Shelley Spector ‘Dreck Groove Wallpaper (One)’ (2011) reclaimed cardboard, courtesy Bridgette Mayer Gallery, photo: Shelley Spector

Any artist who makes ‘things’ that involve construction would think she had died and gone to heaven at NextFab. Its technical possibilities are endless; the difficulty is surely in making choices. Shelley concentrated on the computer-controlled laser cutter and sewing machine, which meant developing a proficiency with both the hardware and software (proprietary to each machine for most of the high-tech fabricating equipment); she said that took about two months.

Shelley Spector with parts for the computer-controlled sewing machine at NextFab

The work from the residency, a project addressing the nexus of consumption and environmental change, will be exhibited at the Esther Klein Gallery; Dreck Groove runs from Feb. 17-March 30, 2012.  Shelley used the computer-controlled sewing machine to produce a series of small embroideries whose imagery derives from weather mapping. What appear to be abstract patterns on textiles, decorated with the industrial version of traditional women’s handwork, were taken from graphs of fluctuating temperatures over time, infrared satellite photography, and charts of the spread of nuclear fallout. One embroidery lists all the names given to hurricanes during 2011. The decorative quality of the work makes the underlying criticism apparent only on second glance.

Shelley Spector, several small embroideries from ‘Dreck Groove’ courtesy Bridgette Mayer Gallery

Shelley used the laser cutter to create frames for the embroidered cloth and to cut out units from scavenged, consumer-product packaging which she will assemble to cover several walls (hence her description of the collaged work as wallpaper).  She learned a lot about her neighbors in the process of collecting sufficient gift boxes, food cartons and other household waste from their recycle bins; indeed, her project is a sort of alternative recycling. The units create a pattern that, at a distance, reads as a mid 20th-century modern design, until one gets close enough to read the writing and recognize the familiar imagery from boxes for cereal, crackers, and plastic bags.  This is the visual landscape of American domestic life.

Ian and Scott, engineers at NextFab Studio

Sarah McEaneany ‘Baseball’ (2010) tempera on wood

I ran into Sarah McEaneany at the most recent First Friday gallery openings as she was getting off her bike in front of the Vox Building, then laughed when I saw the image used (below) as the announcement of her current exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery (through March 10, 2012). Many of the paintings record a life of leisure activities (watching baseball, camping out in Florida, on the coast in Brittany, hiking in a wildlife preserve) except that a painter’s work is never done, and even when she doesn’t picture herself drawing (which she does while floating in the Dead Sea), you know that a sketchbook is close at hand.

Sarah McEaneany ‘Philadelphia Winter’ tempera

Most of the works are in a smaller format than those in her last exhibition at the gallery, and a number  show a particular sensitivity to landscape, from wetlands to trees in winter.  My favorite showed the artist at an open window, on her birthday, and most of the painting is occupied by patterns of various trees  surrounding an open field of snow that suggests the as yet unwritten story of the year, or years, to come.

Henry O. Tanner 'The Three Marys' (1910) o/c 42x50" Fisk University Galleries

Supporters of the avant garde have been willing to accept modern religious art in two forms only: when the spiritual is channeled through abstraction (Kandinsky, Mondrian, Rothko, Polke), or  when expressed by artists working outside the official institutions of art (Gertrude Morgan, Howard Finster). Tanner received an academic art education, both at PAFA, then at the Academie Julien, Paris. While he produced work across genres (some portraits, a few genre scenes, many landscapes), his highest expression was in the form most valued by his training and by the mainstream art institutions of his day: history painting. In Tanner’s case this meant scenes from the Hebrew and Christian Bible. Tanner’s son described him as a mystic, but Tanner’s faith was likely consistent with that of his father, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This distinguished him from the occult mysticism of his period promoted by figures such as Madame Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner (whose influence on abstract art was significant).

Henry O. Tanner 'Florida' (1894) o/c 18x22" collection Louis Tanner Moore, photo Rick Echelmeyer

The exhibition situates Tanner as a modern spirit, which is true if one considers him a man of his times. But a modernist he was not. The winners in art history (as told until now) have been the artists who rejected the tenets of academic art, yet Tanner and most of his contemporaries retained traditional values about art, even as they enjoyed technical advances in paints, lighting, transportation and everyday life. A number chose religious subjects, as did occasional modernists. Around the year 1900, William Trubler, Jean Benner and Louis Corinth each depicted Salome (a subject, admittedly, appreciated more for its sexual than its religious aspect, at the fin de siecle), and painters of Christian subjects included a broad range of artists, among them Eugene Carriere, William-Adolphe Bougereau, Maurice Denis, Edward Munch and Pablo Picasso, who showed mourners in a chapel in The Burial of Casagemas (Evocation), 1901 (he, too, had an academic art education).

Henry O. Tanner 'Nicodemus' (1899) o/c 33 11/16x 39 1/2" PAFA

An African- American artist and son of a former slave who achieved an international reputation in late nineteenth-century Paris will inevitably be of interest for biographical and historical reasons, and the exhibition does a good job of situating Tanner within the racial context of his times. But Tanner always insisted that he wanted to be thought of as an artist, with no qualifier as to race. And it is the paintings that interest me. The exhibition’s labels are of little help in situating Tanner artistically; it doesn’t help that those in several of the rooms are almost illegible, printed in brown on a mole-grey background.

Henry O. Tanner 'Salome' (ca. 1900) o/c 45 7/8 x 35 1/4" Smithsonian American Art Museum

I left the exhibition with more questions than answers. Tanner spent most of his professional life in Paris, then the center of the art world. He would have seen a great deal of current art as well as that of the old masters. His early landscapes suggest a range of influences: his teacher, Eakins, Barbizon painting, the Hudson River school. The exhibition acknowledges the influence of Whistler on his later landscapes, but the paintings have similarities with the work of a number of artists familiar with French modernism but working on its periphery: Ferdinand Hodler, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Ferdinand Keller and others. Tanner’s Raising of Lazarus owes an obvious debt to Rembrandt, but what other painters made an impression on him?  Letters survive, and it is likely he mentioned some of the paintings he studied.

