Textfield, Inc. » Criticism

Four Over One

Textfield — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:25:20 +0000

Phil Chang, Four Over One
Hardcover, 64 pp., offset 4/1, 240 x 320 mm
Edition of 500
ISBN 978-087588720-4-9
Published by LACMA

$39.00 · add to cart

In Four Over One, the Los Angeles based artist Phil Chang employs the format of an artists book to explore ideas of economy and obsolescence. In collaboration with designer Jonathan Maghen, Four Over One is structured around Chang’s interest in how new outcomes arise from an antagonism between perceived and actual forms of value. The photographs that appear in the book were created using expired photographic materials exposed by an archival book scanner. Through a sparse display of color, black and white, and half-tone photographs, in conjunction with a restrained typographic treatment, Four Over One employs an economy of scale in order to consider the roles of abstraction, methods of art production, and modes of distribution in our contemporary culture.

Wouldn’t it be nice

Textfield — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:52:41 +0000

Katya Garcia-Anton and Emily King, Wouldn’t it be nice
Softcover, 300 pp., offset 4/1, 232 x 297 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-905829-24-2
Published by JRP|Ringier

$42.00 · add to cart

Contemporary culture is witnessing one of the most significant shifts of recent times. The old dividing lines between artists and designers appear to be dissolving into one another. Indeed the breadth and range of investigation and inspiration they share is possibly the widest to date. This publication Wouldn’t it be nice hopes to present a series of projects emerging from these lines of dissolution, which reflect the current spirit of cultural production internationally.

The publication includes interviews with Jurgen Bey, Bless, Dexter Sinister, Dunne & Raby and Michael Anastassiades, Alicia Framis, Martino Gamper, Ryan Gander, Martí Guixé, Tobias Rehberger, and Superflex. Fully illustrated, the book presents a number of projects that have been specially commissioned for the exhibition. Quoting the aesthetic of the glossy magazine, the publication is designed by London-based group Graphic Thought Facility, and has attached to each cover a Bless N°14–2000, Shopping Supports Stickerbags self-adhesive purse/multiple.

Utopics: Systems and Landmarks

Textfield — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:34:58 +0000

Simon Lamunière, Utopics: Systems and Landmarks
Hardcover, 160 pp., offset 4/4, 160 x 220 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-03764-056-2
Published by JRP|Ringier

$45.00 · add to cart

This publication examines the spaces, nations, and communities created by artists or indivuals to develop alternative modes of living. Throughout history individuals have continuously developed systems based on a mix of reality, fiction, and mediatization, create micro-nations, or fight for their existence. All these proposals are simultaneously real and utopic. By inventing identity signs (IDs, flags, constitutions, currencies, etc.), by practicing their beliefs (be it through dance, naturism, terrorism, or collectivism), and by working on the boundaries of reality (parallel worlds, isolationism, new territories, etc.), these proposals are challenging our definitions of normalcy and territoriality. The title Utopics is itself the free contraction of utopias, you, topic, topos, and pics.

Conceived as a glossary, the book includes artists such as Le Bélier, Carsten Höller, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Fabrice Gygi, General Idea, Lang/Baumann, Matt Mullican, Mai-Thu Perret, NSK (Irwin), Peter Coffin, Steiner & Lenzlinger, Superflex, as well as intitiatives such as La République Géniale (Robert Filliou), State of Sabotage (Robert Jelinek), micro-nations, L’Ecole de Stéphanie, etc.

A Manual For the 21st Century Art Institution

Textfield — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:28:35 +0000

Shamita Sharmacharja, A Manual For the 21st Century Art Institution
Softcover, 184 pp., offset 2/2, 150 x 210 mm
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-86560-618-1
Published by Walther König

$42.00 · add to cart

A Manual For the 21st Century Art Institution invites 12 writers — artists, academics, curators and gallery and museum directors—to assess the present trajectory of arts institutions by explicating various issues, each of which is associated with an imaginary room. Readers journey from the reception to the roof terrace via rooms dedicated to temporary exhibitions, site-specific commissions and collections displays, taking in the bookshop, café, auditorium and education spaces along the way. Bruce Altshuler, Iwona Blazwick, Chris Dercon, Maria Fusco, Caro Howell, Charles Merewether, Mark Nash, Brian O’Doherty, Niru Ratnam, Sukhdev Sandhu, Adam Szymczyk and Nayia Yiakoumaki are our guides to this inviting theater. The result is an indispensable handbook for art professionals, students and anyone curious about today’s art world.

