February 2010 Archives

The Enormous Tiny Art Show, February 2010

Who says bigger is better?

Despite what my first drawing instructor preached, there is something to be said for small work. Smaller pieces beckon, siren-like, for you to approach and be alone with them for a moment. They ask for mano e mano consideration, and alert one to the distinction between looking into instead of looking at something.

Every February and September, Nahcotta Gallery hosts the Enormous Tiny Art show, where all the art on the walls is a come-hither intimate size of 10"x10" or smaller. And this February is especially notable in that Valerie Roybal, Kate Bingaman-Burt and Lisa Congdon, three of 20x200's own edition-makers, are showcasing their small splendors.

The good people at ETA write:

As art lovers and collectors ourselves, we want nothing more than to share our ardor for original art, making it possible for almost anyone and everyone to own original and irreplaceable works of art.

We couldn't agree more with the sentiment, and the act of collecting itself.

A Brief History 2009, by Valerie Roybal

I was lucky enough to acquire a couple of Roybal's exquisitely detailed 20x200 editions during the last 20x200 RIDONK sale , and if you're able to make it to Portsmouth, NH you can purchase some of her's, Kate Bingaman-Burt's or Lisa Congdon's original pieces for very reasonable prices. Alternatively, if, like me, you are glued to your task chairs and monitors, you can also browse and buy Valerie's, Kate's or Lisa's work directly online on their respective ETA pages. All three artists also have work remaining on 20x200 here, here and here!

Enormous Tiny Art
On view: February 4th - March 1st, 2010
Artist's reception: Friday, February 5th, 5-8 p.m.
Nahcotta Gallery
110 Congress Street
Portsmouth, New Hampshire 03801
603.433.1704

We Are So Good Together by Dylan Fareed

Wednesday Wegman Alert: Yes, that Wegman!

April 25, 2007 <-- Three years ago!

Hi Dylan,

I love (super love) your We Are So Good Together poster. I am sad (super sad) that it is sold out! I'm working on a new project and would like for y'all to consider doing an edition with me. You can read about it here.

Best,
Jen

A lot has happened since I wrote that email three years ago, but I couldn't think of a better time than right now to release today's 100% hand-made letterpress edition, We Are So Good Together by the multi-talented Dylan Fareed.

Obviously it's a suitable addition to our Valentine's Day Gift Guide, but its resonance right now has more to do with all the amazing people I have the good fortune to work with. When Sara and I were checking out the proof yesterday evening, I had the urge to take it out of her hands and tack it up on our wall. (Alas, since the walls of our temporary digs are Meetup red, it would've clashed horribly.)

Still, it seems the thing to be hanging over our heads. Our growing team is uber-creative and talented — the fresh perspectives of our newest members have reinforced how unique, amazing and engaged our hard-working peeps are. And I couldn't be happier for us all to be working together.

This pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming feeling of good-togetherness extends beyond team JBP itself. I am similarly knocked out by the people and organizations in our growing and interconnected universe: the artists we work with, our investors, advisors and various champions who are as excited as we are about this Art for Everyone idea of ours. Plus, there are lots of other great little companies with big ideas we get to work with, including Dylan's own Artlog, which he founded with Manish Vora a couple of years ago. Although Dylan most often labors in SF these days, Manish is firmly rooted here in New York's totally on fire tech community.

And last but not least: YOU. Because you know what? We are seriously so good together. Our interactions online here, there and elsewhere are energizing and inspiring. It's what keeps me going, so thanks for being one of the YOUs in the WE that I think of when I look at Dylan's print.

About Four Thirty (top) and The Architects (bottom) by William Wegman

I'm so pleased and so proud to present a very special paired edition — About Four Thirty and The Architects — from William Wegman today. And a paired edition it is! These prints are only available together; Mr. Wegman and I agreed that it was a good idea to present the broader view of his practice. (We both well know how distracting and disarming those Wiemeraners of his can be.)

Some notes about the edition:

- We're limiting collectors to two 10"x8" / 8"x10" or 14"x11" / 11"x14" pairs each, and only one per collector for prints 20"x16" / 16"x20" and larger.
- This edition is not eligible for any discount or promotion.
- We reserve the right to refund purchases if we determine that a single collector has acquired multiple prints or used a discount code.

William's work is the perfect incarnation of Bill the person. As an artist, he is William Wegman and to call him Bill seems disrespectful. And yet, to refer to him as Bill, to other people, can easily seem to allude to a familiarity that's like, so Hollywood — that LA thing where everyone refers to super powerful people by their first name only. But to call him William in person, or even refer to him as William seems to signal a different kind of respect. He's serious, but please don't take him so seriously.

He's so funny, affable and distracted that it's easy to underestimate him. People think of him as the dog guy and don't even know that he's an artist with a broader practice. Even if people do know about his other work, they complain about his obsessive repetition of a theme (the postcards), to which I say: who hasn't met an obsessive artist before? The dogs and the humor belie a very intense, earnest and important inquiry.

I want to perch myself up on a chair and wave my arms and say: take this man seriously! If you spend your life looking half as hard as he does it'll be much richer. Humor can be intelligent and revealing, even when it's downright silly on its surface. It reminds me of how I talk about what I want people to look for when they look at art: a connection. Only connect, and then fall into it.

"Only connect! Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."

— E.M. Forster, Howards End

Daisy, 2008, Woodgrain series by Christina Muraczewski

Rarely is an artist's statement as enigmatically engaging as the work itself, but Christina Muraczewski's reads like a philosophical text, meaning that you might have to read it and then re-read it again (and then maybe again) to best extract all the nuance and particulars one-by-one. Or, maybe it reads like the journal of someone who strives for as much order in personal articulation as in visual making: What you say about what you do can matter as much as the doing.

Before I leave the house in the morning I go through three sets of four rituals for getting ready to make sure nothing was forgotten. When I go to the store I plan to buy five things or in groups of five so I remember what I was supposed to get. I organize and categorize by a number of different systems...

By employing minimal characteristics, I create formal and informal relationships that...[are] disrupted purposefully by a foreign element: humor. Humor in the form of obsessiveness, senselessness, or sarcasm defines the absurd to serve as a balance to the mundane. The attempt is to fashion a new hybrid: minimalism as the backbone and idiosyncrasy as the fuel. This hybrid is meant to sit in the "in-between", the balance of abstraction and representation, the literal and the conceptual, sincerity and superficiality.

Muraczewski has referred to herself as an abstract painter, but has re-interpreted the label to include a methodology which incorporates a nearly OCD sense of organization, a serious love of ritual and contemporary design elements and a breezy, blink-and-miss it sense of humor. These elements of practice have culminated in her most recent series of work, Woodgrain. Using acrylic markers and glitter on canvas, Muraczewski creates a faux bois background that she then "overpaints" a scene of birds, vines, flora or colorful wallpaper or upholstery patterns. The result intones a whiff of David Salle, if Salle were perhaps more interested in the natural world as opposed to, say, the au natural girl.

We have a great fondness for Muraczewski's work here at Jen Bekman Projects, having shown her in two group shows at the Jen Bekman Gallery (X Marks the Art and Ornithology), and nearly selling out her editions here at 20x200 (you can still purchase the dwindling reserves from her featured editions here, here and here). We couldn't be happier to cheer and chart her current and future successes both in NYC and beyond.

To that end, if you live near or are visiting the left coast in the coming month, Muraczewski's work can be seen live and in person in the group show Woodie, an exhibition featuring art works made on wood, with wood or by wood simulation, at The Attic, 200 S. Ardmore Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90004. The exhibition is part of the Art LA Contemporary Fair programming, which includes a self-guided driving tour of new exhibitions at alternative spaces throughout the city.

The exhibition features: Anthony Brown, Brian Cooper, Craig Deines, Joan Kahn, Jared Pankin, Brian Mallman, Christina Muraczewski, Sharon Ryan, Klutch Stanaway and Noah Thomas and was curated by Cherie Benner Davis.

