A collection of whimsical mail art sent to and from the late illustrator known for his playful sketches and line drawings, with contributions from Marcel Dzama, Stefan Marx and more This volume engages with the broader artistic practice of artist and illustrator Jason Polan, famous for his ink sketches of the city's people and places, as collected in the cult favorite tome Every Person in New York. The Post Office collects a body of materials Polan exchanged through the mail with friends, fans and penpals, as well as the artwork that he in turn received, often whimsical drawings and short text works. In gathering the material, the project reflects on Polan's affinity for the US Postal Service and his commitment to mail art as a means to build networks and make connections—a practice he maintained over many years with both friends and strangers alike. The result is a new perspective on Polan's legacy, highlighted through an exchange that is playful and often touching, the contours of which offer an expanded portrait of the artist. Jason Polan (1982–2020) was a Michigan-born, New York City–based artist and illustrator known for his humorous and prolific output, sketching strangers, art-world figures, celebrities, friends, objects and the things he spotted on his many museum visits. His illustrations have appeared in Metropolis Magazine, the New Yorker and ARTnews and his books have generated wide acclaim. His work also appeared in a regular column in the New York Times, and on apparel in a collaboration with Uniqlo. His books include Every Person in New York and Every Piece of Art in the Museum of Modern Art.
Over the course of Jaguar Group ’s extended text, Reisner draws on observational writing and archival research to offer an account of a wildlife diorama at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of North American Mammals. Through a consideration of the suspended scene—one that depicts two taxidermied jaguars gazing across a rugged desert vista at sunset—the project contends with the strong allure that Reisner feels and the contradictions tied up in complicated American histories of Westward Expansion, early 20th century conservationism, and the construction of national mythology. Jaguar Group considers how systems of display blur the line between reality and simulation—and life and death—to present a “natural” ideal. The project extends a critical lens on historical approaches of collecting institutions through their amassing of biological specimens, funding of big game expeditions, and the depiction of lands that have been abstracted from narratives of indigenous stewardship. The work is situated within the broader cultural context of natural history museums as sites of contemporary protest and inquiry amidst more urgent calls for decolonizing museums and the repatriation of cultural artifacts. Ultimately, Jaguar Group asks how we can both critique and love such an idiosyncratic, confusing, but beautiful monument. Jaguar Group incorporates excerpts from historical letters from James Perry Wilson, the talented muralist who created the backdrop to the Jaguar Group diorama in the early 1940s. His affectionate letters with Thano, a young soldier on furlough, chronicle his work in the Museum and share insight into his painterly technique —his approach to concealing his art and transporting the viewer through attention to tonality, color theory and forced perspective—and the distortion of reality which is necessary for the illusion of the diorama to function. The book’s color scheme is informed by Wilson’s oil painted murals, and a clear PVC cover references the smudged fingerprinted glass of the Museum’s diorama. Publication Details 15 x 23 cm, 6 x 9 in 194 pages Flexibound Screenprinted PVC dust jacket Cased-in spiral bound; three loose photograph inserts Edition of 700 Design by Rissa Hochberger Printing by die Keure, Belgium Retail: $30 Isadora Reisner (b. 1994, NYC) is an artist and writer currently pursuing a J.D. at UCLA School of Law. Her work has explored museums, the archive, phenomenology, and fables. She has given lectures and tours at Frieze New York, EUROPA, Entrance Gallery, The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and more. She gives pro bono legal advice to documentary filmmakers at the UCLA Documentary Film Legal Clinic
Dark Prospects takes as its source material issues of People, Time, Newsweek, U. S News and World Report. Charles Beronio retains the form of the magazine, but dismantles the medium's visual language by blacking out all references to textual and visual references to corporate branding, time and location, as well as the faces of the magazines' featured stars and advertising props. What's left is a stuttering, unforgiving sequence of detonated images and textual fragments; a skewed visual narrative of modern life.
The first publication from Printed Matter's Publishing Program for Emerging Artists sees Erin Cosgrove taking the romance novel for a ride; producing a tempestuous tale of terrorism and true love. In the cloistered environment of an exclusive East Coast college, the young and the restless fall in love while romancing the ghosts of the '70s Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang. This send up of the romance genre comes complete with tongue-in-cheek cliff notes and commentary for the confused. A page-turning tour de force of the dangerous passions and politics of the privileged.
Five contemporary writers respond to Guston’s work through imaginative fiction that proves his continual influence on today’s creative culture In the short story collection Five Stories for Philip Guston, edited by Emmie Francis and Mark Godfrey, contemporary writers Christopher Alessandrini, Ben Okri, Thessaly La Force, Lou Stoppard and Audrey Wollen have created new fiction in conversation with Philip Guston (1913–80) and his painting. Christopher Alessandrini’s queer, drily witty “Maverick Road” brings us to the contemporary environs of Guston’s upstate haven. Ben Okri’s “Bloodymindedness” is a stark portrait of violence and subversion. In “Looking,” Thessaly La Force writes of the lingering power of painting and reputation with a tribute to Guston’s exhibition in Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia. Lou Stoppard’s courtroom crucible “A Verdict” is a study in Kafkaesque atmosphere. Audrey Wollen works deftly with a kind of Oulipo constraint exercise—Giotto is there, but is Guston himself in “The Line”? Look for him, and he is everywhere.
Hunters Follow Harpy Shadows is an experimental work featuring a series of poetic writings that explore fantasy narratives of rewritten mythologies. Mixing re-imagined trans Korean folklore, queered Biblical storytelling and pirate lore, the publication is an amalgamation of writing delivered from the lips of the artist as a genderfluid seraphim that has left heaven to tell mortals of the other worlds.
