First Novel is an art book intended to be read as a narrative, with the text of each image forming a separate chapter of the novel. Each copy has been defaced by hand.This book is based on a notebook I found in the garbage several years ago. I was struck not only by the content and it’s rhythms, but also by the way that the image of the pages interacted with their textual content. What’s seen is not contrast between the image and the content but rather a contrast between our construction of childhood and its ability to contain unsettled or unsettling content. This is why they have been paired with the defaced comic book images. These are not an attempt to illustrate the text but rather the text’s mental environment, a submerged environment where the outlines of violence, sexuality, and cultural iconography assert themselves in incomplete, partially visible shapes. These forms cannot function, they’ve been robbed of their ability to communicate a story or characters in the same way that the language of each chapter does not communicate but only points towards the fact that something is happening. I see a parallel isolation in these two instances.

Book available for purchase here.

Join us in celebrating the print culture community based in and around Bushwick with Bushwick Art Book & Zine Fair (BABZ Fair) taking place during the weekend of Bushwick Open Studios, (May 31 – June 2, 2013).

For the inaugural fair, Blonde Art Books invited artists, writers, independent publishers, and designers to present recent work in the form of artist and poetry books, periodicals, zines, and limited edition prints.

Hosted by Schema Projects, the entire ground floor of the storefront gallery as well as the outdoor garden, is open to the public for the duration of the fair. Book launches, readings, and other diverse programming will take place throughout the weekend (a complete schedule will be available shortly).

Dates/Times:
Friday May 31, 7-10pm
Saturday June 1, 2-7pm
Sunday June 2, 2-7pm

Location:Schema Projects
92 St. Nicholas Avenue (between Hart St & Suydam St.)
Brooklyn, NY 11237
Dekalb or Jefferson L Train

Exhibitors include:

Alexis Bhagat
BF Bifocals
Sarah Butler
Capricious
RAY RAY BOOKS
Ryan Foerster
Food I Corp Enterprise
Megan Piontkowski
Miniature Garden
Minutes Books
Matthew C. Lange
NOWORK
Papercut Press
Peradam
Nikholis Planck
Roots + Limbs
Small Editions
SmithandBrown
Swill Children
Francesca Tamse
Tenement Studio
Grant Willing

The event is sponsored by Schema Projects, Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn Salsa Company, and Sweet & Shiny.

For the occasion of our first video interview, Blonde Art Books had the pleasure of speaking with the curators and two of the artists (Jill Magid and Julia Weist) from ‘The Book Lovers: A Project about Artist Novels’ at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. The on-going project as well as the interview express the imagined possibilities and difficulties of the artist as novelist. The multifaceted presentation at the Elizabeth Foundation included the exhibition of eight artists’ works along side over a hundred titles. The Book Lovers promises to evolve as it moves from location to location and as David Maroto and Joanna Zielińska continue their research and investigation with an ever expanding collection of artist novels.

The video was filmed by Martyna Szczesna and edited by Martyna Szczesna and Sonel Breslav. For best viewing please set your quality to 720HD.

Many thanks to David Maroto, Joanna Zielińska, Jill Magid, Julia Weist, Michelle Levy, and Martyna Szczesna.

The Book Lovers: A Project about Artist Novels
Curated by David Maroto and Joanna Zielińska
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts
January 25 – March 9, 2013.
http://www.thebooklovers.info

With artworks by: Tim Etchells (UK), Tom Gidley (UK), Jill Magid (USA), Roee Rosen (Israel), Lindsay Seers (UK), Goldin+Senneby (Sweden), Alexandre Singh (France), Julia Weist (USA)

With novels by: Carl Andre, Keren Cytter, Salvador Dalí, Tim Etchells, Liam Gillick, Pablo Helguera, Stewart Home, Joseph Kosuth, Yayoi Kusama, Jana Leo, Mai-Thu Perret, Tom McCarthy, Richard Prince, Andy Warhol… to a total of around 130 titles.

From the press release:

The Book Lovers is a systematic attempt to study the phenomenon of artist novels. An investigation of the creative consequences when artists choose the novel as a medium is the core of this long-term project and research. For an increasing number of artists, the novel is becoming a means to generate new art objects in the scope of a multidisciplinary practice. A collection of novels written by artists and a parallel online database are available for public perusal in a Reading Room, together with a selection of artworks that are inextricably linked to some of the novels. The artist novels collection was also on view at M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Belgium and it has been acquired by the museum to be included in its collection.