Woodie
On view: Jan. 31 - Feb. 28, 2010
The Attic, 200 S. Ardmore Ave.(cross streets: Normandie & 2nd St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90004
For more information or to view by appointment, call: 323-292-6029, or write: cheriebd@gmail.com.

Can You Imagine by Trey Speegle

Last time we checked in with edition-maker Trey Speegle he was returning from a whirlwind trip to Paris, where he had created a gigantic runway backdrop for Stella McCartney's show at Paris Fashion Week. Trey is now the subject of a full-page feature in the current issue of Gotham Magazine. In the article, Trey talks about how his work with paint-by-numbers got started, as well as how his work has intersected with fashion and commerce. On being compared to commercial artist Peter Max, Trey says, "[the 60's were] a different time, people no longer make these kind of distinctions [between art and commerce]. Gagosian has a store." Of Trey's two 20x200 editions only one, Can You Imagine (above), is still available so hurry up and take one home!

The 20x200 print giveaway that we posted about last week is going down this Saturday from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Brooklyn Museum, and we couldn't be more excited. The prints are packed, the banner has arrived, and we’re uhhh…still brainstorming on our apparel. Nevertheless, we hope you’ll join us for what is sure to be an awesome evening full of talks, music, film, dancing, and art.

Ms. Jen Bekman will be speaking, exclusively to 1stfans, about 20x200 and JBP's approach to supporting artists. So, after you've started or renewed your 1stfans membership (and picked up Valerie's print!), join us for a talk!

Target First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum
Saturday, February 6th, 2010 | 6:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Jen's talk | 8:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway, BK, NY

For the full details, check out our previous post or read on:

We've been collaborating with 1stfans founders, Shelley Bernstein and Will Cary, and Valerie over the last few months to produce this unique benefit edition. For the first time ever, collectors will be able to pick up a print in person and become a 1stfans member all for the ridiculously affordable cost of $20! 1stfans is the Brooklyn Museums's socially networked membership. Valerie Hegarty and 20x200 have donated the prints for this event.

The larger prints sizes in Valerie's edition (14"x11" and 20"x16") will be released on 20x200 the following week of Monday, February 8th. Every print in this special edition comes with a 1stfans one-year membership! And, all proceeds will go to benefit the Brooklyn Museum. To find out about the release online, make sure you're signed up for the 20x200 newsletter.

About Four Thirty by William Wegman

Welcome back to the Week in Review! What's that, you ask? Every Friday we look back on the highlights of the week, point out some great things we saw on the internet and drop hints about what the future holds.

20x200 Print Giveaway at the Brooklyn Museum THIS SATURDAY!

On Saturday, February 6th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., join some of us from 20x200, including Ms. Jen B. herself, at the Brooklyn Museum for a Target First Saturday event with 1stfans. We'll be giving away 10"x8" prints by artist Valerie Hegarty to new and renewing 1stfans members and Jen will be speaking to an intimate group of 1stfans at a meetup. Meetups are an opportunity for 1stfans to interact exclusively with the Museum's staff, its collections, artists, and other members every month at Target First Saturdays. Hope to see you there! Don't let the snow stop you! Read More →

New Editions

We Are So Good Together by Dylan Fareed	The Architects + About 4:30 by William Wegman

Daisy 2008, Woodgrain series by Christina Muraczewski

Openings + Events

• Edition-eaker Christine Muraczewski is featured in a group show in LA titled Woodie, which runs through February 28th.


• Edition-makers Valerie Roybal, Lisa Congdon and Kate Bingaman-Burt all have work in Nahcotta Gallery's annual Enormous Tiny Art show up in New Hampshire through March 1st.


• This Saturday afternoon from noon - 5 pm, MoMA is hosting a free art book swap! "The public is invited to swap any art books in good condition for any one of the hundreds of art books donated by publishers, distributors, galleries and other art world professionals." Sounds to us like the perfect way to spend Saturday before heading to the Brooklyn Museum for the 20x200 Print Giveaway from 6 - 8 p.m.!


• Edition-maker Chris Ballantyne has a show titled Some Songs from the Shore at Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco, which is up through March 6th.


• Text Me Later, an exhibit by edition-maker and master of the clever aphorism Mike Monteiro + Omar Lee, opens tonight, February 5th at Rare Device in San Francisco.

20x200 News

• A portfolio of drawings by Rachell Sumpter and Jacob Magraw is the exclusive content of this week's McSweeney's iPhone app.


• Gotham Magazine ran a full-page feature on Trey Speegle, who talked about his work as it relates to the intersection of art, fashion and commerce.


• Show us your frames! 20x200 collector Jennifer wrote in suggesting that we make post some images of how collectors around the world have framed their 20x200 editions. We love it! To contribute to this project, simply tag your photos "20x200" on Flickr and we'll select the most inspiring walls to feature on our site.


• A friendly reminder that Clare Grill's GORGEOUS painting at Jen Bekman Gallery are not to be missed! Her solo exhibition, What You're Told is on view through February 27th.


• Our semi-annual 20% More Ridiculous Sale came and went, offering first-time and veteran collectors the chance to pick up remaindered prints for a price that is 20% more affordable than usual. Thanks to everyone who brought home some art and spread the word to all their friends. You rock!

From the Web

• We completely forgot to include this amazing New Order video (above!) directed by William Wegman in our newsletter, but there was "some serious pogo dancing happening" at the JBP HQ after we discovered it. See also: Wegman's early films.


• For the blackout poem obsessed—a group in which we count ourselves—Austin Kleon has created a new blog devoted exclusively this art. Check out Newspaper Blackout.


• Congratulations to team "Glen Lowry's Apartment," who took home 20x200 tote bags, prints, and gift certificates in last Friday's Art:21 Trivia Night!


• Themed menu lunch drawings, like last week's "Hunger Apocalypse," are a regular midday fixture at HQ. (We have fun over here).


• 20x200 was featured into today's VSL infographic with Pentagram Design and Obama's Hope Poster. Also make sure to take a look at Albert Exergian's modern TV posters featuring lines and shapes to depict The Wire, 30 Rock, Mad Men and 12 other popular shows.

Until next week, collectors! Anything we missed? Reply to @20x200 on Twitter.

Sara Distin, Associate Director of Jen Bekman Projects, is training for her first-ever marathon.

Dear Collectors and Friends of 20x200,

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you an important announcement. Ms. Sara Distin, the amazing Associate Director of JBP, is running her first-ever marathon this April in memory of her dad and in support of First Descents, a non-profit organization that provides guidance and instruction for outdoor adventure activities for young adults (ages 18-39) with cancer. We ask for your support in reaching her fundraising goal of $5,000.

Sara writes:

Survival rates for this demographic haven't improved much in the last 30 years and there aren't many support systems available to those patients who seek it, making the efforts of FD invaluable.

The experiences that First Descents offers promote emotional, psychological and physical strength and healing. Participants also meet a community of fellow patients and survivors, a potential network of support that sustains long after the week of camp is over.

With the money that Sara hopes to raise, five cancer survivors will be given the incredible opportunity to spend one week at a FD program. As of this writing, she has reached 33% of her total goal, but with your support we think that she can not only reach her goal, but double it!

On a typical day at JBP HQ, you will find Sara corresponding with our artists and edition-makers, working with Ms. Jen B. to curate 20x200, and making sure that every color of every print is absolutely perfect. Before or after work, Sara has been hitting the streets to cover "350+ training miles in Brooklyn, running over bridges and along rivers, in snow, sleet, wind and rain, or worse, the gym."

You can donate, in any amount, by clicking here.

Whether or not you are able to make a donation, we encourage you to learn more about First Descents and to read Sara's moving letter to friends and family, which has the full story behind her marathon.

Thank you for your support.