Henry O. Tanner 'The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water' (ca. 1907) o/c 51 1/2x42" Des Moines Aert Center

Tanner’s mature technique was experimental and distinctive, but while the curators suggest this as a modern aspect of his work, it is consistent with a number of artists during the 19th Century. He applied many layers of paints bound both in oil and temperas, some with additions of varnish. The choice of tempera usually indicates that the artist is interested in old master technique, although some artists were exposed to tempera paints used for theater sets. Artists from Joshua Reynolds on hoped to discover the secrets of the old masters, and the mid-nineteenth century saw the translation and publication of a number of early artist’s recipe books.  Some of Tanner’s experiments produced problematic results; the deeply-cracked surface (alligatoring, as it is called) of the wonderful Salome ca. (1900) is a product of improper paint layering, ignoring the painters’ rule of fat over lean paint. But many of the later paintings have wonderful, if inscrutable, surfaces.

Henry O. Tanner 'Entrance to the Casbah' (1912) oil on paper on canvas 32x26" Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, IN

The most unusual aspect of Tanner’s work has received no significant discussion that I know of: his palette, most specifically his tendency to emphasize tones of blue, particularly in religious scenes; some are so exclusively blue that the paintings could be considered monochromes.  Some are set in the evening, and blue is commonly associated with twilight; indeed, the French use the term l’heure bleu. But not all of Tanner’s blue paintings are obviously set at dusk or nighttime.  The unnatural coloring certainly situates them beyond a realistic representation of observed visual effects.  It also creates an affinity among a group of works that portray ordinary human activities performed in the presence of the divine.  This highly personal and deeply felt recasting of religious imagery makes the most persuasive case for Tanner’s modernity.

Henry O. Tanner 'Flight into Egypt' (ca. 1916-25) oil on wood 16 7/8x16 7/8" Smithsonian American Art Museum

The exhibition catalog, with 14 essays by French and American scholars, gives a much more nuanced picture of the artist than can be obtained from the exhibition itself.  PAFA, by the way, is opening the exhibition free of charge on Sundays throughout the exhibition.  That sends the clearest possible message about the broad audience they hope the exhibition will attract – and it should.

Rivane Neuenschwander 'I Wish Your Wish' (2003) installation detail

The exhibition was held in the domestically-scaled rooms of the IMMA’S New Galleries, the area open during the renovation of the primary spaces in the Royal Military Hospital, Kilmainham. The initial room held At a Discrete Distance, a series of precisely-painted and rather cheerful landscapes which emphasized patterning of floor tiles, roof beams and stairs; they were painted on small panels which the label related to Brazilian devotional paintings, although they gave no clue to wished-for desires.

Rivane Neuenschwander 'The Tenant' (2010) video still

A room full of Involuntary Sculptures (Speech Acts) (2001-10) held vitrines full of of small, hand-made objects that Neuenschwander had found, abandoned, in various bars and restaurants. These small sculptures, three-dimensional doodles really, had been fashioned from corks, plastic straws, matches, toothpicks, paper napkins, chop-stick wrappers, pop-tops and champagne cork wires that had been twisted, folded, shredded, crimped and burnt. They were by-products of social activities whose excess energy had been channeled through manual activity. While they bore signs of varying degrees of craftsmanship and imagination, Neuenschwander’s interest was in their association with sociability, hence the second part of their title, Speech Acts. Intriguing as they were, it struck me that almost anything laid out carefully in vitrines comes to resemble art.

The protagonist of the video, The Tenant (2010) is a large soap bubble which meanders through the rooms of an empty house, and the conceit is so charming that it doesn’t matter how it was effected. I was willing to accept the agency of the wobbly sphere, always a moment away from bursting, that magically refracts light at its periphery. The wonder at soap bubbles does not diminish with age.

The widely-appealing, interactive installation, I Wish Your Wish (2003) is again based upon vernacular, devotional practice, where the faithful bind their wrists with ribbons which they then leave tied to the church gates. Neuenschwander’s adaptation had visitors leave a wish in exchange for a ribbon printed with a previous visitor’s desire, which ranged from the individual to the universal, the selfish to the profound: wishes for a dog, to get into grad school, for family’s understanding, for respect for native people’s sovereignty, peace in the Middle East, not to die completely alone. Participants were forced not only to declare their own wishes, but to choose among those offered by their predecessors, and while the process was something of an exercise in ethics, it was surprisingly effective. I left with my wrist wrapped in a turquoise ribbon inscribed I wish to find pleasure in things as much as I used to as a child; it struck me as particularly appropriate to Neuenschwander’s art.

Rivane Neuenschwander 'A Thousand and One Possible Nights' (2008)

A Thousand and One Possible Nights are collaged images of constellations, created from confetti punched from an edition of Scherehazade’s tales, A Thousand and One Nights. Images of the stars are always beautiful, as are these; the printing on the tiny dots only becomes visible at close range. Yet a second thought reminds us that Sherehazade told her stories to forestall death, something behind much art, perhaps, but the connection is rarely so literal and immediate.

Lygia Pape installation view of 'Ttéia 1 (The Web)'

I had hoped to get more context for Neuenschwander’s work in London, where the Serpentine Gallery is showing Lygia Pape: Magnetized Space, organized by the Reina Sophia (through Feb. 19, 2012). Pape’s two and three-dimensional work obviously derives formally from Constructivism, and some of it resembles Bauhaus pedagogical exercises. The large installation, ‘Ttéia 1 (The Web)’, whose illuminated wire shafts create an otherworldly atmosphere, looks like a stage set for a play about heavenly revelation.

Lygia Pape detail of 'Livro do Tempo (Book of Time)' (1961-63)

The 365 small wooden reliefs of Livro do Tempo (Book of Time), that covered a large wall, formed an irresistibly-fascinating grid of variations on a square; small sections had been excised from each and displaced on top of the original, with varying colors emphasizing the variations in forms. It and a room of black and white prints and drawings combined seductive elegance of both formal interest and execution. Yet the connection between this work and the interactive, communal performances for which she is known was unclear, nor did labels to several filmed performances provide much help. This was disappointing, since with many recent artists working communally and sociability an ongoing topic, the comparison should have been illuminating.

Lygia Pape 'Divisor' (1968), still from a filmed performance

For understanding the social and political implications of working in a repressive state for Pape and her fellow Brazilians, it was very useful to read the recent publication: Subversive Practices; Art under Conditions of Political Repression: 60s-80s / South America / Europe, Edited by Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler (Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2010,  ISBN 978-3-7757-2755-6 ). The catalog to an internationally-curated exhibition held in Stuttgart in 2009, it illustrates work by some 80 artists working in Latin America, Spain and Eastern Europe. Much of their surviving work consists of publications, documentary photographs and ephemera printed in connection with communal events, so reading the book might be almost as illuminating as seeing the exhibition.

