July 2010 Archives

No Fun Sleeping Under A Picture Like This + Pink Elephants by William Wegman

PLEASE SEE PURCHASING RESTRICTIONS IN THE NOTES ABOUT THE EDITION BELOW.

Good morning collectors! It's Sara today, with our second edition from the illustrious William Wegman. Once again we've paired two works: No Fun Sleeping Under A Picture Like This and Pink Elephants. And as before, these works are only offered together as a set.

When Jen first introduced William's work to you all a few months ago, she closed with a few words from E.M. Forster:

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.

I'll follow that up with something a little less poetic but, I think, fitting, from Victor Borge: "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." While Wegman's Weimaraners have provided the broadest entry point to his practice as an artist—beautiful, charming and engaging as they are—it's his ridiculously clever sense of humor that both belies and reveals his intelligence in much of his work—his videos, paintings, drawings and, of course, his photographs.

In Pink Elephants, much to Batty's chagrin (Batty is the Weimaraner featured), as William put it, "dog plus sock equals elephant." While she's playing along with his game, she also seems to be mocking him, and us: Really, you think this is funny? That, I think, is part of the appeal of Wegman's dogs; they are like us but slightly better, more regal and sophisticated. They're what we might be with better breeding, though they're not too good to have a little fun.

No Fun Sleeping Under A Picture Like This makes light and plain, with a few brushstrokes and fewer words that living with art is looking at it, lots—as you're also sitting, eating and sleeping under it. And if you're going to spend all that time around something, it might as well make you laugh—even better if it makes the person you're with laugh, too.

Once he has you giggling, Wegman invites you to look at his work a little longer. You can do just that if you're in New York. Swing by the JBG and see a couple of Wegman's paintings in Land Use Survey, on view now till August 15th.

Some notes about the edition:
- We're limiting collectors to two 8"x10" + 10"x8" or 11"x14" + 14"x11" pairs each, and only one per collector for prints 16"x20" + 20"x16" 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.

Juliane Eirich will join three photographers, together named the winners of the 2010 National Photography Competition juried by James Casabere, for a group exhibition at the Camera Club of New York opening next Thursday, July 8th from 6-9 p.m. Juliane will exhibit work from Hale Kula, a series looking at Hawaiian schools, photographed at night.

Hale Kula 2005, by Juliane Eirich

Wide, low slung, geometric, and dotted with brightly colored doors and windows, the schools are eerily empty with the children who transform them during day time. Their bright lights are left on all night long, illuminating the lush green grass that seems to surround each building, and emphasize it as a stand-alone entity.

Juliane's four photographs will join work by Rachel Barrett, Erin O'Keefe and Selena Saifen.

2010 National Photography Competition Annual Juried Exhibition
The Camera Club of New York
336 West 37th Street, Suite 206
New York, NY 10018
On View: July 8 - August 14, 2010
Opening reception: Thursday, July 8, 6-9 p.m.

Waialua Intermediate School 3 by Juliane Eirich

Two of the schools from this series, Waialua Intermediate School 3 and Liliuokalani Elementary School 2 are also available in three sizes on 20x200.

"Don't... I can't even think about it."

This is the most common response I've heard whenever entering into a discussion about the impact of the BP Gulf oil spill disaster. My friends don't want to talk about it; my partner doesn't want to talk about it. For my part, even though I do want to discuss it, I'm uncertain as to whether there is anything useful that I can offer to whatever dialogue exists. And maybe frustration about the Gulf is that exactly: a futility of language mixed with the frustration of collective helplessness to be able to do anything of actual use in the situation, which in effect creates a self-canceling predicament of a desire to speak versus the desire to remain insulated from the realities of uncontested fact.