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday in frigid temperatures to the Brooklyn Museum's Target First Saturday to say hello to the team and pick up one of Valerie Hegarty's prints and a 1stfans membership! We had a great time mingling with museum-goers and meeting Brooklyn Museum's newest 1stfans throughout the night. We also want to extend extra thanks to 1stfans founders Will Cary and Shelley Bernstein from Brooklyn Museum for giving us this opportunity to collaborate.

Artist Valerie Hegarty

Take a look at photos from the evening over on flickr, and make sure to sign up for the mailing list to get first dibs on the remaining larger print sizes of Valerie's edition (14"x11" and 20"x16"), which we're releasing today! Every print in this special edition comes with a 1stfans one-year membership. And, all proceeds will go to benefit the Brooklyn Museum.

First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker by Valerie Hegarty

Surprise Monday greetings collectors! I'm sneaking in a day early but not a moment too soon to introduce First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker by Valerie Hegarty: a benefit for the Brooklyn Museum.

Over the weekend the ever-friendly 20x200 team meeted and greeted many of you at the Museum's Target First Saturday. It was lovely to see you there and we're happy to have you here! A warm and hearty welcome to 20x200 newcomers — I hope you'll enjoy seeing new art in your inbox.

Today, we have a special treat for 20x200 friends silver and gold — pick up one of Valerie's prints and receive a one-year membership to 1stfans. 1stfans is the Brooklyn Museums' socially networked membership. Join and you'll have access to all kinds of artist-created online content and exclusive events at Target First Saturdays — an insider's peek into what goes on behind those burly columns.

And, you'll have this gorgeous print to hang on your wall. As this collaboration with the Museum came together, I was delighted when I heard that Valerie had agreed to participate. I've known her sculptures for some while, from stumbling over bits on the internets and putting the pieces together with works that I already know and love. When I came across Niagara Falls, I linked it back to photographer Alec Soth's series NIAGARA. I've been looking forward to seeing what she would create in two-dimensions especially for 20x200 and 1stfans.

It turns out that Valerie's a super kind person to boot. She visited 20x200 HQ several times to check out her proofs as the edition came to fruition, then flattered me with her presence at the 1stfans meetup on Saturday. I gave a short presentation to 1stfans (one of those exclusive events I was just mentioning!) and was dappled with a smattering of smart questions from the audience. I was happy to be fielding inquiries about collecting, our artists, photography and fine art, all the things that make 20x200 so great.

I have two other short-but-sweet announcements to make! It's the last day for guaranteed shipping for Valentine's Day. Get your orders in before midnight EST to do right by your loved ones. Still grappling with what to get? I've recapped our heart-day editions below and you can always defer to the good taste of our artists. Don't delay!

The deadline for Valentine's Day shipping is TONIGHT, Monday 2/8, at 12:00 midnight EST.

And congratulations to Alissa from Coquitlam, British Columbia, the winner of our Lisa Congdon giveaway with Chronicle Books!

I won't be seeing you all for our usual Tuesday date, but will be back on Wednesday with some fine photography. We'll resume to business as usual next week.

I Like You Cause You Like Me, 2009 by Mike Monteiro

As you can probably tell from our endeavors both online and off, community and community-building are things that we strongly believe in at JBP. We strive to create and be attuned to opportunities for growing this community of artists, art-appreciators, art-collectors and anyone else that wishes to somehow participate in this ever-expanding conversation about how all of these things can exist and thrive in the present.

So it's especially thrilling when we see that happening organically amongst our artists and friends, like with 20x200 artist Mike Monteiro showing his Irony-is-Dead, Long-Live-Irony!-esque works in Lisa Congdon's San Francisco design store and gallery, Rare Device. (Lisa herself is another 20x200 artist.)

Text Me Later
Work by Mike Monteiro and Omar Lee
On view at Rare Device, February 5 – February 28, 2010
1845 Market Street between Valencia + Guerrero Streets
San Francisco, CA

Mike Monteiro's work reflects that of someone who is engaged with a great many things: he's an artist, a designer, one of the great-heaping-masses-of-humanity (you should read the local political commentary on his blog), and, echoing the tagline of personism, he's someone with opinions...lots of them. Monteiro has been described both here and elsewhere as everything from acerbically talented to putting the "gauche in gouache," and we have a lot of love at JBP for his uncomfortable truths. He's been in multiple shows at Jen Bekman Gallery and is also a AAA artist on 20x200.

My favorite recent example of how far and whither the mind of Mike Monteiro strays was his crowd-sourced artist statement for this show. There was a winner chosen among the submissions to Mike's blog, and it made it into the press release:

Mike Monteiro grew up in Philadelphia and currently resides in San Francisco. He explores the junction of traditional techniques with new media in his monumental portraits of the Helvetica typeface, posing it in a succession of "found" costumes such as pop song lyric and colloquial verbal challenges. While alluding to the recontextualized maxims of artists like Jenny Holzer, Monteiro brings a personal, confessional element to his sometimes abrasive aphorisms. Throughout his work, he aims to problematize the easy identification of Helvetica with truth.

If you can't make it to the show in person, a full online viewing can be seen on Rare Device's gallery exhibition page.

Noah Kalina has a way in front of the camera.

Gaining international notoriety for his daily self-portraits recorded over six years and uploaded to YouTube as a video (which has now been viewed over 14 MILLION times), 20x200 edition-maker Noah Kalina scored himself yet another 15 seconds of fame when he appeared in a Superbowl spot for the Dodge Charger on Sunday evening. Read in the flat, monotone voice of Michael C. Hall, the camera lingers for long moments over a series of resigned, chastened and, we are given to believe, whipped men.

I will take your call. I will listen to your opinion of my friends. I will listen to your friends' opinions of my friends. I will be civil to your mother.

Hall's voice drifts over Kalina's huge eyes, as the monologue continues to its coup d'cock riposte, "...and because I do this, I will drive the car that I WANT to drive."

Noah writes on his blog that he was the only non-professional actor in the commercial, chosen because of the long video portrait photographer Clayton Cubitt made of him and posted to Vimeo.

Noah has also recently redesigned his portfolio, which, he promises us, contains no flash. (Really, that's a promise I wish more people would make, including the entire country of France).

Untitled (LA20070805) by Noah Kalina

There are only a handful of Kalina's edition left on 20x200, so be sure to take a look-see before they're all gone.

Agoraphobia by Austin Kleon

Thanks to podcaster Sean Ear1ey for the shout out to 20x200 and Austin Kleon in Episode 3 of his "Phonocast" (it happens around 9:35).

Phonocast#2 by seanear1ey

You can see all three of Austin's Newspaper Blackout Poems on 20x200, or see the fun links about Austin's work on our JBP Tumblr.

Through the pass to the light up ahead, 2008 by William Crump

Often after the initial out-pouring of sympathy and donations in the wake of a great disaster, there quickly follows a sustained silence and collective forgetting as the story leaves the front page news, our radio headlines, and our news feed.

Nearly a month after the earthquake that completely leveled cities and communities in Haiti, there is still great need for both action, support and a promise to not selectively forget in the face of hitting a Paypal button.

Art for Haiti NYC is an auction benefit in conjunction with Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres. Over sixty works of art are for sale, with 100% of the proceeds going to the charity and relief efforts in Haiti.

Three 20x200 artists have generously donated their work for the auction: Amy Park, William Crump and William Lamson.

If you're in the area, please consider stopping in and possibly purchasing some art for an ongoing and very relevant cause. An online preview of most of the works for sale can be viewed here and you can also see the work from 12 - 6 p.m. today. The auction itself begins tonight at 7:00 PM, Wednesday February 10, 2010, with bidding beginning promptly at 8:30 p.m.

Art for Haiti NYC Benefit Auction
601 West 26th Street (@ 11th Ave.), 8th floor
New York, NY 10001
Email: info@artforhaitinyc.com

Also see our previous posts about how you can buy art to benefit Haitian relief efforts here, here and here.