Collective Actions Group's performance 'The Appearance,' one of their 'Trips Out of Town' in the countryside outside Moscow (1976)

The catalog is an extremely valuable complement to a number of recent publications addressing conceptual practices beyond the U.S. and Western Europe (such as Global Conceptualism; Points of Origin 1950s-1980s, the Queens Museum, 1999, and anthologies by Camnitzer, Albero and Stimpson, Breitwieser, Katzenstein and others). It includes essays by the editors and their 13 co-curators, and provides the first translations (into English and German) of numerous artists’ statements and manifestos. They give valuable context for a range of art practices and activities in public spaces that were inherent affronts to state power, despite seeming tame and unobjectionable in a Western European and North American context. Examples are Collective Actions Group’s Trips out of Town (above), which were nothing more than organized outings to the countryside, and the gathering organized by Edgardo Antonio Vigo in La Plata (Argentina) in 1968. Vigo advertised in the newspaper and on radio for people to meet at a specific time at a major intersection in the city; the object of their assembly: to contemplate the traffic light as an aesthetic object.

Steven Jones hats inspired by the London Underground logo, a tennis game, and both a Mohican haircut and Hans Bellmer

Three floors at Bard are filled with Jones’ selection from the museum interspersed with hats from his own archives. It’s a must-see for anyone interested in fashion, and offers many ideas for artists working in collage and three-dimensional constructions because of the range of materials used and their varied treatments. Students of social history will find ripe material, as will celebrity hounds, for the exhibition includes a baseball cap belonging to Babe Ruth, the beaver top hat Franklin Roosevelt wore to his fourth inauguration and hats worn by Madonna and Brad Pitt, among others.

Phillip Treacy’s most un-traditional feathered hat

The introductory label explains that hat-making involves large-scale production of standard hat types whereas millinery focuses on the creation and decoration of elegant, experimental, and often whimsical hats.  And London, more than anywhere, has maintained the millinery tradition; the weather is mild, so protective hats are not routinely necessary, and the persistence of rituals around the court, track and Church provide regular occasions to show off their artistry. Moreover, the collections of the V & A insure that London milliners know the history of their craft.

Jo Gordon ‘Kiss of Death’ (1994), another novel use of feathers

The initial case is filled with such modern riffs on traditional forms as Justin Smith, Polly Wales and Nicole Lowe’s Tattooed Top Hat, made of parchment stretched over a copper armature, with bats flying around its crown and brim, and the even more Goth Kiss of Death by Jo Gordon, whose wearer would be impossible to kiss, as her face is surrounded by very long, black feathers, facing forward rather than perched on the top or back of the hat.

Balenciaga ‘Green Straw Hat’ (1960) with implied hat-pin, also of straw

The exhibition includes a range of traditional hats, some purely decorative but many of them functional: 19th century womens’ bonnets, a bearskin hat of the Royal Guards, a bicycle helmet, folding plastic rain hat, a decorative, 1960s swimming cap, military hats, a Mexican sombrero, tiaras,  and most unusually, an apprentice’s hat from ca. 1550, just the sort of working-class wear that almost never survives. The one area left out was religious head-wear; think of the wonderful forms of nuns’ wimples and cardinals’ hats.

Steven Jones ‘Vlada’ 7 (2007) ostrich feathers

Contemporary milliners clearly derive inspiration from all possible directions; one hat looked like a Hershey’s Kiss, another like an S&M hood; Jones made  a variation on a child’s hat of folded newspaper, a most humorous tiara inspired by a crystal chandelier, and a broad-brimmed hat based on an artist’s pallette. A shaman’s dress likely inspired his Vlada – which is more of a costume than a hat, and remarkably close to Nick Cave’s costumes designed for performance (currently on view at the Fabric Workshop & Museum). Many of the contemporary hats include imaginative variations on hat pins, but has anyone living ever seen a real hat pin in use?  I think head-bands have taken over  as a means to anchor hats to shorter hair. Shirley Hex’s wildly-flowered cloche made of crepe paper must be the most extravagant fashion made of re-purposed household goods since Scarlett O’Hara created a dress out of draperies.

Steven Jones pallette hat for Dior, with paintbrush functioning as a hat-pin

It must be said that many of the hats designed by younger, London milliners, look as though they’d be most appropriate on the stage, probably in burlesque (and indeed, the exhibition included one of Leigh Bowery‘s designs). On the other hand, anyone who paid attention to the last royal wedding will know that British women are willing to wear almost anything on their heads, as long as the hats match their outfits; they are either terribly brave or have a wonderful sense of humor.

a silk and sable hat (with pendant sable tails) made for Empress Eugenie in 1865 that looked thoroughly contemporary

Most of the hats are displayed on traditional hat-stands, or on abstracted heads lacking hair and ears which look rather like plexiglass versions of Brancusi’s Head.  The problem – and it is one faced in exhibiting any sort of clothing – is that a large part of what makes hats interesting is how they sit on the head, and the means of display was not good at conveying that. One had to rely on imagination, or several short films from the 1950s showing hats worn by models (they run continuously as videos), and enlarged photographs of fashion shots in the final section of the exhibition.  But this is a minor quibble about a wonderful exhibition.

detail of light box in Magdalena Pederin’s ‘The Name is an Anagram’ (2006); all photos by Aram Jibilian

detail of Elena del Rivero’s ‘Mended Flying Letters’ (2010), type and ink on handmade abaca paper, with silk thread

Work by sixteen artists and collaboratives, produced from the 1960s to the present, reflected the continuing relevance of McLuhan’s ideas; all addressed aspects of the impact of changing technology, from letter-writing and typing to the World Wide Web.  As one might expect from the subject, much of the work utilized  technology (largely video, but one piece also incorporated the Web), although the range of media was broad, including a collage of typewritten texts that were stitched together by hand (Elena del Rivero’s Mended Flying Letters, 2010), artists’ books (Wolfgang Plöger’s Google Image Search (Map), 2006, which consisted of several volumes of images transcribed from a Google search for map), photography, and small-scale sculpture (Joan Rabascall’s 6″ model, Monument to Mobile Television, 1974).  It was a challenging and unexpected selection of work which avoided conventional categories.