Whether or not you're the type of person that can't stand to look or that can't look away, it's a relative certainty that you have been exposed to some of the imagery coming out of the Gulf of Mexico and the BP oil spill disaster:

Untitled from the documentary Black Tide by Christopher Morris/VII

Crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washes ashore in Orange Beach, Alabama, Saturday, June 12, 2010, AP Photo/Dave Martin

NASA, June 10, 2010

As the actual cause of the spill continues on, and as we are left to wonder what is spin, what is real and what is disinformation in what we are told in the mainstream news, more—and perhaps a different sort of—imagery and commentary is coming in from various pockets of the culture pile. Photographers, graffiti artists, graphic designers and performance activists are all prolifically weighing in on the subject in the best way they know how: by creating something that wasn't there before, and thereby inviting further conversation. What follows is a collection of some of what we've been seeing around the web:

Untitled by Priest, 2010, Mobile, AL

Untitled by Priest, 2010

Alabama street artist Priest has been adding his brand of political commentary in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama. The first image was mistakenly attributed to Bansky, but was soon rightfully accredited back to Priest. In a recent interview with CYFE, he was asked:

How much does art influence your everyday life?

When I look at art in a gallery I generally say to myself, "How did I get here and who are all these twats?" Someone will then say to me, I really enjoyed that piece of art you did on the interstate, you should put it on canvas. Then I get really confused because to me, it is on canvas, the building and the stencil are equally as ugly.

entries for both the Greenpeace and logomyway BP re-branding competitions

Both Greenpeace and logomyway have launched BP re-branding logo competitions and have received thousands of enthusiastic entries. Our friends at Hyperallergic tell us when considering the cultural critique offered by such a competition, the important things to consider are the following:

Does it inspire action, emotion? Does it illuminate a different way of looking at the symbol? How does form, create and enhance meaning? If anything, these images prove the power of a brand’s logo over the consuming public, and many people are stepping up to the challenge of rethinking that omnipresence.

Possibly my favorite recent find is this happening on the steps of the Tate Modern this week:

Mock Oil Spill at Tate Modern, June 28, 2010, Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images and Dominic Lipinski/Associated Press

From the L.A. Times article on June 29th:

...a group called the Good Crude Britannia is demanding that the gallery cut its ties with the company over the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf. The group used a substance resembling oil to stage the mock spill, then covered the scene with bird-like feathers. (One report identified the thick black substance as molasses.)

BP has numerous ties with cultural institutions in the U.K. A recent article in The Guardian stated that the oil company has partnerships with the British Museum, the Tate galleries, the Royal Opera House, the National Portrait Gallery, the Almeida Theatre, the National Maritime Museum and the Science and Natural History Museums.

This quick pass of artistic responses to the oil spill leaves me with the sense that what's being communicated is a desire for a community different from the consumer-community that Western society is typically depicted as being. While it's true that anyone who drives a car requiring gasoline could technically count themselves somewhat complicit with the doings of Big Oil, what's being expressed in the logo re-branding, at the Tate Modern and on the streets of Gulf coast-afflicted states is a frustration with the status quo, the desire for accountability, transparency and a new way of doing things.

I'll leave off with a personal disclosure and a few more links: in my 9-5 life, I work as an editor for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As the world's largest research center for avian life and whose core mission is conservation and the preservation of biodiversity, my workplace has been ground zero for fielding questions about what's occurring in the Gulf region, what the larger implications are for the bird life and the fragile marsh ecosystems there and what anyone can do to help. Several of my colleagues are in Gulf states now, not just as witnesses to what is happening but as scientists measuring the specific threats and making recommendations to NGO's on what needs to be done to mitigate greater ecological disasters.

Needless to say, the people I work with take what is happening to heart in a way that perhaps only people that dedicate their life's work to studying, understanding and trying to preserve the natural world can. If you are interested in learning about some of the most recent work that they are engaged in, I'd direct you to the following:

Round Robin—the lab's blog written by science writer Hugh Powell. Hugh has been in the Gulf recently along with a video team from the lab to examine specific nesting colonies of shorebirds on the coast. What's written on the blog is of-the-moment, on-the-ground coverage of what natural life scientists are seeing and measuring of the affected wildlife and ecosystems in the Gulf. There are well-done slide shows accompanying each story.

