Empty Words

Jürg Lehni and Alex Rich, Empty Words

Jürg Lehni and Alex Rich, Empty Words
Softcover, 24 pp., cut paper, 195 x 255 mm
Edition of 500
ISBN 978-3-905714-93-7
Published by Nieves

$24.00 · add to cart

In 2005, together with Jonathan Hares, a pair of drilled posters were made as a contribution to The Free Library, curated by Mark Owens. This prompted the exploration of possible methods of mechanised production. Using a standard CNC plotter, a rotated LCD display, an Apple TV, and a software interface, Empty Words cuts each dot of the poster in sequence at a controlled speed. Similar to a Linotype machine, the resulting device became a tool for the production of text works, used by both ourselves and the general public.

The publication features the following playlist selected by Lehni and Rich during the installation of Empty Words at the Swiss Institute, New York, 2009.

LACE: Living the Archive

LACE: Living the Archive

Carol A. Stakenas, LACE: Living the Archive
Hardcover, 108 pp., offset 1/1, 8.75 x 11 inches
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-937335-21-5
Published by LACE

$30.00 · add to cart

Selected Publications & Print Ephemera from the LACE Archives 1978–2008.

From its founding in 1978, LACE — Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions — was a pivotal, artist-run organization committed to presenting the work of Southern California artists and highlighting bleeding-edge work. Both a treasure-trove and a grab-bag, this book reproduces a wealth of archival material from LACE’s first three decades. Flyers, postcards, memoirs, catalogs, posters, invitations: the editors have chosen an engrossing selection, including well-known names like Lita Albuquerque, Paul McCarthy, Red Grooms and Mike Kelley, and lesser-known but equally worthy artists. As Liz Kotz writes in her introduction, for a new generation of art historians, movements like Minimalism, Happenings and Conceptual Art are just names; the archive allows them to experience the history first-hand. And if you were around at the time, this book is as deeply satisfying as going through that box of stuff you have kept since college days.

Contra Mundum I-VII

Alex Klein and Mark Owens, Contra Mundum I-VIIAlex Klein and Mark Owens, Contra Mundum I-VII

Contra Mundum I-VII
Softcover, 224 pp., offset 1/1, 140 x 220 mm
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-9830773-0-5
Published by Oslo Editions

$18.00 · add to cart

The inaugural volume from Oslo Editions, Contra Mundum I-VII, documents a series of talks held at the Mandrake in Los Angeles on the theme of “contra mundum” or “against the world.” Taking its cue from Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited, Contra Mundum posits the world-making potential of (anti)sociality as a subject position and the value of a notion of collectivity grounded in “association without relation.” So doing, the book considers a diverse range of topics, including the furniture of Donald Judd, Private Issue New Age music, animal subjectivity, misanthropy and the trope of self-banishment in Shakespeare, apocalypticism and the zombie film, pirates from Blackbeard to Somalia, and the post-punk vocalist Mark E. Smith. Featuring contributions from artists Rupert Deese, Elad Lassry, Anthony Pearson, and Frances Stark, and critics Aaron Kunin, Matthew Taylor Raffety, and Evan Calder Williams.

Artforum 500 Words.

Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice

Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice, The Reader

Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice — The Reader
Softcover, 445 pp., offset 4/1, 125 x 210 mm
English and Swedish
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-1-933128-63-4
Published by Sternberg Press and Iaspis

$25.00 · add to cart

What happens when you look at design as something more than a service-based relationship between client and designer? What new strategies and models help to question and challenge the limits of design? The second publication from the Swedish design think-tank Iaspis, this idea-packed reader focuses on investigative, speculative, and critically oriented design, especially how design relates to architecture. Inspired by an exhibition produced by the Architectural Association in London, the reader is based on four conversations between graphic designers about various aspects of design relating to their practices. It also contains a number of interviews and other texts linked to these conversations, and a broader discussion about design and transboundary practice.

Terminus Ante Quem

Anthony Pearson, Terminus Ante Quem

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

Area Sneaks 2

Joseph Mosconi and Rita Gonzalez, Area Sneaks 2

Joseph Mosconi and Rita Gonzalez, Area Sneaks 2
Softcover, 174 pp., offset 4/1, 6.25 x 8.5 inches
Edition of 1000
ISBN 978-0-9802048-1-9
Published by Area Sneaks

$15.00 · add to cart

The historical relationship between art and language has often occasioned lively and compelling work. Area Sneaks, a new print and online journal, seeks to touch the live wire where language and visual art meet.

Gertrude Stein’s Paris artist salon, Velemir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Tatlin’s constructive collaboration, Bernadette Mayer and Vito Acconci’s editorial partnership, Augusto de Campos’s concrete engagement with Brazilian modernism and Mike Kelley’s interest in systems of literary knowledge have each provided potential models of positive exchange between artists and writers. Area Sneaks hopes to maintain this dialogue by creating a fellowship of discourse within an open community of contemporary artists and writers.

Benevolent area-sneaks get lost in the kitchens and are found to impede the circulation of the knife-cleaning machine.

—Charles Dickens