Joan Rabascall ‘Monument to Mobile Television’ (1994), 6" h., from her series of ‘Monuments to the TV’

The exhibition emphasized the physical interactions between people and technology with changing sensual experiences:  Plöger’s books were perused by viewers seated at a table, turning pages; Magdalena Pederin’s The Name is an Anagram was shown in a darkened space where multi-dimensional images created a changing, immersive environment; Nam June Paik and John Godfrey’s Global Groove was a single-channel video, and having to standing to watch it was a reminder that the pioneering work was made in 1973, long before MTV brought music videos to our livingrooms.

The astonishing sound production in Ignacio Uriarte’s video, The Story of the Typewriter (2011), was human: the actor, Michael Winslow, seen creating the differently-inflected sounds of a series of typewriters, with remarkable fidelity. Winslow’s virtuosic performance emphasizes the multi-dimensional aspect of much technology; typewriters were designed to produce text, yet also generated sound. It’s hard to imagine how this work might be read by someone of the computer generation; I guess it will need an explanatory label. I had a similar experience, some years ago, while looking at an Oldenburg and trying to explain to a 10-year old what a diaper pin was.

Ignacio Uriarte’s ‘The Story of the Typewriter’ (2011) video, surrounded by ‘1s and 0s’ (2011) typewritten paper

Reporters with Borders (2007), Raphael Lozano-Hammer’s interactive video work, was activated by the presence of a viewer, whose silhouette appeared on the screen filled with tiny images of Mexican broadcasters on one side, Americans on the other, who began to speak; they produced simultaneous, cacophonous newscasts, yet remained segregated by country.

Raphael Lozano-Hammer ‘Reporters with Borders’ (2007) interactive video with shadow box

Chris Petit’s Content (2009) was a 76-minute video, and its length as well as its content emphasized the dimension of time. I had expected to watch a few minutes, but was so seduced and mesmerized by its beauty and subject matter that I stayed for the entirety. Petit interweaves several narratives that concern communication, self-presentation and masquerade, aging and responsibility, set within the context of a road movie where geography is equated with memory.

detail from Chris Petit’s video ‘Content’ (2009)

Marshall McLuhan’s misfortune was to be decades ahead of his time, with a vision so accurate that his ideas now seem commonplace. It is well worth commemorating his early understanding of the profound effects of changing media, and this thoughtful exhibition was a suitable tribute.

I didn’t make any more thorough a visit to Art Miami than I had done to Art Basel Miami Beach, so what follows are thoughts on what I managed to see. Art Miami is a fair that precedes Art Basel Miami Beach and the many fairs that have arrived in its wake. A recent painting by Mel Bochner, hung near the entrance, summarized much of the atmosphere of the fairs rather too well:

Mel Bochner 'Blah, Blah, Blah' (2010) oil on velvet

I wanted to know how Bridgette Mayer was doing, so sought out her space and found the gallery’s operating director, Maria Hooper, who said they’d had success seeing current clients and meeting new people.

Maria Hooper with a painting by Neil Anderson at Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia

Across the aisle, Galeria Santa Giustina had a range of work that suggested sales on the secondary market (which characterized much of Art Miami). I was taken with an early Manzoni made of cotton squares, as well as a figurative ceramic relief by Fontana, whose ceramics are almost never seen in the U.S..

Piero Manzoni 'Achrome' (1960) Galerie Santa Giustina, Lucca

Speaking of ceramics, it was heartening to see Viola Frey‘s towering Standing Man at Nancy Hoffman Gallery and confirm that she can more than hold her own against artists who could be her grandchildren.

Viola Frey 'Standing Man' (ca. 1985), Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York

The work that most tempted me was one of five drawings by the Italian-born artist, Anna Maria Maiolino, who has worked primarily in Brazil since the late 1950s; they were on display at the Mexico City gallery, Ginocchio.  All were done with the most modest means: ink on white paper, and conveyed the spontaneity and immediacy of drawing at its best. This presumably explains its continued appeal to an artist best known for sculpture, performance and film.

Anna Maria Maiolino, Untitled (1991) ink, 19 x 27”, Galeria Alfredo Ginocchio

I’m always happy to know more about galleries from Dublin, since I visit regularly to see family. I was particularly surprised, therefore, to see Blue Leaf Gallery exhibiting not only a number of paintings and drawings by Suzy O’ Mullane, but also a group of tiny paintings with elaborate, found frames by Carol K. Brown. When I’d lived in Miami, many years ago, Carol was well established as a sculptor. I’d run into her several years ago and she said she’d been painting (work I later saw at Nora Haime Gallery, New York). The current work was part of a very large series, all of which depict women in the dress and poses of athletes, including boxers. I couldn’t help thinking of the ad that Judy Chicago published in 1971 of herself in boxing attire, prepping for a fight with what was then an all-male art establishment. These women were not going down easily; Carol later told me that the images were based on women in Miami’s art world.

Carol Brown 'Las Conquistadoras' paintings in mixed media frames, Blue Leaf Gallery, Dublin

Design Miami, in its seventh year, was held in a large tent adjacent to the parking lot for Art Basel Miami Beach. The publicity had mentioned a strong presence of jewelry this year, and along with much other work from the mid 20th century that caught my eye  (and not primarily because I live with furniture of the period, it being the only modernist style I could buy at second hand furniture prices) was a wonderful range of mid-century jewelry.  Several cases of hand-crafted, silver jewelry by Art Smith, Harry Bertoia and others at Mark McDonald of Hudson, NY. included pieces that were tiny, sculptural objects and wearable, daytime jewelry at the same time; I didn’t ask about prices but hope their owners will actually wear them, rather than keeping them under lock and key.

a case of Art Smith jewelry at Mark McDonald; necklace far r. by Sergei Gvinton

jewelry by various craftsmen at Mark McDonald Gallery; Harry Bertoia anthropomorphic brooch at lower left

I thought most of the contemporary furniture was both over-designed visually yet poorly designed for function, so was pleased to see the simplest of couches by Louise Campbell at Galerie Maria Wettegren, Paris. Rather than traditional upholstery, the cover appeared to be padded fabric with origami-like folds.