Q&A with the director of Conservation Science, Ken Rosenberg—this is a really thorough and informed interview with one of the lab's experts who knows best what's happening, and a must-read if you want to know what's at stake now and months from now.

The Birds of North America Online—this is one of the sites I manage, and though normally a subscription-based site that covers (quite exhaustively) the life histories of all the birds that live and breed in North America, the accounts related to affected species in the Gulf oil spill have been made free and open access to the public. I'm proud that this information is being made available to the thousands of volunteers that are going to the Gulf to assist in cleanup efforts, as well as to educate the public. You can go to this site to learn about the specific birds affected by the crisis.

Gulf Spill FAQ—this is the lab's main portal for disseminating news related to the oil spill, and for promoting ways in which the public can assist or help.

Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri by Mike Sinclair

Happy (pre-)Independence Day! Welcome to our regularly scheduled Week In Review: a sweet and succinct view of all that's been happening in our little sphere of the art universe this week.

20x200 News

• Mike Sinclair got a shout-out in this week's New Yorker Photo Booth blog post, specifically for his rendition of a Midwestern July 4th, shot, appropriately enough, in Independence, Missouri (shown above). (Psst: editions of this print are still available.)

• Artist Mickey Smith had her enviably clean desk featured on Kate Donnelly's blog From Your Desks, a site dedicated solely to, "...the canvas of the desk." In a smart and understated show on one of our favorite topics, books, the work of Mickey Smith, as well as HHS! honorable mention Mary Ellen Bartley and Maira Kalman is on view at McKenzie Fine Art in Reader's Delight. The show is on view through August 6th.

• Karolina Karlic is graduating from CalArts! That means her MFA show is currently on view at the POV Gallery in L.A.'s Chinatown. If you're on the left coast, the opening reception is TONIGHT from 6-10pm. Full details of all participating artists and galleries can be found on the CalArts website.

• Juliane Eirich was named one of the winners of the 2010 National Photography Competition, juried by James Casebere. The show opens next Thursday, July 8th, at the Camera Club of New York. Read all about Juliane's work and the juried competition in our blog post.

• Our very own Youngna Park and Yijun Liao are featured in a show that bucks the trendiness trend. Irrelevant: Local Emerging Asian Artists Who Don't Make Work About Being Asian is on view at Arario Gallery. A write-up of the show is available here.

• For all those too-hot-to-be-moved in quick action, we extended our semi-annual RIDONK sale through last Tuesday evening. We only have 2 sales a year, and this was the last one before Christmas. Hope you partook, and cashed in on that 20% deal.

• Our awesome 20x200 intern Keren has been playing around on Polyvore, making fun room collages that include 20x200 editions. You can head to 20x200 Editions on Polyvore to start adding our editions to your own collages. Have fun!

• Having just this last birthday graduated to the next rung of tickey-boxes in most surveys, I most certainly appreciate the release of the new zine Get Off My Lawn, featuring the work of photographers 34 and over. Get Off My Lawn is also available for purchase online for $10 here and here. It's 7"x7", color laser printed, and available in an edition of 222. See Youngna's post, and if your interest is piqued, get your copy soon 'cause they're selling out fast!

• Have you heard about the Let's Color Project? Do you know about our in-house color browser for finding 20x200 prints? Read all about it here.

• While the BP oil spill disaster enters its third month, artists have taken up arms in the tools of their trade—are taking to the streets, quite literally—and creating work in reaction to what's happening with big oil, birds and the environment. Read our full coverage here.
  

New Editions

No Fun Sleeping Under a Picture Like This + Pink Elephants by William Wegman

Hard at work this week responding to orders from our RIDONK sale, we released only one new edition this week, but it's a whopper of one. Our second release from the famed photographer William Wegman, there are still a handful of small prints left, so don't miss out! If you're in the city, Wegman also has work in the JBG Land Use Survey show.

That's it for this week, collectors! See anything we missed? Let us know on Twitter @20x200 or our Facebook!