Official website for The Books Lovers.

The diary costs $20 and is available for purchase here.
——————————

Blonde Art Books: Can you tell me a little about Viele Stuck? And the most recent calendar – Les Plantes Fantomes?

Jenna Kaës: Viele Stück is Sophie Châtellier, Johanna Himmelsbach, Jenna Kaës and Julien Raout. We formed Viele Stück in 2010, during our studies at the school of Fine Arts of Nancy. We find each other every year to make a diary. The 2013 diary, Les Plantes Fantômes, was printed in an edition of 250 copies. It is designed as a quest of one year, managed by the will to understand our deserts and dreams, and the value of hope. Every month opens on a particular territory. There are 12 different territories to travel inside, each corresponding to a month of the year. The crossing is punctuated with texts, objects and images in touch with each of the imaginary territories, each looking for an answer to the question expressed in title: Botanical study of our deserts and dreams, what is our hope and what is its value? Ten artists of our friends also participated in the construction of the 2013 diary, by trying to give answer to this question.

Elizabeth Jaeger: How have your design ideas, and Viele Stück evolved since the first planner? What has changed?

JK: Our first diary was our first experience of making a book, from its conception, to its realization as an object. We printed only 30. Because we were separated geographically, we decided to each work on a season, and to find us together in December to assemble them, and to shape the object. Today we try to think and to build the book together, even if it’s sometimes weird to work remotely on the same model.

The first two diaries were very quickly realized, during an intensive work week. Les Plantes Fantômes was more gradually built, we took time to collect more information, observations, considering a few paths to envisage our subject. In the end, it looks a lot like a report of explorations.

BABS: What is a phantom plant? What does the phantom plant do as part of an annual?

JK: A ghost plant could be a spectral idea, a figure of what appears and dies. The image of a season which follows the system, a perpetual and symbolic cycle made of resurrections. We are very attached to the necessity of reconsidering the importance of these systems today. It is maybe one of the major reasons which urges us to make books as diaries. The object is used, wastes away, and dies. One remains a book-archive, increased by the layer of souvenir.

BABS: Elizabeth, can you say more about your contribution to Les Plantes Fantomes?

EJ: I found this text about an alchemic process where you burn a dead flower in a bell jar to see its ghost rise in the smoke. Tulips in the 17th century were more expensive than gold. Now cocaine is, 2 fold. Tulips also symbolize love and death in my favorite book, L’Ecume des Jours by Boris Vian. My best friend loved that book and moved to London. Jenna loves that book too and lives in France. It felt appropriate so I found tulips in the winter, enjoyed them, dried them, crushed them and stuffed them into 300 dime bags.

BABS: How did you become involved in the project?

EJ: Jenna and I met years ago sitting on separate sides of a blonde nude model. His body was lithe and somewhat awkward. We stared at him and, through his legs, each other – twice a week for four hours until finally we spoke. We had the exact same glasses. A year later Jenna flew to New York. I drove from for 4 days from the West coast to pick her up; we again had different exact same glasses. From New York we drove through the South with this random new friend who filmed us doing dances choreographed by Sarah Elliott (who wrote A-I-M-E-R:) at every rest stop (also true story, google Very Large Array Nationale). We’ve tried since to do as many cross atlantic projects as we can, which have resulted in this, and one failed project in Belgium.

BABS: Jenna, can you describe some of the contributions that are not translated into English?

JK: Most of French texts are translated into English in the end. But some texts which are not, come from literary works. For example there is an extract on the principle of “feelings crystallization” extracted from De l’Amour (1822) of Stendhal, or another from Les rêves et les moyens de les diriger (1867) written by Hervey de Saint-Denys, and describing the process of finding someone in your dreams, by the experiment of chewing a root of iris. You can also find an extract of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1787) from Wolfgang Goethe.

BABS: Why do you choose to use a risograph to print Les Plantes Fantômes?

JK: We invited several friends to participate in Les Plantes Fantômes, the proposals were very free, but the set became little heterogeneous and disorganized. The riso printing in one color allowed us to bring homogeneity, in one concern of reading and of aesthetic. This type of printing also brings a vague and ghostly matter, finally very close to the full spectrum.

EJ: Les Plantes Fantômes also functions quite well as an artist book. Jenna, how would you feel if people purchased Les Plantes Fantômes and didn’t use it as a diary?