Folda Sofa (2001) by Louise Campbell at Galerie Maria Wettegren, Paris

Moss was featuring the work of Haresh Lavani, a designer who uses digital manipulation of forms and pushes computer technology to its utmost in designing serial production of unique variants. There were various three-dimensional models as well as a series of morphing platters actually on offer; $100 bought a unique platter of pierced steel as well as a cd, which presumably revealed the design process and showed other variants.

Moss, New York's exhibit of digital designs by Haresh Lavani

Three galleries specialized in classic, French modernist design, and it is hardly a revelation that Pierre Jeanneret, Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouve produced restrained, timeless, thoroughly livable furniture. The novelty was a swooping, shed-like roof constructed of factory-produced steel parts, designed by Prouve; it was originally part of l’Ecole Villejuif near Paris.

furniture display underneath a section of Prouve architecture at Galerie Downtown-Francoise Laffanour, Paris

Jenneret furniture at Jousse Enterprise, Paris

The other treasure that surprised me were two modest pieces by Mathieu Matégot; they wouldn’t even require a fantasy palace to house them, but would fit in the smallest of studio apartments, so lack of space was not the reason I came home empty-handed. One was a highly-sculptural wall shelf of wrought-iron, the other a hanging lamp not 10 inches in its largest dimension. Both were distinctive without being showy. The lamp had biomorphic forms more commonly found in sculpture, and occasionally furniture, than in lighting fixtures, and it captured my heart.

hanging shelf and lamp by Mathieu Mategot at Jousse Enterprise, Paris

Design Miami describes itself as representing the burgeoning market for collectible design; I hope that doesn’t mean design to he seen but not held, felt or sat upon. It would be a shame for such recent examples of well-designed functionalism to be shut off from everyday life.

This sumptuous and scholarly book will be welcomed by everyone interested in Degas’ work or in nineteenth-century sculpture, as well as by artists interested in bronze casting.  It is highly unusual for collection catalogs to be of interest, other than to researchers; however, the National Gallery of Art owns 52 of the 69 original works in wax, clay and plaster that survived from Degas’ studio, as well as eleven bronze casts, making it the touchstone for understanding Degas’ sculpture.

Edgar Degas ‘Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front’ wax, NGA

Research on the catalog was the result of a decade-long collaboration among an art historian, two conservators and three scientists. They have made a major contribution to understanding of Degas’ sculptural thinking and his technique in modeling wax and various clays over armatures which he made himself, and have precisely identified materials of each of the wax and clay originals as well as the alloys of a number of the bronzes.  The computer models used to study the relationship between the original waxes, the bronze modèls and the ultimate bronze casts are illustrated, as are radiographs which reveal the armature for each work in the catalog. The process of bronze casting is illustrated with step-by-step diagrams, as is the process of casting one of the plasters.

Suzanne Lindsay situates Degas’ sculpture within his career and its posthumous history. Each of the entries includes technical information and many have art historical discussions. Lindsay’s substantial entry on the wax original of The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer could stand alone as an article, covering the figure’s pose, costume, iconography, formal context, history, and reception, as well as its original condition. The volume is beautifully illustrated, including many details and comparative works, and includes a glossary of technical terms and a bibliography.

Edgar Degas ‘Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,’ original wax with mixed media,, NGA

Degas exhibited only a single sculpture, the wax Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, and had none of them cast in bronze. Since he left no instructions, it has long been debated whether his heirs’ decision to authorize editions of posthumous casts was consistent with the artist’s intention. But the importance of the sculpture itself is unquestionable, and this is a fitting documentation of one of the great bodies of nineteenth-century art.

Two more modest books that might be of particular interest to artists:

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie; Class Hegemony in Contemporary Art Nav Haq and Tirdad Zolghadr eds., contributions by Charlotte Bydler, Neil Cummings, Annika Eriksson, Chris Evans, Liam Gillick, Nav Haq, San Keller, Hassan Khan, Erden Kosova, Dr. Suhail Malik, Marion von Osten, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Dr. Malcolm Quinn, Tirdad Zolghadr (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009) ISBN ISBN 978-1-933128-88-7

Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie is a publication following, and partially documenting, a series of exhibitions and performances that began in an alternative space in London, Gasworks, and traveled to Istanbul, Stockholm, Cairo, and Bristol from 2006-09.  According to the editors, The initial, overarching question was something along the lines of How exactly does “class” play a role in the production, direction, criticality, and dissemination of contemporary art? In fact, the questions about class they explored center predominantly on power, rather than equally class-bound questions of taste.

The book consists of essays, performance scripts, a self-evaluation, The Solo Show Test by Seda Naiumad; photo-essays, including San Keller’s photographic series showing artists’ works situated in their parents’ homes (above) — not quite Louise Lawler, despite the parallels; A [Hacked] Hacker Manifesto [version 5.1:transitional version] McKenzie Wark by Neil Cummings; and a conversation among participants. Some idea of the project’s tenor can be found in the glossary, which lists Art Habitus as A professional body that is created to recruit students for higher art education, usually made up of white, middle-class, local males (with the occasional German predominant). Fluent English is required, as well as much previous experience and entrepreneurship. There is, however, no required reading.

The writers and participants are well-read, critically up-to-date, and unusually willing to look in the mirror when asking questions about class.  Most of them dish up their satire with clarity, and often humor.  Here is Seda Naiumad from Sketch for the Essay “Certitudo Sui”:

Whether you’re a bourgeoise student, a same-sex family, or an overeducated housewife; when you peruse the nametags and the work descriptions; when you swish down the hermeneutic vortex of a Carsten Höller slide, squealing like a poked piglet; or when you appreciate the guest curator’s institutional critique with a complicit smile of mischief on your lips, discuss it over fair trade coffee in the museum café, and then purchase two catalogs on your way out– one as a Christmas gift, one for your bookshelf; this is when you become a beautifully proactive part of the scenario.

This is a welcome collection of work and writing which once again demonstrates that residents of art capitals have no monopoly on  smarts.

Rob Hamelijnck, Front Desk/ Back Office; The secret world of galleries in 39 pictures and two texts (Rotterdam: Fucking Good Art and post editions, 2010) ISBN 978 94 6083 031 0

Front Desk/Back Office is an artist’s book of photos of just that: the reception areas and hidden sanctums of a group of galleries in Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Sao Paolo and Zurich – taken mostly without the galleries’ permissions. It’s visual fodder for a sociology of the art trade, with the reader left to draw any conclusions.  The book has two (different) front covers, printed upside down in relation to one another. One opens to the photographs, the other reveals a title page and two short essays by architect, Thibaut de Ruyter, and sociologist, Olav Velthuis.  This small volume might fit as another chapter in Lapdogs, examining class as manifest in the interior decoration of commercial art spaces.