Depreciating Assets is a new artists’ book by Jessica Vaughn investigating labor, diversity politics, and the material environment of the American workplace. With a new lens to the artist’s multidisciplinary practice, the project examines how affirmative action and other office equity measures are intersected by corporate infrastructure and, specifically, the physical layout of office space. Across four interwoven sections and related appendices, Vaughn assembles her photographs and critical writings alongside xeroxed images, diversity training video stills, and manipulated open source documents of the US Government. The project considers and distills the symptoms of late 20th and 21st century work culture produced by open office plans and modular architecture’s promise of malleability, compliance, and universality — provisions that bid for increased efficiency and productivity at the expense of visibility for Black workers and workers of color. Vaughn looks at how minimalist design gestures of the modern office (as envisioned by Rem Koolhaas’ formative essay “Typical Plan,” and Herman Miller’s Ethospace brochures) cannot exist outside the conditions of race, class and labor. The project also includes an interview between Vaughn and curator Magdalyn Asimakis, in which the two discuss the structural failings of arts and cultural institutions to practice equitable inclusion of artists of color, or to develop a language and praxis in support of diverse programming that extends beyond compliance, optics, and concerns of the market. Vaughn draws connections between the operations of these institutions to that of the corporate environment, and discusses the ways in which she manipulates their commonalities through the material of her work. In its design, Depreciating Assets intentionally replicates the style, materials, and colors outlined by the US Government Publishing Office—standards set to ensure design efficiency and the economical production of their internal documents. The book draws from the familiar copyshop palette of Venetian blue, tan pink, salmon, green and brown, and uses varied paper stocks in accordance with Paper Standard specifications. In doing so the project takes on and examines the homogeneity imposed by so-called ‘corporate efficiency measures,’ and the fundamental tension between diversity initiatives and one-size-fits-all approaches to office resources. The publication concludes with an afterword by the author contextualizing the project’s themes within the contemporary reality of global pandemic, economic precarity, and protests against racist state violence. Here Vaughn explores how in the absence of an adequate governmental response to structural problems, workplaces implement ad-hoc solutions (such as plexi-dividers) that still leave workers vulnerable and at risk — most acutely, Black workers who are often underinsured.
A Mistake Is A Beautiful Thing is published by Printed Matter in collaboration with LA-based Coloured Publishing. The new hardcover work is the latest from designer Yuri Ogita and artist Devin Troy Strother, and follows a companion installation by Coloured Publishing at Printed Matter earlier this year. The loosely organised collection of images – taken both by and of Devin and Yuri – offers an offhand perspective into the duo’s daily life as artists and publishers. Accompanied by short and often humorous captions, the photographs (sometimes overlapping) are comprised of glimpses into studio life – collages in progress, unhung paintings, spilled paint – as well as other encountered objects – book covers, plants, and many dime bags. The work moves indiscriminately through its recurring motifs to build on a dialog that is irreverent but assured, examining art and its references, cultural phenomena and the experience of being a person of color in the US.
An archival history of New York City’s most prolific artist collective, including Jimmy DeSana, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith and more This book traces the output of Collaborative Projects Inc. (aka Colab), the highly energetic gathering of young downtown New York City artists active from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. Advocating a form of cultural activism that was purely artist-driven, the group created artworks, curated shows and engaged in discourse that responded to the political themes and predicaments of its time. With extensive documentation of the printed material and media steadily produced in the course of its collaborative undertakings, as well as many firsthand accounts, the book displays the diverse aesthetics and concerns of the group as it embarked on The Real Estate Show, The Times Square Show and other projects. Edited by Printed Matter’s former executive director Max Schumann, the full-color publication presents a detailed view of Colab—both through the work created and in the artists’ own voices—and represents the fullest account of Colab’s output to date. This second printing comes at a time of renewed and heightened interest in a bygone era of New York City’s vibrant arts culture. Artists include: Liza Béar, Jimmy DeSana, Jane Dickson, Bradley Eros, Barbara Ess, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Jenny Holzer, Ann Messner, Alan W. Moore, James Nares, Marcia Resnick, Judy Rifka, Christy Rupp, Kiki Smith, Reese Williams, Robin Winters.
Mårten Lange intermittently lived in London for 4 years. Just before he left, he started photographing the birds surrounding him. In cities like London, feral pigeons are predominant. Their round eyes, which Patrick Süskind compared to a camera in his book, The Pigeon, are mechanically pointed at you. With sufficient technology, they could become inescapable surveillance tools, evoking the feeling of the pet owl possessed by Eldon Tyrell in the dystopian movie Blade Runner. _x000D__x000D_Ironically, birds are presumed free by essence. Due to their ability to fly, they supposedly know neither limits nor boundaries. Yet, while a wing stroke could carry them anywhere, pigeons seem embedded in cities: glued to power lines or building balconies. Poles apart from a migrating bird; they are trapped in their concrete ecosystem. They seem to have always been here, en masse, like feathered sentinels to something sacred that only they perceive. Often immobile, they guard the city like the colossus that once guarded Rhodes. _x000D__x000D_Purveying a bucolic sullenness, their apparent sadness echoes the drabness associated with urban landscapes. Pigeons often appear beat up, dirty, starving and crippled. Against all odds, they stay, feeding on what humans leave behind. Their wildness is urban, and in their quest for survival, they share the daily struggles of the cities’ inhabitants. Similarly, pigeons passed their test of fire and claimed their territory, which Lange feels that this is what truly defines them as a citizen. _x000D_Shot at close range in black and white, Lange’s portraits of pigeons are almost clinical. It’s as if these birds had to renew their passports and needed a photo. However, like a true citizen, they probably will never use it.
Introduction by Kim Gordon. Contributions from Rita Ackermann, Maurizio Cattelan, Cameron Jamie, Harmony Korine, Aaron Rose, Steven Salardino, Tom Sachs, Jocko Weyland, and others.
