I am on an archiving tear: I realize that if I don’t take the time to do it now, it will get all lost in the shuffle of things. SO, i just updated my website to now include the two works at P.S.1: “Temporal Aggregate/Social Configuration (Borrowed Beuys)” and the “Custom Transitional Utility Object (Morris Mover).” Lots of pictures! Lots of words! Check it out…

Whew… just updated my website to include a project statement and image bank for the COPYSTAND project. More than you ever want to know, I’m sure

My, how time flies… I just posted to the SFMOMA Open Space blog (where I am a guest columnist from September 15 – January 15, 2010) a rather humorous semi-diaristic account of my time working on the COPYSTAND project at the Frieze Art Fair. See some photos and maybe have a giggle or two here!

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I just updated my Reviews section of my website and formally included several video interviews and articles related to the COPYSTAND at Frieze. Again, I just have to say how amazing the opportunity was to work with Frieze Projects and I am still sifting through all the coverage and culling articles… whew!

Again, some highlights were articles by Carol Vogel of the New York Times (here, too), Charlotte Higgins of The Guardian UK, and a great interview for Vernissage TV.

Above: screenshot of a slideshow from the New York Times website, showing my Beuysian contribution to the “1969″ show.

And on October 25 the exhibition “1969″ at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center opened, which included two sculptural works revisiting iconic works by Joseph Beuys and Robert Morris. After coming off the heels of the Frieze Fair, this was another amazing thing to be a part of. I’m still in the process of archiving all the images from this show and will have them up on the website really soon. But for now, a review by Holland Cotter from the New York Times gives an interesting observation about the show in general. A kind of nice, if “neutral” view of the curatorial premise and what it says about institutions (namely, MOMA)… The show is up until April 2010, so do stop by if you’re in the area!

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Above: the Google SketchUp 3-D mockup of my work for the “One Every Day” show, “Color Theory Communication Transference (People’s Park, Berkeley, CA)”

Also, last Thursday an exhibition I am a part of, “One Every Day,” at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space in New York opened. I really wish I had had a chance to be out there for it! Alas, there was no time, although I was in New York for the week before. The lineup of folks are great and the Project Space director, Michelle Levy was really wonderful, as was independent curator Amze Emmons…

“One Every Day” press release:

Curator: Printeresting.org

EFA Project Space is pleased to present One Every Day, on view from November 5 through December 19, 2009. The exhibition foregrounds the relationship of printed ephemera to cultural and artistic production, and marks the curatorial debut for Printeresting.org.

Launched in 2008, the founders of Printeresting.org aptly coined it “The Thinking Person’s Favorite Online Resource for Interesting Printmaking Miscellany.” Recognizing it as exactly that, EFA invited Printeresting to organize an exhibition that would open during New York City Print Week 2009, expanding the discourse about print beyond its fine art boundaries into the “every day”.

From the detritus under the windshield and the debris in our pockets to gig posters mounted on telephone poles, One Every Day attests that all varieties of print ephemera share the following three characteristics: fleeting function, low-cost means of production, and the fact that somebody out there loves them.

Presenting work by twenty-five artists and designers, the curators proclaim: “The universe of ephemera is expansive, and so is the work in One Every Day. The viewer will be treated to books, pamphlets, zines, stickers, merchandise, and other artifacts, but also subtle minimalist explorations, conceptual activism, and post-punk rock promotion. Similarly, the goals of our contributors are diverse: highly personal and comedic explorations of youth culture rest easily alongside overt critiques of consumer waste.”

Some artists in the exhibition imitate and glean from existing printed matter, appropriating popular forms of communication to transform their meaning. Stephanie Syjuco’s Color Theory Communication Transference is a re-creation of a community board from People’s Park, Berkeley, CA. Using a process she calls “color averaging, ” the artist color codes the posts based on category, resulting in an isolated color coded object absent from the original content. Kate Bingaman-Burt’s foray into obsessive consumption involves drawing everything she buys, including the receipts and bills, all of which are then compiled in the format of artists books.