The Marvelous Museum: Orphans, Curiosities & Treasures: A Mark Dion Project (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2010) ISBN 978-0811874519

This tome is part of a project by Mark Dion at the Oakland Museum (Sept. 11, 2010 – March 6, 2011), which had just re-installed its gallery of California art and was undergoing institution-wide self-scrutiny. The Oakland Museum is the result of merging three civic museums, one devoted to art, another to natural history and the third to cultural history – all focusing on California.  As all serious, collecting museums must, the Oakland Museum was questioning the objects in its collection that did not accord with the museum’s mission.

Mark Dion, one might say, is a museum’s artist. That is – he is much appreciated by museum professionals for the seriousness and sophistication he brings to questions of what museums collect, how they characterize, store and display their collections, and why. So rather than focus on the newly-installed works, he addressed the left-overs and rejects, those objects that remained, unseen, in the store rooms.  The book is a wonderful object, contained in an over-sized box, with a tromp l’oeil cover that convincingly impersonates a wooden collection case. Opening the box recreates some of Dion’s exploration and discovery of the museum’s contents. An old-fashioned, museum collection label on the box states:  The Marvelous Museum is comprised of one (1) clamshell box containing seven (7) object identification cards and one (1) hardcover book with jacket, vellum envelopes, and seven (7) additional cards inserted in said envelopes.  Its description further states: Explores institutional collecting, sorting, categorization, and cultural analysis…Includes text and visual contributions by D. Graham Burnett, Rene de Guzman, Andrew Leland, David Maisel, Marina McDougall, Rebecca Solnit, and Lawrence Wechsler, among others.
The most valuable characteristics Dion brings to his museum investigations are his endless curiosity and his sense of wonder – which he shares with the book’s readers: were the instruments, carefully fitted into a suitcase, acquired as curator’s tools or collection objects? why did someone save the keys, many, but not all, labeled, to doors and cabinets that no longer exist? where would a taxidermied elephant be moved that would require a packing crate? wouldn’t it be fun to see the two pair of deer antlers intwined in death struggle that the museum de-accessioned in 1969 for $12.50?

All of this makes one ponder the range of oddities that reside in other museum collections. The strangest one I can recall is the world’s largest hairball, preserved for eternity and on display, when I visited the Michigan State University Museum; it was presumably a relic of the university’s agriculture school. This book will surely delight anyone who spends lots of time in museum galleries or store-rooms and retains a curiosity about both the jewels and dross one finds there.

Dan Peterman 2 'Running Tables' segment (1997-2011) Klosterfelde, Berlin

What appeared to be a group of vintage Thonet at Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid was actually Franz West‘s The Power of Papier Mache (2008), and required a hand-written sign to keep visitors from taking a seat. This was somewhat surprising, since I’ve sat upon West chairs in the cafe at the New Museum, New York and a functional couch by West sits in the entrance lobby of the Whitechaple Art Gallery, London. Such intimacy with the displays is unknown in my experience of exhibitions actually devoted to furniture design –  I’ve never understood why museums don’t include examples that can be sat upon and handled, when the pieces in question are in current production.  Comfort and functionality are surely significant criteria when judging furniture, and allowing visitors to assess those aspects for themselves would enrich their understanding of design.

mid 20th century vintage seating at Kurimanzutto, Mexico City

Kurimanzutto had some mid-20th century wooden chairs (by a known designer – unfamiliar to me, however, and I didn’t record the name) which I could happily live with; for the right price, I probably could have taken them home.

stylish, but unidentified seating

more eye-catching furniture

The fair itself had some rather well-designed seating for the crowds, but the designers weren’t identified in any place I could find.

seating for tired visitors at Art Basel/Miami Beach

viewing pods for a continuously-running video program

After noting the furniture, I headed to the section devoted to the less well-established galleries where I figured I had most to learn. On the way I peeked into a small, dark, nook with a video monitor on the floor. It was screening Francis Alys‘ Sleepers (2008), arranged by Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, a slide show of photographs of variously dogs and men sleeping in assorted public places, most looking as though they had no other options. I couldn’t decide whether displaying the homeless to art crowds that could afford the $40 admission to Art Basel/Miami Beach was a salutary reminder of the less fortunate, or poor taste.

Francis Alys 'Sleepers' (2011), Kilchmann, Zurich

My eye was caught by a small floor installation: Avinash Veeraghavan‘s Short Story: Brine (2011) at Gallery Ske, Bangalore, in which miniature, wall-mounted equipment projected a video of swirling water onto a mound of salt on the floor. The dealer couldn’t provide any back story beside the salty brine of its metaphorical mixture, but perhaps its scale added to its poetic appeal. I did inquire whether Bangalore clients supported the gallery (a regular inquiry I make to galleries outside art capitals). Their sales are mostly throughout India (although not concentrated among the local population), whereas in the past they had primarily been to Europeans.

Avinash Veeraghavan 'Short Story: Brine' (2011) Gallery Ske, Bangalore

At Annet Gelink I saw what appeared to be a crumpled Financial Times on the floor; it turned out to be a tromp l’oeil by Ryan Gander, sitting beneath tiny wall shelves supporting what appeared to be 1) a piece of toilet paper and, 2) a sandwich of bread stuffed with bread. On the wall behind them, at floor level, a group of painted glass clip frames were arrayed, another Gander piece which read like a deconstructed de Stijl painting.

several pieces by Ryan Gander at Annet Gelink, Amsterdam

Meessen De Clercq, Brussels, had a tightly-coordinated presentation of work by three artists, each working with dust. In a free-standing case, measuring one cubic meter, Ignasi Aballi‘s Untitled (dust) contained a fine layer of dust beneath a plexiglass cover engraved with various texts about dust. Seven panels by Claudio Parmiggiani occupied two large walls of the space. They contained imagery of butterflies made with a technique he calls delocazione: he pinned butterflies to the panels and lit a fire, which produced smoke deposits on the areas not blocked by the creatures. Their images flickered in white over the soft, brownish-gray residue of the smoke. The work is clearly about the fleetingness of life, but was so subtly and atmospherically beautiful that the panels would make a wonderful environment in a domestic space, assuming the collector is comfortable with the knowledge that death is the inevitable consequence of life.  I was rather surprised that it hadn’t sold already. The gallery’s hand-out referred to the fact that butterflies symbolized the soul in Ancient Rome,which reminded me of a wonderful painting by Dosso Dossi in Vienna, in which Jupiter is shown as a painter, creating human souls as he paints butterflies.