Whether you want to call it snowmageddon, the snowpocalypse, or snOMG, there's not doubt that the white stuff is falling down fast outside the windows of 20x200 HQ. So, we wanted to dig into the archives and share a few of our favorite snowy editions, some of which have just a few prints left.

Kind Intruder by Michelle Arcila

The Seeming Impenetrability of The Space Between by Colin Blakely (Only 2 left!)

Icicle Intervention, Victor, Idaho by William Lamson

Idaho Springs, Colorado by Justin James Reed

alleverythingthatisyou sno6_005 by Mike + Doug Starn

Prospect Park #2 by Joseph O. Holmes

Browse the rest of our winter editions right here, then get out there and make some snow angels!

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida by Daniel Cheek

Wintery greetings collectors! It's Sara, writing from a very snowy New York. School has been canceled and subway traffic slowed, reminders that we're still subject to the whims of nature, despite our best attempts to be sheltered from it. Blanketed in a most flattering quilt of white, the city is rendered in grayscale, and like today's edition, is at its most peaceful and quiet.

It couldn't be a better day to introduce you to the photography of 2009 First Edition Hot Shot Daniel Cheek. In his photographs, Daniel illustrates his belief that "few people in the modern age have experienced unadulterated nature," and admits, "I know I have not." The spaces he photographs are often along the perimeter of places that might be described as wild — marked by fences, benches and paths, or in the case of Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida, moderated by glass and plaster.

With his 8x10-inch camera, Daniel exaggerates this contrived distance through ground glass. The format that he uses requires him to shoot from stable ground, on fair and friendly terrain. Using a large-format camera is a slow, calculated endeavor, not unlike that of writing. Writing, reading, and photographing are all in their own ways, opportunities to examine an experience from a distance, and from this distance, we're sometimes better able to understand what we see and feel.

This morning, as I was thinking about writing this newsletter, I went running in the storm. I'm training for a marathon but this time, headed out with more of a sense of adventure than duty. The streets and sidewalks were still snowy, yet untarnished by tires and exhaust — fast reminders of just how adulterated NYC is. Bewildered by all the wonderful whiteness, there were moments when I began to think this wasn't such a good idea.

Until a snowplow met me halfway coming down the ramp to the Williamsburg Bridge, I was sliding half a step backwards for every one forwards. As I ventured farther over the East River, the wind flung blinding bits of ice into my eyes and sucked the snot out of my nose and wrapped it around the side of my face. Lovely, no? But in all this, there was something strangely comforting in thinking about Daniel's way of photographing and its relationship to writing, reading — and for me, on this day, running.

In the midst of this visceral experience of Brooklyn, albeit abated by concrete, buildings, and bridge, I was keenly aware of Daniel's sense of our separation from it all and realized that he was right and that that might not be such a bad thing. There is value in creating space to look and think from a distance and more so, in highlighting that this is what we're doing. Like the chairs that dot horizons in paintings by Hopper, the empty rockers at Rookery Bay serve to remind us that in these endeavors, we shouldn't separate ourselves from each other, too. In other words, if you're in the snowbound East like we are, rustle up your nearest and dearest and go make some snowmen.

And, when the roads clear, head to Massachusetts. Daniel's work is currently on view in America Now at the Montserrat College of Art Gallery in Beverly, MA. You'll find Daniel's work on the walls along with an allstar lineup of photographers: Ben Huff, former JBG intern and publisher/editor of Lay Flat, Shane Lavalette, Laura McPhee, Alec Soth and Zoe Strauss.

Jen will be back tomorrow to introduce a colorful counterpoint to today's edition.

Mr. Robert Verdi

The verdict is in: Robert Verdi, the oh-so-fab stylist, interior designer, event planner—and now star of “The Robert Verdi Show Starring Robert Verdi,” which debuted on LOGO last night, is also a fan of 20x200 (!!!). The new reality show follows Verdi and his team as they imprint their style around town, make quippy comments about everything from fashion to fad diets, dress up celebrities to look entirely glamorous and chase Robert's larger-than-life personal dreams (like getting his own TV channel, and an ice cream flavor and a mall named after him). So, we were pretty darn pleased to learn from an interview on Daily Intel, that Mr. Verdi has "A Mike & Doug Starn from 20x200" hanging over his sofa.

Good taste? We think so.

alleverythingthatisyou sno7.1_003 by Mike + Doug Starn

See "The Robert Verdi Show Starring Robert Verdi" every Wednesday on LOGO at 10 p.m. for a dose of comedy, celebrity, style and the entirely unexpected. And, read more about Robert's views on Donald Trump , his favorite medication and thoughts on what makes someone a New Yorker here.

Did you forget that Valentine's Day was this Sunday too? Don't panic! We've got instant 20x200 gift certificates that you can email at the last minute or print at home and give to your bookish babe or design-y dreamboat. We'll give them a secret code to pick anything they like, on you. Smooches are practically guaranteed!

We've also partnered with Giiv to offer the gift of art through a text message. This is a perfect way to show your Blackberry- or iPhone-addicted valentines that you truly love them. Simply head over to Giiv.com/20x200 to start texting prints to your loved ones.

Happy Valentine's Day gifting, collectors!

La Paz, Bolivia by Stefan Ruiz

20x200 News

• Say this five times fast: The TEDsters are tweeting about 20x200! Stefan Ruiz's image flashed across the screen and one lucky winner from the TED audience was chosen to take home one of our largest prints.
• Stylist Robert Verdi, who is now the star of his own reality show, told New York Mag's Daily Intel that above his sofa hangs a Doug + Mike Starn 20x200 edition! Excellent taste indeed.
• Sara Distin, Associate Director of JBP, is running a marathon to raise $5k for young adults with cancer. As of this writing she has reached 43% of her goal. Please take a moment to learn more about her race and donate to First Descents. Thank you!

20x200 totes at the Brooklyn Museum event last Saturday

• We had a blast at the Brooklyn Museum last Saturday, meeting and greeting collectors both new and old. Check out our photos from the event and then grab one of the gorgeous benefit-edition prints by Valerie Hegarty.
• Edition-maker William Wegman popped up in a New York Times article about photographers who used Polaroids. One of his photos is published with the caption, "Polaroid provided great talents with equipment and film, and they gave it photographs."
• The face of edition-maker Noah Kalina flashed across million of TVs during this Superbowl commercial.
• Edition-makers Amy Park, William Crump and William Lamson have all generously donated work to a Haiti Benefit Auction in New York.
• Liz Kuball is featured in the latest issue of Fraction Mag.
• By now your tolerance for Snowtorious B.I.G. jokes may be waning, but in honor of the blizzard outside the 20x200 HQ we rounded up A Blizzard of Wintry Editions (and some summery ones too!)

New Editions

This week we released two editions from Valerie Hegarty and Daniel Cheek. The larger sizes of Valerie's Pileated Woodpecker arrived on Tuesday, after we gave all the 8"x10" prints away to Brooklyn Museum 1stfans. On Wednesday, we were pleased to bring you Daniel Cheek's quiet Rookery Bay, an image dealing with how we experience nature in a world inundated with boundaries and barriers.

First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker by Valerie Hegarty	Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Florida by Daniel Cheek

Openings + Events

• America Now is a star-studded photography exhibition that includes work from Daniel Cheek, whose 20x200 edition was released this week, as well as Ben Huff, Shane Lavalette, Laura McPhee, Alec Soth and Zoe Strauss.

  America Now
  February 5 – April 10, 2010

  Montserrat College of Art Gallery
  23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA

• Edition-maker Mike Monteiro puts the "gauche in gouache" in Text Me Later at Rare Device, the gallery of fellow edition-maker Lisa Congdon.