JK: We know some people keep one as a book, and a second to use. But we tried to think about it to be used. We built it like a quest, when it is not used, this notion clearly makes less sense.

EJ: Have you seen images of past used planners?

JK: Yes, we had the opportunity to see some of them. Some are really beautiful, those which are very used, becoming annual relics. A few of them are also used as personal diaries. It’s a very private appropriation, we didn’t imagine this possibility at first.

BABS: I really like it when a calendar is referred to as a diary. I understand this is common amongst people in Europe but I think this is why I am especially drawn to Les Plantes Fantomes. There is an intimacy that the book already embodies. It inspires its owner to be thoughtful with their days. I am curious about your thoughts on the purpose of this kind of designed calendar.

JK: As explained earlier, we understood some people are using our diaries both as calendars and private diaries. The appropriation seems to have been made very naturally by people. It’s really interesting, even surprising, and wakes the disuse which was bound to the writing of the everyday life. We are very proud and touched by that.

EJ: What can we expect in next years diary? What do u want to keep? What will u change?

JK: We just begun to work on the 2014′s diary. It will be about political romanticism. Changes will be more about the form : We hope to test new possibilities of printing, of binding also. Our work will be more centered on typography and layout, on colors and textures. We shall certainly find less images. What we hope to keep, is the intimacy on which you just make reference previously.

Sun Ra + Ayé Aton: Space, Interiors and Exteriors, 1972

The celebration will include a slide show and conversation between John Corbett and David Grubbs, and then Grubbs will perform some music.  A selection of artwork will be exhibited especially for the event.

PURCHASE BOOK HERE

This is a very special book of never-before-seen photographs compiled by Sun Ra-expert Corbett. We decided to try and make this volume into an object that transports you to Ra’s world circa 1972 x infinity.

Half of the photos in this book are of interior, space-themed murals made by Ra-colleague and musician Ayé Aton — spectacularly weird and beautiful in their 1970s supersaturated color. From the same period, a cache of never-published photographs taken on location in Oakland for the film Space is the Place, features Ra in full regalia, wearing outrageous and beautiful Egyptian costumes. A rare glimpse behind the scenes of the architect of Afrofuturism.

Below are images from the event. Photographs by Gwen Rodgerson and Sonel Breslav.

Amongst the vast rows of shelving we found some of the most curious and beautifully designed historical, medical, literary, etiquette and art books. They include Midwifery, with hand-colored movable flaps (1833), An Archive of Photographs from the Wedding of Charles Bukowski and Linda Lee Beighle, a first edition of Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543), Andy Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol with inscription and original drawings of Campbell’s Soup Cans, and incredible poetry books illustrated and designed by El Lissitzky.
———

Abeceda Antiquariat
Munich, Germany

———

Lorne Bair Rare Books
Winchester, Virginia

———

Jarndyce
London, United Kingdom

———

Elizabeth Phillips Rare Books
New York, New York

———

Dieter Schierenberg BV
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

———

Chez Les Libraires
Paris, France

———

Herman H.J. Lynge & Son
Copenhagen, Denmark

———

Blackwell Rare Books
Oxford, United Kingdom

———

Ursus Rare Books
New York, New York

     
———

Nudelman Rare Books
Seattle, Washington

———

Charles Agvent
Mertztown, Pennsylvania

———

Donald Heald Rare Books
New York, New York

Below are details for the publications which are on display at the shop and now available for purchased online.

—————

NICHOLAS MUELLNER, Mountain Shadow Place, 2012, Edition of 100 signed books, each with two posters. Soft cover, singer-stitched, 6.25 x 8 inches, 24 pages, 6 illustrations, Digital offset and screen-printed by hand, Photographs and text by Nicholas Muellner, Published by A-Jump Books.