Other works are created with the intention of being placed in the public domain, such as Geoff Hargadon’s Cash for Your Warhol, a suite of roadside signs created in the same font as the ubiquitous Cash for Your Houses signs. These signs, reproduced in Warholian colors, were placed in front of major museums. Reversely, Lydia Diemer creates a personal space out of public material. She will build a distinct three-dimensional environment within the gallery, constructed entirely from printed ephemera.

Concerned with public interaction and the act of exchange, the Chicago artist collective Temporary Services will have all of the posters they have produced on display, along with a takeaway stack of posters created specifically for this exhibition. Additionally, Carlos Motta will provide several publications for the taking- including Gigantic, a large sampling of images from popular news media, each image removed off of the top reveals a new image beneath, the only way to experience all of the images in the stack is collectively throughout the show.

Many of these artists create objects for the same reasons ephemera have always been created: an efficient mode of production and distribution allows access to the widest possible audience. This is the goal of anyone with an idea to share, an agenda to promote, a culture to subvert, or yes, even a product to advertise: as seen in Post-Typography’s show poster screenprinted on silver mylar balloons, and the work of Gary Kachadourian, who commodifies his art as cheap consumer products sold at bargain-basement prices to maximize distribution.

Printeresting.org is an online resource for all things print related. From “fine art” prints and limited edition multiples to xeroxed flyers and cheap inkjet printouts, they take a broad view of printmaking; all manner of printed matter has a place at Printeresting. Authored by multiple contributors, the site features regular posts on a range of print-related content, including artwork, news, reviews, technology, and critical discourse. While their primary goal is to highlight innovative print work, the site is also a place to keep abreast of developments in the field, and to take note when printmaking intrudes into popular culture. The site’s growing collection of posts form the web’s most comprehensive, searchable database of contemporary print. Printeresting is for artists, designers, printers, curators, collectors, teachers, students, and the generally curious.

The originators of Printeresting.org and the One Every Day exhibition are Amze Emmons, R.L. Tillman, and Jason Urban.

A selection of links to press related to my project COPYSTAND: An Autonomous Manufacturing Zone, presented last week at the Frieze Art Fair, London… More to come! Still super busy. Now I’m installing at P.S.1 for an opening this Sunday but wanted to share a few links:

The New York Times: “Notes from the Frieze: Imitation as Art (and Commerce)” by Carol Vogel

The London Evening Standard: “An artist’s guide to Frieze,” by Alastair McKay

The Times Online: “Scenes from the Frieze Fair in an age of austerity,” by Kate Muir

The Wall Street Journal: “Frieze Fair Opens to Steady Sales, Grey Art”

Artinfo.com: “Faking it at Frieze,” by Sarah Douglas

Vernissage TV (video)

FYI, while away for the next two weeks I’ll be sending missives to the SFMOMA’s Open Space blog instead of this one. Yep, I guess I sold out, but at least it’s just for a short while. Haha, kidding. But really, I’m using the cover of the Museum to post slightly inane-sounding things in a “Dear Diary” style, with content kind of embedded in it in different ways. You’ll see… So go here for now.

A visual listing of some of the objects lent for my “Borrowed Beuys” project at P.S.1… More to come.

from Martin Zet, Prague, Czech Republic

from Allison Smith, Oakland, CA

from Nathaniel Parsons, Oakland, CA

from Tiffany Sum, Long Beach, CA

from Tiffany Sum, Long Beach, CA

from Tiffany Sum, Long Beach, CA

from Terri Cohn, San Francisco, CA

from Terri Cohn, San Francisco, CA

from Terri Cohn, San Francisco, CA

from Anna Maltz, London, UK (offered, but not able to be shipped)

from Anne Walsh, Berkeley, CA

from Cheryl Meeker, San Francisco, CA

from Jonathan van Dyke, Queens, NY

I’m excited to be presenting two newly-commissioned works for P.S.1 for their upcoming exhibition, “1969″ that opens October 25. I’ll post more in detail about the works, which revisit both Robert Morris and Joseph Beuys’, but for now, here’s the exhibition description on their website… So excited to be a part of this lineup and an amazing honor to be asked to contribute to the dialogue!

