How Long Have I Been Dead?

John Casey gave me this book for my birthday a few months ago and it is all fucked up. It contains page after page of artwork from Andrew James Jones. It is small in size (5.5" x 4.25") but portly in content (156 color pages) and has a squishy hardcover.

Now, I'm not the type to get freaked out by dirty or violent drawings. In fact, I'm one of those people that feels that images of genitals, blood, and fecal matter are generally overused now as an unintelligent attempt to shock and make art "cutting edge". I classify this stuff as "Boner Art" (feel free to use this term yourself): not shocking but very gratuitous and rarely thought provoking. Maybe it is a comment on our society that these images have lost there ability to horrify or invoke any genuine reaction at all. What I'm saying is, in the case of most Boner Art, it is not my morals or sensibility that is offended, it is my intelligence.

But this book has somehow gone beyond the stupid and heavy-handed imagery into genuinely frightening territory. The drawings are simple in both medium (ink and white-out with a few highlight colors on brown paper bags) and in content, yet twisted and unnerving. It is not necessarily the violence of the images or the monsterousness of the characters, but the subtle details that get my bile going.

It is the joyous or indifferent expressions on these tortured creatures that makes me uncomfortable. It is the interaction and often interconnectedness of deformity that makes me look away. It is the nonsensical but often provocative text. It is the white on black and serpentine dialogue balloons. It is the discarded quality of the creased brown paper canvases... This art feels authentically twisted and evil. The work involving elements of photo-collage into the drawings is even more fucked-up.

And then we have the sheer creativity expressed within this diabolical framework. Each page seems to delight in pushing the edges of taste. Each creature from this book seems to come from the same horrifying universe, but the interactions (and violations) are always new.

My emphasis here is one the feeling of this artwork being authentically fucked-up. It doesn't feel contrived or forced, which makes it all the more disturbing. John Casey told me that a split show between himself and Andrew James Jones has been met with nothing but rejection by local galleries and that doesn't surprise me. This vision is too twisted and real. I don't like it, but I'm very, very impressed with it.

Retinal Scans of the Entertainment Section

I got this newspaper at the SFMOMA Museum Store in 2001. It is page after page of seemingly randomly drawn black lines that formed abstract shapes and formations. It iss the size of a broadsheet newspaper and printed on newsprint, and I just assumed it was some absurd, abstract publication. I looked for any information or indentification printed on the paper to clue me in as to its meaning and origins but there was only lots and lots of black lines. I don't remember how much it cost, but it couldn't have been more than five bucks.

It wasn't until a few months later that I was able to piece two and two together and figure out that the newspaper was created as part of a technology and art exhibit at the SFMOMA sponsored by Intel called 010101: Art in Technological Times. An artist who was part of this large group show, Jochem Hendricks, had been hooked up to retinal scanner as he read the entire Entertainment section of the San Jose Mercury News. From the data of where his eye was focused that was collected a new edition of this paper was created in the exact scale of the original. In this new version, Hendrick's thousands of recorded retinal movements were presented a black lines. While the specific words and information aren't printed, the patterns of eye movements are.

Clearly shown are the design patterns of a newspaper. You can see the headlines, the columns of text, the advertisements, and the photographs. You can see areas that are read in great detail and areas that are just scanned. The complexity of movents is amazing and the abstract designs are wonderful and detailed. This abstraction, when mixed with the familiarity of the size and the texture of the paper, as well as the recognizable structure of headlines, columns, and peripherial images, make this curious publication very aesthetically pleasing.

This is a really nice blend of performance art, conceptual art, and book art that was as enjoyable to me (although very different experience) without the context of the exhibit and how it was made as it is with that knowledge. Stangely enough, I came across another copy of this "newspaper" at a junk store ealier this year, so now I have two copies. If anybody would like to check this paper out (and you're in the Bay Area), please stop by our gallery bookstore and take a gander. And if anybody has any additional information about this "book", artist, or exhibit in general, please leave a comment.

A Field Guide To Weeds

On my recent visit to New York, I made a special subway stop just to visit Printed Matter, Manhattan's famous self-published artist's bookstore and exhibition space. While there selection was impressive, the store was simply way to chock full of books. Thousands and thousands of books, on edge, most without printed spines (saddle-stitched), arranged alphabetically. While this may be great if you are looking for something specific, it was a nightmare to browse through. Add to this the classic "7 employees all to busy to acknowledge there is a customer" thing and I didn't stay very long.

