better since then, but still

This is the same book that classics scholar Richard Fletcher talked to Tyler Green about on an episode of MAN Podcast, which prompted the Twombly Foundation to send a cease & desist demanding Green delete images of the Fifty Days paintings they discussed from his website, which prompted me to make an artist book out of a print of the screencap of the podcast site. And which actually soured me on buying the book, so not being more familiar with d’Huart’s photos sooner is the result. I have now ordered it; let the healing begin, I guess.

[the healing update: I got the book; it is gorgeous. d’Huart was literally like, I decided to photograph Minimalists so I flew to New York I called the director of MoMA from JFK he said I can’t meet you today but come tomorrow for lunch then Leo Castelli gave me a desk in his office and introduced me to everyone and Cy and then I was staying with Balthus and his kids in Italy and said let’s have a dinner for Cy and that’s how I made these photos he loved them. I am not exaggerating if anything I’m understating.]

Annabelle d’Huart Twombly studio photos in the PMA [philamuseum.org]

Signatures of Significance

When I said I can’t get autographs? I meant, unless conceptually.

Sitting with this unexpected Bach auction for a minute, I realized I actually do get autographs when they convey a meaning beyond, “This person signed this,” or “I met/corresponded with this person.”

Unititled (Merce at the Minskoff), 2015-2018, interim state

Or when I project entirely subjective meaning onto them. Like when I found a souvenir towel from a Merce Cunningham performance on Broadway signed by Cunningham, Cage, and Rauschenberg, and I conjured a “logic” for this object that involved getting Jasper Johns to sign it.

That “logic,” or the pretense of it, was predicated on Johns being the designer of the performance poster. But of course, there were multiple other logics possible, from the art historic to the romantic, to the starkly commemorative, forcing an object into existence that links these four men—physically, contractually, notationally, quasi-publicly, as if there weren’t already countless other products of their decades-long interactions, filling archives and beyond. Here the autograph functions as a singular piece of evidence, superficial and contrived, of some other form of more substantial cultural meaning. But when signs are few, signatures will do.

“Rob Pruitt’s Autograph Collection,” exhibited at Luxembourg & Dayan London in 2012

And of course, the significant emptiness can become the subject itself. Like in Rob Pruitt’s Signature Series, large-format autographs on Belgian linen he’s collected since the Pruitt-Early days. I remember several occasions when Rob would suddenly produce a big piece of linen and a fat Sharpie from his backpack, and turn around, offering his back as a writing surface when none other was available.

Rob Pruitt’s Autograph Collection, 2012, published by Karma back in the day

Autographs then became a project, an artistic practice, which art world celebrities and citizens alike could appreciate. I remember seeing a few loosies in the wild, but eventually, after years of accumulation, Pruitt showed The Signature Series en masse. And like Byron Kim’s skin tone monochromes, these accumulated markers of somebody else become a self-portrait of the artist moving through the world.

Now going back to Bach and his chopped up and shuffled autograph collection, it’s possible to interpolate meaning from the otherwise random-seeming clusters. Maybe the lots reflect the order in which Bach collected his autographs, a project of a lifetime sliced into tranches based on minimum viable auction estimate.

Rob Pruitt’s Signatures Series [luxembourgco]
Previously, related: Untitled (Merce at the Minskoff), 2015-2018

Gonzalez-Torres Free Tibet Sweater

“Untitled”, 1991, handloomed wool rug, 2.4 x 1.8m, ed. 25? via Equator Production

So on my journey from WTF to “Yes, please!” on the Felix Gonzalez-Torres “Free Tibet” rug edition that was later declared to be non-work, I passed the following:

It’s not just that Equator Production was using weavers and non-profits associated with the Tibetan diaspora in India to make their carpets. 1991 was also officially, The Year of Tibet.

And 1988 was the year of Tiger Rugs of Tibet having a breakout show at the Hayward Gallery in London, so the specific Tibetan Buddhist tradition of tiger-motif prayer rugs and monastery rugs had been launched in the West. Even if Felix didn’t see the Hayward show, there was a lush catalogue. In 1991 ABC Carpet in New York had a Year of Tibetan Tiger Rug collection. So it was around.

Kapital Wool Nepal Crewneck Sweater $611, NOT AVAILABLE, via Stag Provisions

What is not around is the Nepal Tiger Crewneck Sweater which Japanese heritage denim brand Kapital dropped in F/W 2019. But it still replaced every idea I had about repeating Felix’s Free Tibet carpet with a vision of these:

study for Gonzalez-Torres Free Tibet Sweater, 2024, ed. 25? Maybe available in Fall, if not in China

Whatever the edition, one will be set aside for the reincarnation of Sturtevant.

Previously: That Felix Gonzalez-Torres Carpet

NYABF Drop: Untitled (Grave Matters), 2024

In 2014 art historian Anna C. Chave presented an absolute banger of a talk at a symposium organized by Dia as part of the Carl Andre retrospective. Chave laid out how art world figures and institutions, including the curators and catalogue contributors of Dia’s show, stayed silent on Andre’s involvement in the death of his wife Ana Mendieta, but still could not manage to ignore it completely. It is truly a damning reading, and all the more extraordinary for taking place at Andre’s show, at Dia’s invitation.