We Are Who We Are by Robert Garcia

Happy Tuesday, collectors! It's Sara this sleepy, scorching morning after a long fireworks and BBQ-filled weekend. Was it wonderful for you? Hope so! I'm excited to be back with a brand-new-to-20x200 artist.

Today's print, We Are Who We Are is the first painting we've editioned from Bay Area-based Robert Garcia. He's not this Robert Garcia and not that one, but the painter that Paddy Johnson over at Art Fag City featured in her masthead in March. Jen sent me the link to his work and we were both instantly smitten. I emailed Robert right away, we met briefly at our last Collectors Confab in San Francisco—how I wished we could have squeezed in a studio visit!—and here we are with his prints.

From the beginning, his work reminded us of early-on-20x200 artist Echo Eggebrecht.* Both share the ability to tell a multi-dimensional story on a two-dimensional plane, concocted from varying proportions of myth and reality, drawn from personal and fictional pasts. While enigmatic Echo's references are often obscure, it's Robert's hope that we'll all find something we can identify with in his works, no matter how disparate our backgrounds may be.

And, I think he's on to something. My childhood was a far cry from the one that's described in Robert's own bio, yet, when I saw We Are Who We Are, I began humming the nursery rhyme "one shoe off, and one shoe on, diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John..." while The King of the Wild Frontier theme song conjured the survival games my red-headed sister and I made up after reading Hatchet. We didn't have knives in our back-pockets, no, but we swung multi-purpose sticks that were at once swords to defend against unknown beasts, fire-starters when rubbed together, and skewers for collecting berries, leaves and other possibly-edible green things.

While it's easy to get lost on this trot back in time, the analytical, adult part of my brain keeps comparing what my life might have been like had I grown up some where or some how else: in an urban environment, with more or less stability, with fewer or more privileges, without a close sibling and parents. Would I be fundamentally different, would my path have been drastically altered? That I can't decisively answer this opens up a whole bunch of other implications and questions. But, I keep coming back to the same conclusion. The thing that is so both so enchanting and heart-breaking about Robert's work: it reminds us that at some earlier time in our lives, we all started out just about the same.

* Also, of Clare Grill, but that's for another newsletter. Yes, that's a hint—there's more to come from Garcia!

Artist Sean Greene, who comes to painting by way of skateboarding, describes his works as being "rooted in intervals of color that provoke the fleeting sensations of light animating space." Labryinthine, geometric shapes overlap creating new colors and patterns within the canvas; one's eyes catch the yellows than the reds, following spatial pathways that sometimes stop abruptly, and other times simply dissolve. Two new works by Sean are included in Some (Are) Painting, the summer show at Jaeckel Gallery, opening this Thursday, July 8th.

Find your way by Sean Greene

Peggy Bates, Barbara Campisi, Sean Greene, Halsey Hathaway, Cate Holt, Madeleine Hatz, Tricia Keightley, Jesse Lambert, Michelle Mackey, John Mullen, Claudia Sperry

Some (Are) Painting
CURATED BY DAVID GIBSON
On View: July 8 - July 31, 2010
Opens Thursday, July 8, 6-8 PM

JAECKEL GALLERY
532 West 25th Street 2nd floor
New York, NY 10001

You can see additional work by Sean on his website; his 20x200 edition, Try Letting Go is also available in four sizes.

Midway, Neshoba County Fair, Philadelphia, Mississippi by Mike Sinclair

Scorchingly hot Wednesday greetings, collectors! As you might have heard, the Big Apple is getting seared by some record-breaking temperatures, which makes me exceedingly grateful for the modern miracle of air conditioning. The heat gave me a good excuse to indulge in a lazier-than-usual long weekend, where any and all strenuous activity took place in the arctic environs of my local health club.