  Text Me Later
  Work by Mike Monteiro and Omar Lee
  February 5 – February 28, 2010

  Rare Device
  1845 Market Street between Valencia + Guerrero Streets
  San Francisco, CA

From the Web

• Most-delicious-blog-ever Serious Eats posed the question: how much about cooking can actually be learned from cookbooks? And Jane Mount's cookbook shelf was the perfect illustration.
• 20x200 and Austin Kleon got a shout out on Sean Ear1ey's Phonocast this week.
• We're collecting photos of framed 20x200 art for a framing inspiration page! For examples, see these dinosaurs in a law office and Clare Grill's Overachievers in a frame with its own special history.

  To contribute, upload photos of your amazingly arranged wall to Flickr and use the tag "20x200" so that we can find your pics.

Anything we missed? Reply to @20x200 on Twitter. Until next week, collectors!

Greetings, dear blog readers! You may have noticed a new blogger around these parts during the last few weeks, sharing her thoughts about JBP artists and myriad other ideas and ongoings in the art world. We are pleased to announce that Stacy Oborn (the tyke to the right in the photo to your left)— writer, photographer, expert in the world of birds and good friend-of-JBP will be contributing frequent updates to the 20x200, Hey, Hot Shot! and Jen Bekman Gallery blogs. We're very excited to have her join our crew and hope you are too!

A bit more about Stacy:
Stacy Oborn is a writer/editor and photographer living in Ithaca (is gorges!), New York. She doesn't quite remember when or under what circumstances her first brush with Jen Bekman Projects was, but her Google Checkout purchase history tells her that she's been collecting work from 20x200 quite enthusiastically since October 2008. Her first purchase? Jason Polan's 132 Birds at the Museum of Natural History. Fitting too, since she is currently employed by the biggest bird lab in the world. When not writing at JBP, she can also be read in a more unexpurgated fashion, at her site the space in between.

Keep your eye on our internet-spaces for more from Stacy, and join us in welcoming her to our team.

Be Realistic Demand The Impossible by Carrie Marill

Soggy mid-February greetings collectors! The snow is falling once again in our fair city, then churning and melting into grey mush along the streets and sidewalks. It's nothing short of dismal out-of-doors. Warm and dry we are in 20x200 HQ, pleased to have an arsenal of great art to introduce you to this week.

First off is today's charming and sharp edition from long-time 20x200 artist, Carrie Marill: Be Realistic Demand the Impossible.

Carrie's been with 20x200 from the very beginning — and since I found her work on the internets (where else!?) it's been a lovely affair, dappled with editions, exhibitions and a rendevous on ice. Over the years, Carrie's never ceased to amaze with her sophisticated sensibilities and astute skills as she's flighted over an impressive range of subjects, all united by a consistent style and an ever-deepening interest in our relationship with the environment. These affections are not simply a product of Carrie's art practice but also of her life and the interconnectedness of the two.

Walking the talk, and certainly not ones to fall trap to a trend, Carrie and her husband run a CSA on his father's farm. Their engagement with the environment is enduring and inspiring. Carrie's work is literally rooted in not just what she thinks, but what she knows, firsthand.

Visual Aides includes Be Realistic and will be on view at the JBG later this spring — Ms. Marill's second solo show on Spring Street. The series comprises several re-worked images taken from 1950s posters designed to teach kids about farming and industry. Look closely and you'll see there's something slightly awry in Carrie's adaptations of these utopic idylls. Along with the windmills, solar panels and prayer flags, she's inserted her wry sense of humor in this back-to-the-earth look at the future-perfect-present. Mid-century, post-war optimism brightens the corners of Carrie's critical look at then — before "sustainability" was a buzz word — and now.

It's not surprising that Carrie's editions are oft cause for some of the longest newslettering endeavors. I've waxed on and on and on about her paintings. Her latest series, Visual Aides is no exception but lunch meetings and office obligations are keeping me from lingering too long today. Thankfully, I just may have more than one note in your inbox to get out everything there is to say about this work. (Yes, that's a hint!)

Digital rendering of Doug and Mike Starn’s “Big Bambú,” a site-specific sculpture made of 3,200 interlocking bamboo poles lashed together with nylon rope. (image: NYT)

This summer The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will turn over its rooftop to 20x200 edition-makers Mike and Doug Starn, who will be lashing together a 50-foot-high installation called Big Bambú. Visitors will be allowed to climb through the organically formed network of bamboo poles on guided tours led by the museum.

The Starns have been working on Big Bambú with a team of 15 rock climbers since 2008, building and evolving the structure in their Beacon, NY warehouse.

They write:

At its pinnacle, the continually evolving architecture being built from within (no outside scaffolding or support) will cantilever out as far as the bamboo poles network allows, and then will bridge down to the floor. At this point the first tower will be dismantled pole by pole and carried through the structure and down to create another monumental tower and then on again, walking down the 320 feet space, almost like a Slinky and then back again. Big Bambú will evolve through the continuous rebuilding and rethinking of the structure at all times.

The performative aspect of Big Bambú's never ending construction process is why this artwork defies categorization, falling somewhere between sculpture, architecture and performance. More details on the construction and installation of the piece can be found in this New York Times article.

Big Bambú is just one piece in a stellar history of work by the Starn Twins. They've also created an award-winning subway installation in New York, completed countless print and book projects and more ephemeral installations.

They've also released four art and photography editions with 20x200. In fact, celebrity stylist Robert Verdi recently told New York Magazine that he has a Starn print hanging above his bed. Historically, our Starn editions have sold out instantly, but select prints from their newer editions are available below.

Congratulations to the Starns and to The Met on this amazing partnership. We'll see you up top this summer!

Structure of Thought 6-a	Structure of Thought 6-b	alleverythingthatisyou sno6_005	alleverythingthatisyou sno7.1_003

Future Plan #2, 2003 by Hiroko Okada

Playing with the "tags" feature in the Brooklyn Museum of Art's online site can make for an addictive and illuminating stretch of time. You can play with their tag cloud and explore art that, like in the example above, is tagged "funny," or you can embark on helping the museum add tags to its collection with their new Tag! You're It! recent innovation. Or, if you're feeling more critic-than-creator you can even weigh in on decisions such as a given tag's relevance in their built-in feature to do such a thing called Freeze Tag! Go ahead: try it. I've been playing around with it a full half-hour while I've procrastinated writing this post.

The point of my highlighting this activity is that it's only one of many such investments in information sharing, collecting and communicating that the Brooklyn Museum of Art has staked out and stood by in the past decade. In a recent article in the Huffington Post, our own Jonathan Melber observed:

When it comes to progressive, public-friendly copyright policies, few art museums can match The Brooklyn Museum. In 2004, it was the first art museum to adopt a Creative Commons license, allowing any non-commercial copying of any image in which the museum holds the copyright. In 2008, it was the third institution to join the Flickr Commons, making available high-resolution images of Public Domain artworks from its collection. Last week, the musuem published the detailed copyright status of every image in its online collection--that's over 12,000 artworks--and made this information available through its API so that anyone can easily cross-reference the data with their own copyright research. It also switched to a less restrictive Creative Commons license, allowing non-commercial remixing as well.

Or, to put it in layman's terms as Mike Ellis did writing at the electronic museum, "Many other museums try to do social media. Brooklyn lives social media."

Aside from the painstaking and oftentimes monotonous work of digitizing and rights-cataloging a ginormous art collection, Melber rightly points out that it's the ethos driving the Brooklyn Museum's action that is so exemplary, and which other cultural institutions should pay some heavy mind to:

It is easier and safer, from a liability perspective, to only display thumbnails of artworks and to put the onus of clearing copyrights in specific images on members of the public who seek to use them. But it is more consistent with a non-profit cultural institution's public mission to make its collection as accessible as possible, as transparently as possible.

Likewise, despite the common (though questionable) view that it's more lucrative for museums to assert as much control over their "intellectual property" as copyright law allows, the Brooklyn Museum apparently understands that its mission is more effectively fulfilled, and the public better served, when the museum allows its collection to be reproduced, remixed and disseminated in as many (non-commercial) ways as possible.