But thank goodness I was there long enough to notice A Field Guide To Weeds, a new books from installation artist Kim Beck (published by Printed Matter). What appears to be a 19th-century pocket guide to weeds themselves (with embossed canvas cover and bound ribbon bookmark) is slowly taken over. Upon the blank pages various weeds (dandelion, pigweed, and poison ivy) spawn, grow, and multiply until, towards the final few pages, they have completely consumed each spread.

If this book were presented as, say, an animated flip-book, I wouldn't give it a second look. But the lush, 5-color printing (which involves both flat and overlapped-printing designs) and rounded page corners make this publication something magical. Slowly flipping through this publication is an immersive experience in wild natural growth told through book form. This book is a companion to a recent series of nationwide Kim Beck installations where weeds made of vinyl signs and paint grow on gallery walls, floors, and windows throughout the exhibition. I can say that A Field Guide To Weeds is the closest replication of an installation experience in printed form I have ever encountered.

Hopefully we'll get this book at Rowan Morrison soon, but in the meanwhile you can purchase it through the Printed Matter website for $25. You can check out images of Kim Beck's "Weeds" installations (plus lots of other work) at idealcities.com.

Wanderlust

I just got back from a "business trip" to New York City where I spent about 48 hours actually in the City (most of which was occupied by figuring out where I was at and how to get to where I was going). I've never been flown and put-up on somebody else's dollar (who isn't family), so I actually enjoyed the "getting there" part of traveling a lot more than I think I otherwise would have. It is the little differences in travel that often go overlooked but are what often gives much more of an impression of a foreign place: how a toilet flushes, how to order a meal, the shape of public mailboxes, the colors of the street signs... the thousands of subtle differences in universal items.

Immediately upon my return home I reached for my copy of Wanderlust by Troy M. Litten. It is a wonderful travel-sized (4.5" x 6"), full-color collection of travel photography. But rather than being a bunch of pictures of iconic landscapes and postcard-esque buildings, Wanderlust is a document of the little things in traveling. (Example: Royale with Cheese).

The book is divided into six themes, and every individual photo is gorgeous on it's own. The layout switches between panels of several similar (yet unique to their locale) items and large details and spreads. With no text except that in the photos, the pictures do all the talking.

The first section is "Cruising Altitude", which covers all things in air travel: the view out the window of a plane, handpainted airport maps, plane tickets, airport lounges, safety card illustrations, and, of course, airplane meals (yum!).

The next chapter is "A Room for the Night". Beds, alarm clocks, hotel art, room phones, showers, mini-fridges, maid service cards, toilet paper rolls, and individually packages hand soaps are all documented and presented brilliantly. The colors are bright and the forms are bold. These are the details of the places between the destinations, and they often say more of a culture than the international monuments themselves.

The next group of photos are about "Sustenance". From a spread of 18 different cups of coffee to buffet pictures, all the excitement and anxiety of foreign and travel food is here. All the images more than just documents of what the author ate on his travels, but really great photos on their own. The details of grilled squids and Mexican handpainted breakfast menu signs are fantastic. And the compilation of empty ramen bowls just makes me flat-out hungry.

"Getting Around" is a chapter of ground transportation. It covers subway station seats and signs, photo booths, hand painted buses, train tickets, maps, ticket machines, and blurred views out train windows. These are aesthetic details I often missed in the bustle of getting from point A to point B.

The fifth section of images is "People You Meet". These include much more than just the usual "exotic locals carrying baskets on their heads" and "withered old woman in the doorway" pictures (although there are a couple of those). The faces we see and people we meet when traveling are found on currency, in hand-painted movie posters, peeing in the street, mannequins, and the myriad of styles of little guy on road signs.

The final chapter is "Sightseeing", but once again, these aren't your typical postcard pictures and tourist photos. Instead we are treated to compilations of tour buses, people taking pictures, welcome signs, and air mail stamps. Amazing details of postcard racks and "this is NOT a topless beach" signs are here as well. Plus a great image of a local boxing advertisement.

Clearly, the destination is not the point. Wanderlust is a unique and beautiful, and I feel incredibly accurate, portrayal of traveling. Since being published in 2004 by Chronicle books, it has been expanded to wide edition of papergoods: blank journals, stationery, postcards, travel logs, and address books. Sometimes we have Wanderlust goods at Rowan Morrison, but they usually sell-out pretty quickly. The book (which is 208 pages and costs $14.95) is available at chroniclebooks.com.

Almost the entire contents of the book are available for preview at creator Troy Litten's website troyland.com, along with lots of other info and exclusive travel photo prints. I highly, highly recommend checking Wanderlust out. It changed they way I see the world when I travel, and gave me a great appreciation for the little difference that make make the world diverse and beautiful and can even make the least enjoyable aspects of travel special.