The recent discovery that my iPad is an ideal device for the viewing of commercial-free TV has made cardio-time at the gym bearable. Old episodes of Friday Night Lights filled much of my time and I found myself utterly absorbed in this gritty-yet-patriotic, kinda soapy drama about football in a small Texas town, in large part because it so perfectly channels a nostalgic ideal I've got for the America I've never lived in.

Today's Midway, Neshoba County Fair, Philadelphia, Mississippi — by one of my favorite purveyors of modern day Americana, Mike Sinclair — is the picture perfect [har, har] embodiment of this ideal. This is our fourth edition by Mike, and his work is well-loved by our team and our collectors alike. Jeffrey, Sara and Youngna have all written about his work via gallery press releases and previous newsletters, and the arrival of his proofs creates a quiet commotion at 20x200 HQ.

The thing that gets us all astir is that Mike's work captures the notable in an un-noted moment — the rough edges and the imperfections resulting in, if you will, a more perfect union. His images are the antidote to the media-dictated image of America, which is so slick and polished and mass-produced, world-overpowering and never-doubting, that it seems unfamiliar to most of us who are living in it. The dusty, the aging and the unpainted back parts of things speak to who we are too, and what we know. To see them not just acknowledged, but honored, is satisfying and comforting. It feels like being home.

Real Simple recommends Jessica Snow's Curvilinear Time in their July 2010 issue. Featured alongside other lively and striped objects for sophisticated living, they recommend that an easy alternative to hanging Jessica's work on the wall is leaning it up against the mantel.

Exciting news fellow collectors! Wendy MacNaughton, an artist we featured two weeks ago with her awesome Things Happen Venn diagram, has been featured on the July cover of 7x7 Magazine. There is a great Q&A with Wendy explaining the cover for 7x7's transportation issue. The interview details why she has chosen her subjects, how she pictures the city she calls home, and some pretty memorable stories about her experiences as an artist.

The Q&A follows a commission to create a "psychological map" of Wendy's native San Francisco—and boy, did it turn out well. So well, that in addition to the magazine cover, 7x7 and Wendy decided to release 200 signed and numbered editions as posters. Her depiction of the city is both witty and blithe, just like her interview. Wendy's work makes me want to book a plane ticket to SFO just to see what she sees. I think my piggy bank may even be introduced to a hammer rather shortly for a quick trip west.

Zoe Strauss wants to be your eyes and ears in the Gulf of Mexico.

She is embarking on a new and timely project to document the fallout (literally and figuratively) of the BP Gulf oil disaster in affected coastal states, and she is seeking your help to get there and do it right. From her project statement:

I want to go and document the waiting for landfall as well as the places where landfall has already been made. I think it's an important thing to document; BP has effectively tried to prevent journalists from documenting a lot of the oil spill. My interest is not necessarily in the documentation of cleanup, but in the kind of longer-range anxiety that will result from what's a long-term environmental disaster.

Untitled, 2010, from the project On the Beach by Zoe Strauss

Using an arts-funding platform called Project Site, Strauss is seeking donations for very specific and reasonable line item costs for the project: travel, accommodations, external hard drives, car rentals, food and, if she raises enough money, for the publication of a book of the project. The initial project request amount of $4000 has been met, but the project will be more thoroughly realized with a greater donation total (Strauss would have funds enough to remain on the Gulf Coast longer to create more work and a fuller narrative of the unfolding events and its impact on the residents there).

The title for the project, On the Beach, is taken from a 1950s post apocalyptic novel written by Nevil Shute. Strauss is in the Gulf now and her first images have been posted on her personal website.

We recently posted about ways in which artists are responding to the oil spill in their work. Zoe Strauss's On the Beach is a perfect marriage of artistic drive/vision and a pressing crisis that needs a reliable narrator. There are 23 days left to fund her project on the site; please take a moment to venture there and consider making a donation. Strauss is offering a series of perks at various donation levels, up to and including postcards, prints and copies of the forthcoming book.

Collection #3, 2009, from the series Desire by Emily Noelle Lambert

Happy Friday, Collectors! Welcome back to Week In Review, a (somewhat) short-and-sweet recap of 20x200 news and links!