If you are a regular reader of this site or sites like it, if you've got a twitter feed, a facebook page, a flickr account—any or all of these things—chances are you have come to understand the reach and the relevancy that social media can provide. You may not know an API from Magnum PI, but if you understand how making information—in this instance the information is ART—accessible and available to be shared, disseminated, commented upon, then you have some of the understanding of what it is to be a member of a digital community. If you'd like to share in the example of being a gold-star member of the digital community, you could earn some good karma by doing things like adding tags or comments to the Flickr Commons, an amassing of the world's public photo collections culled from participating member institutions (like the Brooklyn Museum, plus a slew of others).

Another great read with an interview between Creative Commons and the Brooklyn Museum's Chief of Technology Shelley Bernstein can be found on the Creative Commons Blog. The Brooklyn Museum also has a group blog of its own right here.

All of the ways the Brooklyn Museum is using the internet to innovatively connect with their collectors made them a natural collaborator for a recent benefit edition. If you missed Valerie Hegarty's First Harvest in the Wilderness With Pileated Woodpecker, prints are still available and come with a free one-year membership to Brooklyn Museum's 1stfans: a socially networked museum membership.

The ever-prolific Jason Polan is collaborating with Robin Cameron and the entire city of New York, in The Assembled Picture Library of New York City at the Esopus Foundation, open now through March 18, 2010.

The exhibition will provide access to and use of hundreds of drawings and materials and ephemera from the collections of Polan and Cameron. Anyone is free to participate, and the gallery is open to view, use and peruse Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 12-6 throughout the duration of the show. You are also invited to submit your own images and ephemera to the source collection, and these collaborative artworks made by the public will be on display on the Esopus Gallery walls through March 18, 2010. Jason Polan and Robin Cameron will be on hand throughout the duration of the show to work with the visiting public-artists and to engage in dialogue with them about the project.

Where to go to participate:
The Esopus Foundation, LTD
64 West Third Street, #210
New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 473-0919
Visitors are be invited to come in from 12-6 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday & Thursday

People in Grand Central Station by Jason Polan

Like Jason's ongoing project, Every Person in New York, this exhibition invites people of all ages, ilks, aesthetics and interests to add to what is on view. So, if you're one for installation, collage, public and community art works, or just merely curious what all this stuff looks like, drop by during gallery hours and consider making a piece of art with other artist's materials! More information is available at http://aplny.tumblr.com/.

And Still We Gather With Infinite Momentum 1 by Justin James King

Thank-goodness-it's-sunny-because-I-couldn't-stand-another-day-of-gray greetings collectors! Fickle February has been rearing its ugly head, making spring seem so far away.

It certainly hasn't stopped team JBP from looking ahead! We're just skimming the surface of this new century and it's shaping up to be a blockbuster. In the nearish future, we'll be wrapping up What You're Told, Clare Grill's gorgeous NYC-debut solo exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery on February 27th and opening the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 Second Edition Exhibition on Friday, March 5th. Will you please join us in toasting these champs?

Decking the walls will be work from today's edition-maker, Justin James King, along with that of fellow Hot Shots Marisa Aragona, Leah Tepper Byrne, Alejandro Cartagena and Jessica Eaton. If you're nowhere near NYC, rest assured, we'll continue to introduce these talented photographers and their work to you on 20x200. And we'll do our best to keep you up to speed as their careers take off — who knows what's next for these young guns?

Whitney Biennial-bound artists Nina Berman and Curtis Mann made early appearances in JBP-land as Hot Shots in the Spring of 2007 and Fall of 2005, respectively. Nina was selected as an Ultra and went on to open her solo exhibition Purple Hearts to critical acclaim. We were quick to bring their work to you fine collector folks too.

Which brings me back to the task at hand — showing off the latest efforts from our newest ranks, And Still We Gather With Infinite Momentum 1 by Mr. King. Road-tripping on the highway and taking long detours on byways, made even slower by the temptation to stop and peer at scenic overlooks, is certainly among our favorite summer pastimes. But just what are we looking at? And what is the appeal of these landmarked spots? Are we looking simply because we have been told to do so? Justin's given us free reign to re-imagine what we might see if given a blank slate — the opportunity to look at a landscape sans any references to what we anticipate, expect and already know. With fresh eyes, the possibilities are infinite.

I knew I liked the sound of twenty-ten! I'll be back tomorrow with two more bonus editions. Till then!

87 Suns From Flickr - 29 Visible by Penelope Umbrico

As part of a lecture series presented by the Camera Club of New York, 20x200 edition-maker Penelope Umbrico will be speaking and doing a Q&A tomorrow night at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Penelope's work, which deals largely with groups of images found on the internet or in catalogs, is conceptually rigorous and often humorous. Her 20x200 edition, 87 Suns From Flickr - 29 Visible, composites nearly 100 clichéd photographs of sunsets to create a symbol of the world's "most photographed" subject.

About the edition she writes:

Suns From Flickr is a project I started in 2006 when, looking for "the most photographed" subject, I found 541,795 photographs of sunsets searching "sunset" on the photo-sharing web site Flickr. At the time that seemed like a lot; today there are more than 4,786,139 hits for "sunset" on Flickr. I think it's peculiar that the sun — the quintessential life-giver, constant in our lives, symbol of enlightenment, spirituality, eternity, all things unreachable and ephemeral, omnipotent provider of optimism and vitamin D... and so ubiquitously photographed — is now subsumed to the internet — the most virtual of spaces equally infinite but within a closed digital circuit.

This cheeky investigation of the mass-produced image is present throughout Penelope's work, much more of which is available on her website. Also of note: though she has lectured far and wide, tomorrow should be special because Penelope has both graduated from and taught at SVA.

Penelope's 20x200 editions are available here and here. Proceeds from Moons go to benefit the Aperture Foundation.

Penelope Umbrico Lecture
Thursday, February 18, 7pm
The School of Visual Arts Amphitheatre
209 East 23rd Street (between 2nd/ 3rd Ave), Third Floor

Free to CCNY members, SVA students, faculty, and staff
General admission $5, $3 for other students with valid student ID

Closing Credits at the End of the Movie by Hollis Brown Thornton

VHS by Hollis Brown Thornton

Nerdtastic-bonus-edition-Thursday greetings to all collector-kind! I am a bit punchy and rushed today, wading through the high-tide of an unreasonably busy week, and fretting over what I'm going to wear to the big fancy party I'm going to tonight. Our very own Gregory Krum curated an amazing Rodarte exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and Vogue is throwing a party to celebrate it. Fortunately my new BFF -- the 20x200-obsessed Robert Verdi -- has given me a pointer or two, making my fashion-laggard self somewhat braver about my hours-away entry into an alternate reality.

Today's editions VHS and Closing Credits at the End of the Movie from Hollis Brown Thornton (I found him on the internet, oh yes, I did!) offer a kinder, gentler nostalgia-tinged escape into other realms. In his statement, Brown (as he prefers to be called) writes about how our reality shifts as our present becomes our past, and the media he's depicted -- video cassettes and on-screen space invaders -- reference our progression towards an increasingly digital and virtual future.

Pretty simple stuff to grok, on a certain level, yet as this ABC News flashback to their coverage of the 1979 Consumer Electronics Show amply demonstrates, we're woefully inadequate when it comes to actually predicting what the future holds. Maybe that's why it's so comforting to look back as we hurtle through this digital future, at what seems to be an ever-increasing velocity.

Popping in a tape seems a cinch when compared to the endless frustrations of trying to get my cable to talk to my Tivo, and I cannot even begin to contemplate getting my internet to play nice with my TV just yet. (I think I'm gonna let Boxee solve that for me instead, in fact.) Tempting as it is to dwell in a time where my entertainment needs were tended with minimal assistance from the more technically dexterous, duty calls! I am off to work on my look, but leave you with these lovely editions and all good wishes for a wonderful weekend. See you on the flip side!