In the revised version published in the Winter 2014 edition of CAA’s Art Journal, titled, “Grave Matters: Positioning Carl Andre at Career’s End,” she even called out the organizers of the symposium for changes to the format that appeared intended to head off any possibility that the artist and the curators might face any questioning from—or even any engagement with—Chave.

a spread from Untitled (Grave Matters), 2024, an artist publication by greg.org

One thing Chave discussed was an anomalous and macabre sculpture Andre included in his first New York exhibitions after his acquittal for Mendieta’s murder. Titled Large Door (1988)—a pun, Chave argues on, l’Age d’Or—it was actually a window, with a gash in it. Robert Katz mentioned it at the end of his 1990 book on Andre’s trial, Naked At The Window, but it was only published for the first time in Dia’s catalogue.

Andre refused to give Chave permission to reproduce Large Door and another work she discussed, a photo of a vase of roses on Andre’s apartment balcony, in her essay.

So to celebrate New York Art Book Fair Weekend, I am releasing Untitled (Grave Matters), 2024, a new artist book, which comprises JSTOR screenshots of Chave’s essay, with the missing images added. I will mail a signed and stamped edition to anyone who requests one this weekend, just email me to tell me where to send it. After that, we’ll see.

[We have seen, and they are done, thank you to all who engaged!]

[note: your information will only be used to send you an art zine.]

Read “Grave Matters: Positioning Carl Andre at Career’s End” and other of Chave’s publications on her site [annachave.com]
Read “Grave Matters” in Art Journal, W2014 [jstor]

Virtual Mural With Girl With A Pearl

Mural With Girl With A Pearl, 2023, paint on plaster, Vermeer painting, as installed at Rijksmuseum

It was the exhibition of the year, and it was truly an unexpected honor to be a part of it. The Rijksmuseum’s Vermeer exhibition lives online in a 360-degree panoramic version, and I’m thrilled to confirm that Mural With Girl With A Pearl (2023) can also still be experienced and studied virtually.

Like the Vermeer it incorporates, Mural With Girl With A Pearl deploys paint to hint at a spatial complexity that extends beyond the field of vision. And it also relies on subtle shifts of light to activate its painterly gestures. That these nuances can be communicated in the mediated experience of the virtual pseudo-space is truly a testament to the enduring magic of painting.

Vermeer 360 [rikjsmuseum.nl thanks Alain Servais]
Previously: Mural With Girl With A Pearl (2023)

Happy Joan Mitchell Season

Happy Joan Mitchell Season, 2023, screenprint on cotton and inkjet, pen, and offset on paper

Glad to hear the Joan Mitchell Season shirts are arriving. They took a little longer than expected, and the COA did, too, so apologies if you didn’t get yours in time to wear in Miami. Anyway, I thought we were boycotting Florida atm.

The Second Deposition of Richard Prince (2023)

It feels like worlds ago, and world ago all the way down. And also just yesterday.

For a few hours in the Summer of 2023, an Instagram account that tracks the work of artist Richard Prince posted a picture of a rusty shoe tree, standing in front of an abstract painting. It echoed the original image of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, which Alfred Stieglitz photographed in front of a Marsden Hartley painting in 1917.

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, photographed in front of Marsden Hartley’s The Warriors on April 19, 1917 by Alfred Stieglitz

The Instagram image included text elements: DEPOSITION above and RICHARD PRINCE below, with a url and password to an unlisted video file. The video, more than six hours long, appeared to be a recording of Richard Prince’s deposition in a pair of conjoined lawsuits filed by photographers Donald Graham and Eric McNatt, in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Both men objected to photos they took, posted to Instagram by others, which appeared in Prince’s 2014 New Portraits series.

Continue reading “The Second Deposition of Richard Prince (2023)”

Cady Noland More Relevant Than I’d Like

The New Yorker cover illustration, 2 Oct 2023, by Bruce Blitt

Shoutout to Cady Noland for making the cover of The New Yorker this week. We have been overdue for a discussion of the walker as a symbol of American boomer hegemony.

Cady Noland, Untitled (Walker), 1986, metal walker, metal police badge, leather gloves and case, denim strap, leather strap with metal clip, nylon strap with metal clip, copyright Cady Noland, photo: Owen Conway via Gagosian

cf.

Untitled (Harvey After Untitled (Walker)), 2019, walker, tennis balls, retractable stanchions, galvanized barrier, stepstool, hi-viz coat (image:AFP via Getty Images via PageSix)

Untitled (AUS), 2023 [UPDATED]

Untitled (AUS) and USM(ono)C(hrome), 2023, installation view, via CNN Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann

The second in what I guess will be an ongoing series. Any Republican senator could end this installation at any time.

MONDAY MONOCHROME UPDATE: Now the Navy makes it a triptych.

Untitled (AUS), Untitled (USN), and USM(ono)C(hrome), installation view,
14 Aug 2023, via Lara Seligman

Previously, related: USM(ono)C(hrome), 2023