20x200 News

• Two new works by painter/skateboarder/Josef Albers-loving Sean Greene are included in Some (Are) Painting, the summer show at Jaeckel Gallery.
• Valerie Roybal will be unveiling her first ever exhibited textile work in a fiber arts show, Unraveling Tradition, at 516 ARTS in Albuquerque. The opening is Saturday, July 17, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., and the exhibition runs through Sept. 11, 2010.
• Emily Noelle Lambert currently has work in two exhibitions. At the Priska C. Juschka Gallery, Lambert's work is included in the group show Big Picture. From the press release:

  The pictures—all paintings—are big in terms of size, subject matter, energy, ambition and visual generosity. Many are aggressive or even garish in the color, they are often over worked, heavy layer upon layer of paint, combining dissonant styles and subject matter. These paintings are big in that there is a hell of a lot to look at.

  Big Picture runs through August 6th. Lambert also has work in Chicago's Thomas Robertello Gallery, in the show About Face, on view through the end of July.

• Also on our gallery-going list of must-sees are 20x200 artists Kevin Cyr and Jaclyn Mednicov in the Mixed Greens show Gimme Shelter. From the press release: "This show brings together 17 artists and investigates the delicate balance of perception of 'shelter': whether a space is inviting or uninhabitable, comforting or crumbling, being constructed or consumed." Be sure to make the opening, next Thursday, July 15th from 6 to 8:00 p.m., where there will be a Waffles & Dinges truck on hand offering s Belgian waffles with ice cream to soothe your sweet tooth.
• We're pleased as punch to have been featured as a daily dish pick this week, in a post highlighting our kid-friendly offerings. If you've got baby showers to go to, giving great art to deck the newborn's walls is a solid way to go.
• Speaking of online shout-outs, Chad Hagen received quite a favorable one on Motherboard, where they are as in love with his "nonsensical infographics" as we are.
• Ever seen a phrenology chart? Well Wendy MacNaughton, creator of our recently debuted and muchly loved Things Happen print, made a similar psychological map of her hometown of San Francisco for 7x7 Magazine. The feature also includes a great Q&A with the artist. Check it out!
• Ms. Jen Bekman has been selected to serve on the advisory board for the newly launched 25 for 25, which seeks to award twenty-five $25,000 grants to "tomorrow's ground breakers and visionaries," which specifically refers to journalists, artists and innovators. Read more about Jen's role and the grant here.
• Zoe Strauss is in the Gulf of Mexico, documenting landfall and the anxiety of landfall from the BP oil spill. She's crowd-sourcing donations for this documentary work on the arts-funding platform Projectsite, and would really appreciate a look-see at what she's doing and a possible donation to her work.
• Keep showing us your frames! We love seeing how our fellow art collectors are housing their 20x200 bounties in their homes. Send us your images of framed or otherwise displayed prints by uploading photos of your wall to our Facebook wall, and we'll post our favorites on the Facebook page.

New Editions

We Are Who We Are by Robert Garcia	Midway, Neshoba County Fair, Philadelphia, Mississippi by Mike Sinclair

That's it for this week, collectors! See anything we missed? Let us know on Twitter @20x200 or our Facebook!

Many 20x200 artists have works currently on view in Land Use Survey at Jen Bekman Gallery. Below, just a peek at the lay of the land:

Mint + Magnolia by Brad Moore

Untitled (Gap) by Chris Ballantyne

Untitled (Goleta) by Liz Kuball

Housing Development at Different Stages, Las Vegas, NV, March 2005 by Alex Maclean

Road to Road by William Wegman

Whet your tongue? See all of the installation shots on Flickr, then head to JBG.

The Tortoise by Carrie Marill

Good morning collectors! It's Sara, writing from a hot and steamy NYC. The skies have clouded over with the promise of rain but are simply stifling the unbearable heat, creating a sidewalk sauna of sorts. Yes, it's as miserable as it sounds. If ever there was a reason to not like the city, it's the weather. So, I think we'll take a little trip somewhere else—somewhere well-lit, sun-spotted and cool—through the prints of 20x200's past by Carrie Marill. Escorting us will be the good-natured, colorful fellow found here in The Tortoise.

