Jonathan Monk

I like Jonathan Monk. Period.

He is a young British artist working in Berlin, who creates conceptual works that play off classic conceptual works. If a concept can be art, what about a concept about a concept? He has turned artists books by Sol Lewitt into movies and made a few artists books poking fun at the books of Ed Ruscha. While it may all seem like a joke, he is in the collection of MOMA and had his own show at the ICA in London. He is represented by Yvon Lambert (http://www.yvon-lambert.com/).

He also does prints. Over the last 10 years has been creating prints that are of the image of the wrapper in which the blank paper was sold (shown here above). He has also done a series of "meetings" that are limited edition text pieces that announce a specific date and time at a specific location, written in the native language of location- sort of like invitations. I have 3 of his meeting editions, including one to meet at sunrise in Luxor, Egypt (in Arabic) and, on the reverse side, to meet at sunset at Luxor in Las Vegas (in English). I have been trying to collect his prints and artist books in depth.

Most recently, he has created a benefit edition for Printed Matter for this year's NY Art Book Fair. The print is white with a Braille transcipt of Monk talking about making the piece. It is only $20 and can be purchased through Printed Matter (http://www.printedmatter.org/).