This past weekend I went to the New York Art Book fair (something like that) with my lovely mother. She is a rad librarian that really believes in extending the idea of what constitutes the book. As we squeezed through large masses in the school yard tent at PS 1 Moma, I came across some pretty amazing zines and artist books. The first one I picked up was a zine on Allen Kaprow. While Allen was not a female, he was a mentor to some female artists such as Suzanne Lacy.
To quote from the zine (strong language included!):
"Who the Fuck was Allan Kaprow?
.... Kaprow's legacy on contemporary art is pretty intense. Dude started out in New York for a minute doing action paintings because he liked jazz. But for Kaprow, painting wasn't the right vehicle to totally make art all about life. Paintings are totally constructed, right? I mean, what if there was an art form that didn't rely on things like composition, color, aesthetics or talent?
In 1958, Kaprow wrote an essay called 'The Legacy of jackson Pollock.'... Anyways, Kaprow demanded in his essay that the way that art was made be changed. He thought that it should include things from everyday life that we don't normally associate with art objects.
The works that Kaprow would start to do in the following years would have a profound effect on art making in general, later influencing a fuckton of movements. You can blame Kaprow almost entirely for performance art, relational aesthetics and social practice. The new mode of making that Kaprow pushed involved events known as 'Happenings.' He died in 2006 in San Diego after a long career, numerous published works and a lot of teaching (it pays the bills when you don't make objects and are kind of a bitch about documenting ephemeral works.)"
Ok, so that was a lot and pretty intense. But I think that this excerpt gets to the point and makes reading about this artist accessible. The zine was put together by Social Malpractice Publishing.
The next zine that I picked up was a tiny one on the incredible Judith Butler.
(Side note) In the midst of all this DIY zine reading I've started to miss the process of making. Though, I know that more making will come sooner than later as I prepare for three major installations.
After picking up a couple of more zines and talking with artists at the fair, my mother and I went into the "performance tent," for the Lucy Lippard talk.
Ms. Lippard is the author of numerous books including, The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays on Feminist art (1995), Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object (1973), and Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America (1990, 2000.) Lucy is also a curator and activist. She is one of the founding members of Printed Matter in NY and, as she said in her talk, has been re-examining the role of artist books throughout the past few decades. The talk took a historic look at where artist books have come from and how they are functioning in today's world. Some more recent groups (and people) she mentioned working with this medium were Fierce Pussy, LTTR, and Clarissa Sligh.
(Side note)One of the artists I have interviewed, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, was a founding member of LTTR along with Emily Roydson. Ginger continued to work with artist books and zines through her bookmobile project.
Lucy spoke about accessibility in book arts (and I guess art in general) being a utopian idea. Even if zines are distributed and affordable, many times they are aestheticized to a point where they become inaccessible. Which brings up the question, how do we disseminate information through artistic means without it becoming too insular?
A few other things I picked up... a book on Fluxus and "A Country Road a Tree Evening." -- while picking up this one I met the artist Paul Chan and spoke briefly about my work. Turns out he is coming to Philadelphia this November to speak at the PMA with Calvin Tomkins.
Three more female activist artists you should know about:
Ulrike Müller
Favianna Rodriguez
Allison Smith
I am lucky enough to get to have mentoring sessions with two of these women in October. I will also be having a mentoring session with Jane Golden from the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program this week. Now there is the matter of disseminating this information...
Check these out!
http://www.youtube.com/course?list=EC0FA67827C82639EB&feature=plcp
Awesome Exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum
Mickalene Thomas - she is an incredible painter. If you're in BK you should go see this show that is called Materializing "six years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art. Both of these shows were incredible.
Oh shoot, I am supposed to be writing about validating justice through the institution-- back to the evidence!
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