A tent, a tower, a fog, a dog, three roads, some photographs, two parking lots and a buffalo. Mountain Shadow Place is a story around and about pictures, augmented by hand-applied color tints and surprise poster inserts. A small comedy of optical illusions, in which a cloudy itinerary charts invisible ends.
PURCHASE HERE for $25

—————

NOWORK, Prestige Stools, 2012, 16 pages, photocopy on 20lb bond, saddle-stitched.
PURCHASE HERE for $5

—————

FRANCESCA TAMSE, Unforeseen Wilderness, 2012, Inkjet pigment on newsprint, Four double-sided posters, Signed edition of 50. A self published edition of photographic maps taken in different cities. Accompanied by an excerpt borrowed from Wendell Berry’s ‘essay, The Unforeseen Wilderness. Represented in a grid format, it reads all nine squares as a ‘whole’ image to create one experience. Places include California, Oregon, New York, and Spain.
PURCHASE HERE for $40

—————

JULIA SHERMAN, Regarding the Habit, 2011, Self-published, Full color, 86 pages. The book traces the investigations of artist Julia Sherman through the topic of nunneries and the religious dimensions of creative production.
PURCHASE HERE for $30

—————

NOWORK, Cold Cuts, 2012, 52 pages, 4 color laser print on 80lb gloss, saddle-stitched.
PURCHASE HERE for $40

—————

NICKOLAUS TYPALDOS,  Still Life, 2012, Self published, 48 pages, Edition 300 each signed and numbered by the artist. The book is an examination and an extension of a body of work that locates traditional still life symbolism in commercial photography from magazine ads. The original pieces from which the imagery is derived are cut, masked, and trimmed out with a few delicate strokes from a spray paint can. These images are reproduced in the book in black and white, exist as altered magazine pages, and are nicely balanced with a full page of seamless color corresponding to the layout. (Featured image, Nickolaus Typaldos, Untitled Still Life (Clock Hands))
PURCHASE HERE for $30)

—————

KATE SHEPHERD, Reflections, 2013, 8 pages, Saddle stitch.
PURCHASE HERE for $12

—————

KRIS GRAVES, Permanence, 2012, Cloth-bound hardcover, published by +kris graves projects. A collection of 70 photographs & accompanying written reflections from across the world, created to preserve my memory of those places.
PURCHASE HERE for $40

—————

YEVGENIY FIKS, Moscow, 2013, Hardcover, 31 color plates, Published by Ugly Duckling Presse, Moscow documents gay cruising sites in Soviet Moscow, from the early 1920s to the USSR’s dissolution in the early 1990s. Photographed in 2008 in a simple but haunting documentary style, these sites of the bygone queer underground present a hidden and forgotten Moscow, with a particular focus on Revolutionary Communist sites appropriated by queer Muscovites. The book concludes with the first English-language publication of a 1934 letter to Joseph Stalin in which British communist Harry Whyte presents a Marxist defense of homosexuality in light of its re-criminalization in the USSR.
PURCHASE HERE for $35

As the first of an ongoing series of posts featuring new publications available through Blonde Art Books, we are pleased to share images and information about Sarah Crowner’s book FORMAT, 2012, published by Primary Information. The book is available for sale at the Blonde Art Books store or here.

Sarah Crowner’s paintings are currently on view in the exhibition Painter Painter at The Walker Art Museum, February 2, 2013 – October 27, 2013.

Below is a video from the exhibition including the works of Matt Connors, Sarah Crowner, Fergus Feehily, Jay Heikes, Rosy Keyser, Charles Mayton, Dianna Molzan, Joseph Montgomery, Katy Moran, Alex Olson, Scott Olson, Zak Prekop, Dominik Sittig, Lesley Vance, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung.

Curated by: Eric Crosby and Bartholomew Ryan

These books are available exclusively through Blonde Art Books.
—————–

Brian Belott – Limited Edition of 10 chapbooks (Price upon request, email blondeartbooks@gmail.com)

Matthew Craven – Limited Edition of 25 chapbooks  – $20 Purchase here

Sara Cwynar - Limited Edition of 8 chapbooks  – $30 Purchase here

Jen Liu - Limited Edition of 8 chapbooks  – $33 Purchase here

March 2 through March 31, 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 2, 7 – 9pm

Schema Projects
92 St Nicholas Ave
Brooklyn NY 11237

The scenery changes three times takes its title from a collage that Max Ernst published in his first graphic-novel and is a presentation that proposes a formal and conceptual connection between four participating artists and the chapbook – a pocket-size booklet first popularized in the sixteenth century as an apparatus for the dissemination of current events, poetry, and folklore.

Through collage, photomontage, and painting on paper, artists Brian Belott, Matthew Craven, Sara Cwynar, and Jen Liu create vivid environments brimming with fantastical imagery, abstract text, and an implied mythology. In addition, each artist produced an edition of up to ten chapbooks that reconstruct and reimagine the works they have displayed on the gallery walls. Points of investigation stem from the consistency of content and format, and the similar processes through which each artwork and chapbook is constructed.