On a side note, kinda awesome that Vito Acconci (among others) is a part of the show… I just included an image of him from the latest J.Crew catalog in my ongoing series “1001 Words” for the SFMOMA blog. Hellooooo, Vito!

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1969
On view October 25, 2009 – April 5, 2010

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents 1969, a large scale exhibition occupying the entire second floor with works drawn from every department of The Museum of Modern Art. Exploring a cross section of art made during a period marked with revolution and socio-political tumult, this exhibition also will embrace five interventions by a current generation of artists whose work reflects the concerns of 1969 and brings the exhibition into the present. These younger artists will be given free reign to respond to the works on view and to the time period in general.

1969 is organized by a team of curators representing both institutions and includes MoMA’s archivist. One of the questions that shaped this exhibition early on was whether the customary curatorial approach of P.S.1, with its fast-paced process and focus on living artists as well as the rustic architecture of the former schoolhouse, would offer a different visual setting for work ordinarily seen in the minimal white galleries of MoMA. This exhibition includes examples of painting, sculpture, photography, print, illustrated books, design, drawing, media, and film as well as a wealth of documents drawn from MoMA’s archives.

Diverse artistic practices, concerns, and themes are presented ranging from the minimalist sculpture of Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre, abstract painting and drawing of Helen Frankenthaler and Gego, to films by Walter de Maria and Michael Snow, and politically charged works of the Art Workers Coalition and Martha Rosler. By exploring a single year, this exhibition is not an attempt to recount the events of 1969, but rather, to present a variety of works made in a single year, each one with its own narrative and point of view. Clearly, the exhibition also outlines MoMA’s own collecting history; as such, it is part of a cross-departmental curatorial examination of MoMA’s collection with an eye to expanding the range of its holdings from a period when art was being redefined.

Several of the featured works from the collection will be exhibited for the first time, including pieces by major artists like Robert Barry, Mel Bochner, Lutz Mommartz, Bruce Nauman, and John Wesley. In addition, Mel Bochner’s room-sized installation, Theory of Painting, marks not only its debut at P.S.1 and MoMA, but the first time it will be realized in New York City.

Central to the exhibition is the re-staging of MoMA’s 1969 exhibition, Five Recent Acquisitions, organized by noted MoMA curator Kynaston McShine, highlighting then-recently acquired works by Larry Bell, Ron Davis, Robert Irwin, Craig Kauffman, and John McCracken. This exhibition within an exhibition is further contextualized by photographs by Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, among others, in addition to exhibition catalogs, books, and archival documents which depict the events, excitement, and anxieties of the period. By juxtaposing the meditative space of the white cube gallery of the transplanted MoMA exhibition with the tumult of the outside world, 1969 reflects the expansive concerns held by artists of the time. Archival materials document MoMA’s relationship with and involvement in the momentous events of the time.

Similar to the presentation of Five Recent Acquisitions, a younger group of artists will create interventions within the galleries that highlight, reflect, and disrupt the collection show. The intervention artworks will speak to themes both present and absent from the exhibition, such as NASA’s lunar landing, the legacy of iconic post-war artists like Joseph Beuys and Robert Morris, the rise of collaborative artistic practices, and the cultural and political affects of the Civil Rights movement. The artists acting as commentators are Base, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Mathew Day Jackson and David Tompkins, Stephanie Syjuco, and Hank Willis Thomas.