Ignasi Aballi 'Untitled (dust)' at Meessen De Clercq, Brussles

wall: part of Claudio Parmiggiani's 7-paneled work; floor: Sofia Hulten's stones, reconstituted after being ground to dust

Another work I would happily display in my fantasy palace was Martin Boyce‘s large screen at The Modern Institute , Glasgow [note: just after the fair it was announced that Boyce had won the 2011 Turner Prize]. The screen was wonderful on a purely formal level, but I suspected that the forms had conceptual underpinnings, which sure enough they do: the tilting trapezoidal forms refer to a group of Cubist-influenced trees, made of concrete, that Joël and Jan Martel  designed for a garden  at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris. Boyce has converted their abstraction of natural forms back into abstract construction.

Martin Boyce screen at The Modern Institute, Glasgow

painting conservator, Rusty Levenson, with Boyce screen

There was also a lot of dress (and undress) designed to attract attention, including one woman’s tee shirt which commented on the phenomenon of  fairs in general:

The Infamous Chair; 220̊C Virus Monobloc Arnd Friedrichs and Kerstin Finger, eds. (Berlin: Gestalten, 2010) ISBN 978-3-89955-317-8

This book is at once an homage to and critique of those ubiquitous, cheap, plastic chairs, anonymous and nameless, that litter our environment.  Designers, it turns out, have a name for them, derived from their method of manufacture: monobloc, as well as a high degree of animus towards them. The chairs are created from a single, plastic material, in a single process: forced into a mold at  220̊ Celsius (hence, the book’s name).  Since the early 1980s they have become a global answer to modernism’s utopian goal of universally-affordable, mass-produced furniture. So why can’t they be found in museum design collections?

Monobloc chairs donated to the Living Rock Churches in the Philippines

Design critic, Alice Rawsthorn, describes them as cheap, light, portable, waterproof, stackable and easy to clean. Yet their generic form offends educated eyes on the basis of style. The Infamous Chair includes four short essays by critics, writers and teachers of design, a conversation with several chair designers, and photographs of 26 responses to monoblocs by artists and designers. Philippe Starck, Konstantin Grcic and Jerszy Seymour produced serious re-styles of the down-market versions, all in current production (although Seymour’s, the least pricy of the three, still costs approximately 18 times as much as generic monoblocs). But most are snide adaptations that ignore the chair’s undeniable virtues. How amusing is Maarten Baas’ limited edition, monobloc-shaped chair, hand-carved in elmwood, or Tina Roeder’s monoblocs made into limited-edition collectibles by hand-perforating each with 10,000 holes?

spread on Maarten Baas’ hand-carved ‘Plastic Chair in Wood’ (2008) edition 10, elmwood

Far and away the most interesting aspect of the book are the photographs of monoblocs in widespread, international use: a bloodied chair in a bombed village east of Falluja; a plaza in front of Jerusalem’s Western wall, full of worshipers in monoblocs; a single chair in front of a yurt in Mongolia; monoblocs converted into affordable wheelchairs in Thailand; and a series of badly-damaged chairs in Cairo, crudely repaired for use. These constitute a visual essay on globalization, material inequities, the creative recycling of the poor and the possibilities of design for the 99% that will interest all readers with a curiosity about unrecorded, everyday life in the far corners of the globe.

Affordable wheelchairs made from monoblocs and bicycle wheels in S.E. Asia

A recycled monobloc in Maputo, Mozambique

Dust jacket to ‘Graphic Design; Now in Production’

Graphic Design; Now in Production Andrew Blauvelt and Ellen Lupton, eds. (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2011) ISBN  978-0-935640-98-4

Sarah Illenberger, information graphics for ‘The Truth about Sex’ in ‘Neon’ magazine

This book, the catalog to a current exhibition that will tour nationally through 2014, is an eloquent riposte to predictions that e-books will replace the physical things. Just hold it; it’s floppy.  Like Proust’s madeleine, it evokes memories, in this case tactile memories of The Whole Earth Catalog, and for some of us, memories of 1968; sure enough, the editors cite The Whole Earth Catalog as an inspiration. The many double-page spreads are as dense as an old Sears catalog;  I can’t begin to imagine the eagle vision and nimble thumb-work that would be required to peruse it on a Kindle.

‘Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines’ (2008)

Lest you associate graphic design with ink on paper, the book illustrates tee shirts, axes, chairs, mirrors, dishes, neon signage, burial caskets, Google Doodles, video title sequences, and the Kindle. Which is not to say that it ignores typography, books, magazines, wallpaper, posters, branding material, maps, information graphics, bar codes, or QR codes.

Fanette Mellier ‘Specimen’ (2008) design exhibition poster

Graphic Design; Now in Production is a visual Whitman’s sampler, fully enjoyable, as well as edifying, for its illustrations alone. But it also contains numerous asides (worked in among the illustrations) and serious essays by 17 authors that address graphic design in specific applications as well as the place of the design professional in the age of Photoshop and desktop digital printing. Designers will surely find it irresistible, and the rest of us will find it full of eye candy and ideas.

Joe Scanlan ‘DIY,’ instructions for assembling a coffin for $399, entirely from IKEA materials

Karel Maartens; Printed matter (London: Hyphen Press, 3rd edition, 2010) ISBN 978-0-907259-41-1

This monograph on the Dutch designer, Karel Maartens (who, with Jaap van Triest, was its designer), is a beautiful object whose very construction provokes attention and delight, from its striking layout to its Chinese binding (double pages, printed on one side and bound with the folded edge on the outside),  yielding a volume whose pages have a striking presence as they are turned. It was originally published on the occasion of Maartens’ winning the Dr. A. H. Heiniken Prize for Art in 1996, and covered the designer’s entire oeuvre. The first edition of 1000 sold out, as did a second edition, printed in 2001. This new edition brings Maartens’ work up to date.

