Apenest

A few days ago I stumbled upon something that has me excited- Apenest. A collaboration between Brian Willmont (MassArt alum represented by Lamontagne Gallery) and Cody Hoyt, Apenest is described as an experimental publishing/printmaking project that publishes an annual book of artist contributions. It reminds me of the serial, Aspen (I think the similarities in names is probably intentional), published between 1965 and 1971, that contained items by artists such as Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and John Cage. There have been two issues so far, each only $15, hand-numbered in editions of 1,000. The issues contain extra goodies inside the book such as prints, stickers, and a bandana. They have also published two prints, one a silkscreen shown here by Willmont and Hoyt (26"x40") in an edition of 55 for only $25! I would much rather have one of those than the stuff 20x200 has been putting out lately. Sorry, Jen Beckman...

Conceptual Artist Books by Women

As wall space and the economy become even more difficult, I have retreated to artist books, which is what I started with as a collector. This week I bought a first edition copy of Yoko Ono's Grapefruit (the US version published in 1970) from a bookdealer in VT through Amazon. The book is a series of instructions, which in concept, would create works of art. For me, the concept is so much more interesting than the product anyway.
Three of the most interesting artist books I own are by women artists. Although putting the term "women" before the word "artists" is sometimes considered bad nowadays, I use the term deliberately because these books play with gender and its stereotypes.

Take Care of Yourself by Sophie Callie (shown here). This book is a compilation of Calle's piece(s) for the French Pavillion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Her boyfriend broke up with her over e-mail and she had 107 different women interpret the e-mail for her. The 107 women ranged from police officers to psychiatrists and all had their own perspectives. This book is a limited edition of 4,000 copies in English.

Jens F. by Collier Schorr. In this strange, but beautiful book, Schorr attempts to replicate some of scenes of Andrew Wyeth's Helga using an adolescent German boy- who seems to be going through puberty over the years in which the photos were shot. This book is a signed limted-edition of 1,000.

The Nam by Fiona Banner. Banner is a British artist known for her text-based works, drawings of punctuation marks, and more recently figher planes. In this unpaginated book, she describes in detail what happens during every Viet Nam movie of the 1980's as if it were happening as one seemless scene. The hardcover version of this book is a signed limited edition of 250.