Like the scenery on a stage, each artwork is a backdrop for a story to unfold. In line with its chapbook counterpart, the collage may be a setting for a lyrical ballad to be performed, or the conditions for a political inquiry. The scenery is embedded with a slew of possible narratives, each imposing its own permanence and historicity. Yet, the scenery is not fixed, rather it has the capability of transforming itself as well as all the elements within its reach. The scene changes: prolonging time, obscuring bodies and shapes, bending and twisting the vanishing point, and traveling freely from one state to the other.

With its second exhibition, Blonde Art Books continues to examine the curatorial methods through which traditionally displayed works of art presented alongside artist books may further enrich the experience and understanding of an art exhibition.

For more information please email Sonel Breslav at blondeartbooks@gmail.com.

—–

Brian Belott was born in East Orange, NJ. He lives and works in New York and received his BFA 1995 from School of Visual Arts, NY after a stint at Cooper Union. Belott works in a variety of mediums including collage, sculpture, installation, video, sound, and performance, often including found objects. Belott has mounted several major solo exhibitions including Zurcher Studio, New York; CANADA, New York; Galerie Zurcher, Paris; and Kenny Schacter Contemporary, New York. Most recently his work was included in exhibitions at Anna Kustera, New York; Royal/t, Culver City, California; The Hole, New York; The Journal, New York; Loyal, Malmo, Sweden; MACRO Museum, Rome; Museum of Modern Art, New York. Belott’s first book, Wipe That Clock Off Your Face was published by PictureBox, in 2007. Brian Belott is represented by Zürcher, Paris/New York. http://www.brianbelott.com/

Matthew Craven uses historical images as a backdrop for a more abstract form of storytelling. Images from lost cultures, relics and landscapes, both well-known and extremely ambiguous create the patterns within my work. These arrangements highlight shape and composition rather than historical accuracy, solidifying their participation in a completely unique myth. Born in Grand Rapids MI, Craven lives and works in New York. He received his BFA from Michigan State University in 2004 and his MFA from The School of Visual Art in 2010. He has participated in exhibitions at Marvelli Gallery, New York; Allegra LaViola, New York; The Hole, New York; Jen Beckman, New York; Perry Rubenstein, New York; Gallery Hijinks, San Fransisco; Nudashank Baltimore, and Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia. http://matthewcraven.com/home.html

Sara Cwynar’s work explores the materials of the art studio and the idea that everything present can be used. For No Hierarchy, Cwynar began to bring together scraps and studio detritus on the floor into a shape that evolved over weeks of living with it. The piece mixes images and references freely – making connections as they appear through the arrangement of materials. An avocado seed positions itself as a sun setting over a flat picture of a mountain from a photography manual; a real plant sits on a picture of a plant; everyday objects, garbage, obsolete stock photos and personal photos mix, and copies of older artworks appear again in miniature. Born in Vancouver, Cwynar is a New York-based artist. Her work has been exhibited at Ed Varie, New York; The New York Art Book Fair at PS1 MoMA; and Printed Matter, New York. Cwynar’s forthcoming solo exhibitions include The Foam Photography Museum, Amsterdam, and Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto. The publication of her second book ‘The Kitsch Encyclopedia’ is scheduled for Summer 2013.  www.saracwynar.com/index.html

Jen Liu was born in Smithtown, New York, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn. In her individual and collaborative practices she explores the overlapping of formal structures and history, often using fictional constructs to consolidate a variety of seemingly disparate, but fundamentally related issues. Liu received a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She has exhibited internationally, with past exhibitions at Kunsthalle Wien; Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam; On Stellar Rays, New York; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Kunsthaus Zurich; Ceri Hand Gallery, London; Royal Academy, London; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Czarna Gallery, Warsaw; and De Hallen Museum, Netherlands.

Established by Sonel Breslav in 2012, Blonde Art Books is an organization dedicated to promoting exceptional publications about and by international artists. The bookstore, currently located in Schema Projects, a new gallery in Bushwick, New York, features independent art publications by contemporary artists and small presses. The blog collects and disseminates information about independent publishers, exhibitions, and publishing resources in the fields of art, poetry, criticism, and cultural studies. In addition, Blonde Art Books curates book-centric exhibitions that examine the connections between traditionally exhibited artwork and the books, magazines, and other printed matter that inform and shape their conception.