General Idea, AIDS Stamps

Textfield — Wed, 19 May 2010 00:00:09 +0000

General Idea, AIDS Stamps
Perforated paper, offset 3/0, 210 x 255 mm
Edition size unknown, unsigned and unnumbered
1988 / 8804
Published by General Idea

$150.00 · add to cart

Produced as a insert for Parkett No. 15 (1988, pp. 117-127). The artists also signed and numbered an edition (8805) of 200 off-prints of the AIDS Stamps as a fundraiser for amfAR (American Foundation for AIDS Research).

Words Without Pictures

Textfield — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Alex Klein, Words Without Pictures
Softcover, 510 pp., offset 1/1, 5.75 x 8.25 inches
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-1-5971114-2-3
Published by Aperture/LACMA

$25.00 · add to cart

Words Without Pictures was originally conceived by curator Charlotte Cotton and artist Alex Klein as a means of creating spaces for discourse around current issues in photography. Every month for a year, beginning in November 2007, an artist, educator, critic or curator was invited to contribute a short unillustrated essay about an aspect of emerging photography. Each piece was available on the Words Without Pictures website for one month and was accompanied by a discussion forum focused on its specific topic. Over the course of its month-long “life,” each essay received both invited and unsolicited responses from a wide range of interested parties. All of these essays, responses and other provocations are gathered together here. Previously issued as a print-on-demand title, we are pleased to present Words Without Pictures to the trade for the first time as part of the Aperture Ideas series.

Inserate/Advertisements 1971/1972

Textfield — Tue, 18 May 2010 22:04:03 +0000

Dieter Roth, Inserate/Advertisements 1971/1972
Softcover, 156 pp., offset 2/1, 110 x 205 mm
English and German
Edition of 2000
ISBN 978-3-907474-77-8
Published by Edizioni Periferia

$19.00 · add to cart

Actionist, maker of objects, writer and graphic artist Dieter Roth created an exceptionally diverse and convoluted oeuvre. In Lucerne he published a series of small ads twice weekly in the newspaper Anzeiger Stadt Luzern und Umgebung, consisting of an aphorism and signed by his initials. Embedded in advertisements from real life, these ads conjured the surreal, subversive side of existence as in statements like “A good beginning is an evil end”, “A tear is as evil as a good word” and “Two tears are better than five stones”. The paper’s bourgeois readers raised such a protest over the disturbance of their peace by such enigmatic profundity that the paper felt compelled to terminate publication after 248 ads. From 1973 to 1979, Roth published his statements in artist’s books, titled The Sea of Tears (with the original pages of the newspaper) and Sea of Tears 1–5. This is the first complete, chronological publication of the ads, along with an English translation.

Paper Monument 3

Textfield — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Paper Monument 3
Softcover, 84 pp., offset 4/1, 7 x 10 inches
ISSN 1938-8918
ISBN 978-0-9797575-3-2
Published by n+1 Foundation, Inc.

$12.00 · add to cart

Paper Monument is a journal of contemporary art published in association with n+1. It is edited by Naomi Fry, Dushko Petrovich, Prem Krishnamurthy, Jessica Slaven, and Roger White, and designed by Project Projects. Issue Three includes new artworks by Matthew Brannon, Leslie Hewitt, Munro Galloway, and Jessie LeBaron; and writing by Sarah Hromack, Lauren O-Neill Butler, James Bae, Christopher Hsu, and many others.

fillip 11

Textfield — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:47:35 +0000

fillip 11
Softcover, 120 pp., offset 4/1, 170 x 245 mm
Edition of 2000
ISSN 1715-3212
Published by Fillip

$15.00 · add to cart

Inaugurating a new, bound format that remains true to its broadsheet roots, Fillip’s Spring 2010 issue features Lawrence Rinder on painting and politics, Keith Bormuth on Jean-Luc Godard’s 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle, and Berlin-based artist Haris Epaminonda in conversation with Danish curator Jacob Fabricius. Other long form reviews and essays are provided by Liz Park, Renato Rodrigues da Silva, and Arni Haraldsson, amongst others.

The issue also features Dear Silvia…July 2009, an artist pamphlet by Silvia Kolbowski that compliments the artist’s audio work of the same name commissioned by Fillip for the Living Clay Art Writing Readings series at Whitechapel, London, last Fall:

Silvia Kolbowski, Dear Silvia…July 2009
Softcover, 16 pp., offset 3/3, 120 x 180 mm
Edition of 2300
ISBN 978-0-9738133-8-8
Published by Fillip

Terminus Ante Quem

Textfield — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:53:06 +0000

Terminus Ante Quem
Softcover, 8 pp., offset 1/1, 8 x 10 inches
Edition of 500
Published by Shane Campbell Gallery

$5.00 · add to cart

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Terminus Ante Quem
Shane Huffman, Barbara Kasten, Anthony Pearson, Erin Shirreff
May 1 — June 12, 2010

Organized by Anthony Pearson
Essay by Alex Klein
Designed by Mark Owens