(Image: Cooper-Hewitt Museum)

Quick Take: Rodarte, an exhibition curated by our very own 20x200 edition-maker Gregory Krum, opened last week at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. The show surveys the work of conceptual fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy, who founded the acclaimed fashion label in 2005, and provides a glimpse into the process and inspiration behind their work.

Part of what separates Rodarte from the rest of haute-couture is their unorthodox influences, which include "the building and taking apart of homes, California Condors, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, land art and Japanese horror films." Gregory, who was recently interviewed by Cool Hunting on the exhibition, writes that the resulting designs are "meticulous, sophisticated and fearless."

He adds:

They have a very specific vision of what they want to do and are able to combine and convert very disparate references—none of which involve romantic nostalgia for past fashion designers—into garments that don't look like anything else we’ve seen. Aside from looking unique, the work is constructed in a very serious way, often combining traditional couture techniques with more radical ones…they'll do whatever it takes to achieve the look they want.

Don't miss the full interview on Cool Hunting and if you're in New York make sure to stop by the exhibition, which runs through March 14th.

Quicktake: Rodarte
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
February 11 - March 14, 2010
2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128

Two out of three of Greg's editions are completely sold out, but select prints of New York (Peony) are still available from 20x200. If you're a fan of Krum—and who isn't?—you'll also want to keep an eye on the mailing list.

New York (Peony) by Gregory Krum

Welcome back to the Week in Review! What's that, you ask? Every Friday we look back on the highlights of the week, point out some great things we saw on the internet and drop hints about what the future holds.

Digital rendering of Doug and Mike Starn’s “Big Bambú,” a site-specific sculpture made of 3,200 interlocking bamboo poles lashed together with nylon rope. (image: NYT)

20x200 News

• This summer, edition-makers Mike and Doug Starn (whose four 20x200 editions nearly sold out within minutes of appearing on the site) will be constructing a 50-foot tall bamboo structure (above) on the roof of the Met Museum in New York. Did we mention you can CLIMB ON IT? Check out our post for renderings of the insane view and the full scoop.


• A photograph by JBG-represented artist Nina Berman was published in today's Wall Street Journal as part of an article about the 2010 Whitney Biennial.


• Gregory Krum has curated, Quicktake: Rodarte at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, a show surveying the work, process, and inspiration behind these avant-garde fashion designers.


• In the past few weeks, you might have noticed some great new posts by Stacy Oborn, who—it was officially announced this week—will be joining the JBP crew and contributing daily to all of our beloved blogs. Welcome to the team, Stacy!


• Jonathan Melber, legal eagle turned JBP's Director of Biz Development, wrote a great article for the Huffington Post on how the Brooklyn Museum is using Creative Commons to allow remixing of their content.


• Yesterday marked the conclusion of Jason Polan's collaborative art project and exhibition The Assembled Picture Library of New York City. We posted a little bit about it, but will keep you updated on how this experiment turned out as we hear more.


• Penelope Umbrico gave a lecture last night at SVA. We wrote a bit about her awesome work, some of which is still available on 20x200.


• 20x200 got a shout out on feminist blog Feministing, who ran a picture of our "Live With Art" motto and this wonderful quote by Angela Davis: "Ultimately, [progressive art] can propel people toward social emancipation." We concur!

Prospect Park by Joe Holmes

From the Web

• We're smitten with this photograph of dogs in Prospect Park by Joe Holmes and—if the like-and-reblog count is any indication—so is the rest of the internet.


• Check out how good these prints by Mike Monteiro and James Deavin look framed against a brick wall.


• Bland desktop blues? Noah Kalina has got you covered.


• Kate Bingaman-Burt has been posting daily drawings for February on her Flickr, including an instant camera which we totally covet.

New Editions

This week we went art-crazy, bringing you not two, not three, but four editions! The fresh perspective (or is it non-perspective?) of Justin James King's manipulated image and wittiness of Carrie Marill's visual aid painting are complemented perfectly by two nostalgic drawings by Hollis Brown Thornton.

Be Realistic Demand the Impossible by Carrie Marill	And Still We Gather With Infinite Momentum 1 by Justin James King
VHS by Hollis Brown Thornton	Closing Credits at the End of the Movie by Hollis Brown Thornton

All-in-all 'twas another insane(ly great), art-filled week at 20x200 HQ. 'Till next week, collectors!

p.s. See anything that we missed? Reply to @20x200 on Twitter.

So while it's true that we're happy Noah Kalina is getting residuals from that Dodge Charger Superbowl ad that we posted about a while back, not all of us were exactly thrilled with the tone and spirit of the spot. This advertisement in particular had me considering other ad campaigns in recent memory whose tone, implied/projected value set and general, well, meanness, had become desired notes-to-be-hit in delivering a product message. It made me wonder, in the realms of corporate branding and vision, how does one measure the success of pointedly targeting one half of the population while openly disparaging the other half?

De Beers Diamonds ad campaign, Fall 2009

One of the most blatant proponents of this ethos has got to be De Beers, the famous diamond proprietor that in the 1940s completely made up the now "common knowledge" claim that the socially acceptable amount of money to be spent on an engagement ring equals exactly two months' worth of any eager groom's salary.

Two Months Salary by Lee Gainer

Riffing off the witty cynicism and look-and-feel of the de-motivational posters from despair.com, the De Beers print campaigns have become the go-to sentiment for the new Male Maudlin Mystique, in which the purchasing power of diamonds can garner you drinking time with your buddies, Saturday tee times, unprintable sexual favors, and an end to endless nagging and complaining. Just like the kinds of people who might have the kinds of jobs that find themselves identifying with the "demotivational" pithy adages, the same pool of men will likely find themselves one day having to buy engagement rings for women that they will marry and start families with, and then later have to buy more diamonds for in order to negotiate and barter for what they really want to be doing with their free time.

Fast forward to Superbowl XLIV and that Dodge Charger commercial. Within days of its airing, a response piece showed up on YouTube. Filmmaker MacKenzie Fegan made it, after getting into a fight with her boyfriend over it:

The next day I was iChatting with the boyfriend, and I asked him what he thought of the Dodge Charger commercial. He freakin' loved it, and bam, now we're in a chat fight. He made the point that he was sure there were, say, chocolate commercials that were basically the same thing except from a woman's perspective, and I shot back with a couple lines of hypothetical dialogue: 'I will do the majority of the housework while maintaining a career. I will make 75 cents for every dollar you make.' He said, 'That would be a pretty compelling commercial.'

Part of what astounds me in the tone and logic of the De Beers and subsequent Dodge Charger ads is not the cynical wish-fulfillment dream of dysfunctional relationships, but the eagerness to render such cynicism so transparent. It's a measure of success for these ad execs that men are walking by these ads in subways or plazas, or leaning back in their couches during a football game and shaking their heads in wonder saying, "It's SO TRUE!"

So it's refreshing and somewhat redemptive when a savvy woman can take that cynicism, invert it, and play it back at both sides of the divide at the rate of nearly a quarter million views in less than two weeks. MacKenzie Fegan, you have our respect.

Encyclopedia 2 by Valerie Roybal

First-day-of-Biennial-festivities greetings collector friends! This eve marks the beginning of a flurry of fancy events in celebration of the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Donning most elegant garb, I'll be ecstatically, if not also a bit nervously, tottering in heels of epic elevations, escorting guest-of-honor, Nina Berman. Our JBP triple-crown artist — Spring 2007 Hot Shot, JBG-represented, 20x200 edition-maker — is a VIP at tonight's VIP party. In true Cinderella style, I'm still putting the last touches on my look and am resting my pretty polished little toes so as not to turn into a pumpkin at midnight. So my intro today will be short but sweet!