All his projects since 1960 are illustrated and discussed, in enough detail that the book becomes a record of Maartens’ various concerns, including thematic issues for series and journals and design that reinforces meaning, as well as imaginative responses within limited budgets. As someone outside the field who has always been interested in graphic design, I found this particularly useful – it functions as an introductory course in design thinking in practice.

Maartens designed numerous books, posters, calendars, postage stamps, telephone cards, signage, and  the official newspaper of the Dutch government, the Nederlandse Staatscourant. His work exhibits a freedom in respect to page margins that is a mark of Dutch design, although he  was never associated with a particular design group or  took a theoretical position. His design is extremely labor-intensive and avoids default formats – each commission is bespoke. His most widely-distributed work is probably his design since 1990 for the Dutch architectural publication, Oase, and he is eloquent about crafting individual responses to the journal’s varying thematic issues. The book includes an essay by Maartens and an interview with him, as well as essays by four authors about aspects of his work. It also includes ten virtuosic pages of bibliography of book designs, chronology and list of writing about his work,  which demonstrates remarkable clarity, despite the huge volume of information and extremely small type.

Art and Agenda; Political Art and Activism, Robert Klanten et al, eds. ( Berlin: Gestalten, 2011) ISBN 978-3-89955-342-0

visible; where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else, a project by Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto and Fondazione Zegna (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2010) ISBN 978–1-934105-0

PSJM ‘USA Population by Race,’ ‘USA Poverty Rate by Race,’ ‘USA Prison Population by Race’

Both books include general essays, but are primarily of interest for their selection of artists rather than for overriding critical or theoretical perspectives.  The artists are a broadly international group, with no overlap between the 104 artists and collectives in Art and Agenda and the 41 in visible. Few from either group were included in Creative Time’s recent exhibition devoted to the same subject, Living as Form (which I discussed on September 29, 2011; a book documenting that exhibition will be published in the spring). The social issues they address range from the role of power and authority to various forms of communal activity, and the political as enacted by individuals in their interpersonal, economic, and civic lives.

Art and Agenda is large format and has excellent visual documentation of the works, all in full color. The selection of artists was made by the editors Robert Klanten, Matthias Hübner, Alain Bieber, Pedro Alonzo and Gregor Jansen. It takes a broad interpretation of activist art, including some work which was never seen by a general public and a fair amount of work that, while political in content, still circulates comfortably within traditional art venues, commercial as well as museums and international exhibitions. Several pages of images with descriptive text are devoted to each of the artists, who work primarily in Western Europe and the U.S., with a few from the rest of the globe. The book includes essays by Alonzo, Bieber, and Silke Krohn.

Packard Jennings ‘Anarchist Action Figure’ (2008) part of the artist’s ‘culture jamming’

A number of the artists have international reputations and are represented by major galleries,  including Ai Wei Wei, Marina Abramovic, Maurizio Catalan, Paul McCarthy and William Kentridge; but the book  is considerably more interesting for bringing attention to artists who are less well known. John Pena, Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski run Conflict Kitchen, a takeout restaurant in Pittsburgh that serves food from countries with which the U.S. is at war (a project which echos the line on the cover of the old Settlement Cookbook: The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach).

Conflict Kitchen’s Iranian take-out restaurant, ‘Kubideh Kitchen’ Pittsburgh

PSJM, a Spanish collective, uses marketing techniques to create a critical art that is comprehensible to a broad audience;  light boxes shaped like Mickey Mouse are captioned Made by kids, for kids, while their minimalist canvases (above) reference the style of visual display used by economists and social scientists.  Harmen de Hoop works in public spaces with anonymous and illegal interventions that raise questions about communal space and the conventions surrounding them.

One of Harmen de Hoop’s urban projects

The book reflects something of the sensibility of Klanten and Hübner’s earlier book, Urban Interventions; Personal projects in public spaces (which I wrote about on August 16, 2011), and again gives web addresses for each artist, rather than printed biographical information. It certainly confirms the breadth of artists creating work that addresses social issues and, for the most part, situate their work outside of art institutions.

visible; where art leaves its own field and becomes visible as part of something else is the first of what promises to be an ongoing collaboration between Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto and Fondazione Zegna. Nine curators were chosen: Raimundas Malasauskas, Gabi Ngcobo, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Emiliano Gandolfi, Hu Fang, Anna Colin, Cecilia Canziani, Julietta Gonzales, and Mihnea Mircan, each of whom made a selection of artists. While most of the curators have worked internationally, they are attuned to local currents and artwork which addresses local issues. This book is not a round-up of artists whose work circulates in the galleries and museums of Europe and the U.S., although many of the artists have had international exposure in one of many biennials and other international events.

Francisco Camacho ‘Group Marriage’ (Amsterdam, 2009) an illegal marriage designed to question social regulations of personal relations

While all of the art projects are illustrated, the visuals are clearly secondary to the texts which include artists’ documents, scripts of films, performances and radio broadcasts, correspondence that was part of the art projects’ process, and conversations with the curators, as well as short introductions by each curator. This means that the book reflects the thoughts of the artists themselves, for the most part. The texts give a good idea of the broad historical and theoretical education of most of the artists, who are very clear about how they situate their work. The art projects are created with active participation and often collaboration with communities to a much greater degree than the work in Art and Agenda.

Nastio Mosquito

The volume also  introduces the work of a number of artists who have not received a great deal of art world attention, such as Darius Miksys, who organized the first cricket club in Lithuania, whose function has little to do with cricket; Nastio Mosquito, a performance and mixed-media artist from Angola; Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, based in Lonson, she reclaims forgotten episodes of local histories; or  Progetto Diogene (Diogenes Project),  a collective which creates situations where artists can come together for artistic exchange. This is a very valuable addition to the literature on contemporary art, and makes a great number of artists and their widely-disseminated works available to a broad audience.

‘Zumbi somos nos’ (Sao Paulo, 2006) was the slogan of actions organized by the collective Frente 3 de Fevereiro in response to racial violence

The book, designed by Studio Lupo & Burtscher, is a striking and unusual object, with multi-colored ribbons which not only mark each section, but also wrap around the binding, giving it a festive air. Most of the illustrations are small and not printed to the highest standard, but this is art that does not always carry a primarily visual impact, and when it does, is not always easy to photograph. There are brief biographies for each of the writers, curators and artists as well as web addresses for each artist.

ArtBakery, an art center which Goddy Leye established in Bobendale, Cameroun, to include art in social and economic development