Artists include: Vito Acconci; Robert Adams; Ryoji Akiyama; Carl Andre; Keith Arnatt; Richard Artschwager; Richard Avedon; Lewis Baltz; Robert Barry; Larry Bell; Mel Bochner; Marcel Broodthaers; Scott Burton; James Lee Byars; John Cage; Vija Celmins; Ron Davis; Walter De Maria; Agnes Denes; Jan Dibbets; Fluxus; Helen Frankenthaler; Lee Friedlander; Gego; Guerrilla Art Action Group; Philip Guston; R. L. Haeberle, Art Workers Coalition and Peter Brandt; Richard Hamilton; Strike Poster Workshop, Harvard University Graduate School of Design; Douglas Huebler, Robert Irwin; Jasper Johns; Ray Johnson; Donald Judd; Stephen Kaltenbach; Craig Kauffman; Joseph Kosuth; Standish Lawder; Sol LeWitt; Lee Lozano; George Maciunas; John McCracken; Lutz Mommartz; NASA; Bruce Nauman; Claes Oldenburg; Dennis Oppenheim; Nam June Paik; Richard Pettibone; Adrian Piper; Arnulf Rainer; Ely Raman; Robert Rauschenberg; Gerhard Richter; Martha Rosler; Dieter Roth; Edward Rusha; Rudolf Schwarzkogler; Seth Seigelaub; Richard Serra; Joel Shapiro; Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt; Michael Snow; Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, David Novros, Forrest Myers, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Chamberlain; Lawrence Weiner; John Wesley; Christopher Wilmarth; and Gary Winogrand.

Organized by Neville Wakefield, P.S.1 Senior Curatorial Advisor; Michelle Elligott, MoMA Archivist; and Eva Respini, MoMA Associate Curator of Photography.

The exhibition is supported by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, and Sally and Wynn Kramarsky.

lacework by Laura Splan

OK, who speaks Swedish? Not me. But according to the curator of “Craftwerk 2.0,” an exhibition I’m a part of at the Jonkopings lans Museum in Sweden, the review in the newspaper says good things. Nice image of a Laura Splan lace virus on the website…!

OK, here goes. Just because.

Chris Burden, “Send Me Your Money,” 1979.
Good to play in the background while you’re doing something else because it goes on for an amazing 55 minutes. Broadcast live on March 21, 1979, on radiostation KPFK. Gives new meaning to the idea of a fundraiser.

Question Box: going where the internet cannot go in Uganda.

Trevor Paglen talks about Trevor Paglen on KQED’s “SPARK” series. Nice to hear more from the words of the maker. Came out in 2006 but still so relevant to the work we all know.

WORD, what up? I’m about a week and a half in to a four-month stint as a guest columnist for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Open Space” blog. Along with wonderful colleagues such as Michelle Tea, Joseph Del Pesco, Cedar Sigo, and Duane Deterville, we are giving value-added content to your online experience!

Needless to say, that doesn’t mean the posts on this here blog will stop. Actually, I’m going to keep most personal stuff off of the Open Space blog since it seems inappropriate to use it as a self-aggrandizing platform. Either way, it’s nice to have another outlet for ruminations and musings, with a built-in audience of museum goers and such. So far, I’ve started what I hope to be two ongoing series, “1001 Words” and “Who This?”

1001 Words will consist of a single image with almost no description, save a list of “tags” at the bottom to give it context. Partly because we exist in such a visually-rich culture, and also because it seems the SFMOMA blog can be really weighty with academic-laden texts, I wanted to provide a respite. The images will of course be tied to larger issues and concepts, but they also provide what over a thousand words may not be capable of doing. Hopefully that’s the way it’ll work, at least!

Who This? is a tongue-in-cheek-yet-serious solicitation for art owners to submit images of artworks by forgotten makers. That’s the long-winded version of saying it’s a cheap and easy version of Antiques Roadshow, only for contemporary art. Got an artwork and you can’t remember who did it? Send it to “Who This?” and us, the art loving public, will try to help you out! Seriously.

While I’m also interested in doing more written texts for Open Space, I think what I’m really interested in is how it’s a platform to be taken advantage of, in terms of readership and collective interest. Some ideas are percolating around using it as an art flea market (how about trying to sell my back collection of ArtForum? Or other art-related stuff?). There’s lots of eyes out there, and it could be taken advantage of in a humorous and practical way…