Thankfully, today's edition is sure to be a 20x200 paparazzi-pleaser. As soon as Valerie Roybal's prints are introduced to the pages of 20x200, they begin to disappear, going much in the way of the hefty alphabetized tomes that once decorated the educated's shelves — encyclopedias. Remember them from way-back-when? From these hard-bound books, Valerie derives the titles (and some source materials) for her latest series, of which we've selected one to bring to you: Encylopedia 2.

The timing's just right for this new release; Valerie's work is on view for one more week in The Enormous Tiny Art Show at Nahcotta Gallery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She's in good company. Fellow friends of 20x200, Kate Bingaman-Burt and Lisa Congdon, are also featured. See some small-scale works from this 20x200 trifecta until March 1st. Details about the show can be found on the 20x200 blog.

You're all too familiar with my wordy ways, so I'll spare you the pain of my puns! But I won't shy away from sharing a few favorite editions that go by the way of books and letters. Secret Language 3, Secret Language 1 and Well-being 2 round out Valerie's excellent edition repertoire. Mickey Smith's Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Left Panel and Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Right Panel burst boldly forth in gold and green. More softly, Stefanie Posavec's Walter Benjamin: A Literary Organism Analysis analyzes the structure of WB's sentences and sections.

Our troves are chock full of treasured editions that celebrate the printed page. Just skim our offerings: text and typography, media and more books abound! I'll leave you to browse and promise to bring Biennial updates tomorrow!

By now we're all familiar with the lingo of social media: there are tweets and check-ins, re-blogs and pokes, likes and follows. We use twitter, facebook, flickr, Vimeo, foursquare and countless other networks that connects to friends and acquaintances and industry professionals.

But, what does all this connected-ness really mean, how do artists and arts organizations use these social media tools to develop relationships with collectors, build communities, and generate excitement and attention in the art world? These are the questions that the first-ever SMartCAMP (Social Media Art Camp) will be tackling from March 5th - 7th at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City.

For two days, SMartCAMP will host a series of speakers, round-tables, panels and demonstrations to teach artists and organizations to how to best utilize blogs, community-tools, mobile-technology and existing networks on the internet to support the arts.

On Sunday, March 7th, from 2:30 - 3:15 p.m., Jen will speak on The Value of Building Community alongside Yancey Stricker of Kickstarter, Charlie Festa of Threadless/skinnyCorp and Anda Corrie of Etsy about each of the models these companies have undertaken to create their own circle of support.

Anyone can register to attend, either for a half day ($35), full day ($65), or the entire duration of the conference ($120). Click here to see the full list of conference speakers and the stellar-looking schedule for the weekend -- perhaps a good respite for your tired feet if you've been dashing around the city for the slew of art-world events that weekend.

Winter Flags (East Village, New York) by Youngna Park

Snowy-ish Wednesday greetings, collectors! Thanks for bearing with my absence yesterday due to Biennial-related festivities. I really wanted to be the one to write about today's edition-maker, Youngna Park. YP, as we like to call her, has been working with us here at JBP for a smidge over a year now, but we go waaaay back. Her Brooklyn Morning made its debut on the very same day that 20x200 took its first bow, appearing alongside another long-standing 20x200 fave, Jennifer Sanchez, in my very first newsletter. That wasn't her first first with JBP however, nosiree. Our long, strange (and decidedly awesome) trip began back in 2005, the year that Hey, Hot Shot! made its debut. She was one of the ten winners selected to participate in our Summer Showcase, went on to become an Ultra and continues to be represented by Jen Bekman Gallery to this very day.

And what better day than today to introduce her latest addition to our various endeavors, Winter Flags (East Village, New York)? As she mentioned herself earlier today on Twitter, her photo of blue skies and lots of color is basically the opposite of what it looks like outside today. It's the perfect antidote for what I consider to be my beloved city's ugliest season, this dreaded stretch after Christmas and before springtime, when it feels like looking up only calls attention to what's missing, whether it's holiday lights or the eagerly-awaited blooming brought by warmer weather. The colorful triangles blowing in what I imagine to be a biting breeze remind me that what makes the city most beloved is its people, and the ways in which they make it beautiful whether they intend to or not. The constant change brought about by their movement and efforts mean that there's inevitably something new in our everyday, and that there's joy to be found if you just pay attention.

What I love about Youngna's work is that it doesn't just remind me to look, but how. Knowing her as well as I do, it's easy to connect the pictures she makes with her personality: there's a concentrated yet kind, almost languorous quality to her attention. Her photographs depict a world I want to live in, one that includes afternoon naps and outings with friends and meals carefully prepared and consumed among loved ones. And then I realize that I kind of do live in that world, or have the enviable good fortune of being surrounded by its makings. Now if only I could have the good sense to cultivate it properly, as YP does so well. Looking up, that's a good start.

Welcome back to the Week in Review! What's that, you ask? Every Friday we look back on the highlights of the week, point out some great things we saw on the internet and drop hints about what the future holds.

Installation shot of photographs by Nina Berman at the 2010 Whitney Biennial

20x200 News

• The 2010 Whitney Biennial opened earlier this week, featuring work by edition-makers Nina Berman (above) and Curtis Mann. Check out reviews by Jerry Saltz for New York Magazine, Linda Yablonsky for Bloomberg, Todd Eberle for Vanity Fair, and Kelly Crow for The Wall Street Journal.


• 20x200 got the top spot in Brain Pickings' round up of where to buy "sticker shockless" art online. Thanks for the kind words Brain Pickings!


• Jen Bekman will be speaking about The Value of Building Community on March 7th at details on how to register.


• What You're Told, paintings by edition-maker Clare Grill at Jen Bekman Gallery, closes tomorrow. Those who brave the snowpocalypse will be rewarded with the warmth of Clare's paintings. Head over to 6 Spring St. and check it out, we promise it's worth it!


• JBP blogger Stacy Oborn blogged a retort about the Dodge Charger Superbowl commercial featuring Noah Kalina.


• We welcome to the JBP team Anjie Paranjpe who will helping coordinate production, meaning getting prints into your hands!


• Several edition-makers, including Yijun (Pixy) Liao and Emily Shur, are auctioning prints to benefit Haiti through March 7th, coordinated by The Nymhoto Collective.

New Editions
In this week's edition-releases Jen waxed poetic about Valerie Roybal's wordy new edition and also brought you a sunny edition for a snowy day by JBP's very own Youngna Park.

Encyclopedia 2 by Valerie Roybal	Winter Flags (East Village, New York) by Youngna Park

That's it for this week, collectors—we're off to build some snowmen!

Brain Pickings, a website which curates "eclectic interestingness" has given 20x200 the top spot in their guide to buying "sticker-shockless" art online. "Wonderfully user-friendly and meticulously curated, 20×200 is an absolute treat," writes Maria Popova. Thanks, Brain Pickings!

If you're interested in the editions shown in the article, they are Lisa Congdon's lovely Lovebirds featured front and center, followed by Clifton Burt's think-make-think, a print which the author "recently snagged."

Lovebirds by Lisa Congdon

think-make-think by Clifton Burt

Close Our Eyes and Go to Bed, 2008 by Clare Grill

Yes, we do know it's been snowing for the last forty hours straight and there are snowbanks and puddles galore. But, we hope you'll still stop in at Jen Bekman Gallery to see the gorgeous paintings of Clare Grill, whose solo-exhibition What You're Told closes tomorrow, Saturday, February 27th.

Up close and in-person, Clare's intuitive technique, "makes you notice the paint as much as the pictures," writes Benjamin Genocchio for The New York Times. We can only agree that in-person is the very best way to see these works, nostalgic pieces saturated with layer upon layer of paint creating dimension that can only be appreciated when face-to-face with the canvas.

On that note, we hope you'll brave the stormy sidewalks and head down to the gallery before tomorrow at 6 p.m. If you're not in New York at all, make sure to have a look at the show's installation shots on Flickr and peek inside her studio, courtesy of MoMA/P.S.1.

Clare also has three editions available on 20x200: Cake, Assignment and The Overachievers. Don't delay!