It's fitting that this wise old steed will show us the way. Coming full circle, he's part of a series of work by Carrie that first caught Jen's eye way back when she was getting ready to launch 20x200. Her first pick for prints was The Faceted Couroucou, a now nearly sold-out edition—there's just one left!

Jen introduced the work in newsletter numero tres:

I came across Carrie's work during one of my marathon internet art-surfing sessions. I fell in love with it immediately—her drawings are beautiful, odd and fascinating... The process of proofing this print was an interesting education for the 20x200 team. The mix of strong and delicate colors played out very differently as we looked at them on a variety of papers... the cotton rag paper that this is printed on brings out the warmth and detail of the piece, and its matte surface makes the colors incredibly lush.

Proofing our prints is a task we take seriously. We've experimented with different papers along the way, making sure what we're offering is always archival and of exceptional quality. The Tortoise is printed on one of our favorites, the very same paper, in fact, that his feathered friend appears upon. Carrie worked with our printer to make sure his stripes were bright as they should be and his rocky home was translucent and layered below his little claws.

Getting color just right is a detail paramount to Carrie's practice as an artist, so much so that when she put together her first solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery, she minimized the elements that informed the paintings, allowing her particular palette to give weight to works like Space and Illusion which we, naturally, brought to you. The show also included House Plant 2 and House Plant 3. Jen wrote then:

The quiet, delicate presence of her humble house plants reminds me that the most mundane things can anchor a moment and define a memory... In detailing the intricate geometry of branches and leaves and noticing the way the plants in 2 seem to stretch together towards an unseen sun, [Carrie] is creating a richer connection to the time and the place that she remembered to see them.

I'll leave you with Jen's musings on Carrie's second solo show. We debuted two more editions, Be Realistic Demand the Impossible and Flying, Shipping and Selling, which bring together Carrie's interest in the environment, her fine attention to detail and wry sense of humor:

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.

Collocation (NATURE) by Mickey Smith

We were ecstatic to receive word that photographer Mickey Smith's permanent glass installation at the University of Florida (pictured above) was recently named one of the 40 Best Public Artworks of 2009. Americans for the Arts' Year in Review 2010 reflects "the most exemplary, innovative permanent or temporary public art works created or debuted in 2009" in making their selection.

Collocation (NATURE) by Mickey Smith

You may, of course, recognize some of the panels from this installation from Mickey's 20x200 editions: Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Left Panel and its pair, Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Right Panel:

Mickey Smith on 20x200

What I find so wonderful, even magical about Mickey's work is that the photographs aren't staged, but discovered, as she writes in her artist statement:

The act of hunting for and photographing these objects is fundamental to my process. I do not touch, light or manipulate the books and words—preferring to document them as found in the stacks, created by the librarian and positioned by the last unknown reader.

Her Collocation series is full of quietly startling, witty, and beautiful images, embracing the word play, color and texture spectrum of the familiar book spine.

In her selection for this award, Mickey joins many awesome and inspiring artworks. Here's just a taste of the other thirty-nine honored artists,

Her Secret is Patience by Jane Echelman (Phoenix, AZ)

Filament/Firmament by Ellen Driscoll (Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge MA)

Home of the Stars by Ellen Harvey (Bronx, NY)

Congrats, Mickey! It's also worth noting that Collocation (NATURE) is Mickey's first major public artwork—we look forward to see what's in store next!

Behind the Bay City Log Sorting Yard, Cosmopolis, Washington by Eirik Johnson

Good day collectors, it's Sara again. Jen's been fighting off a flu of sorts that seems to be taking one 20x200-er down at a time. She'll be back soon, I promise. In the meantime, I have a new photograph from an artist we've long admired from afar.

I was first drawn to Eirik Johnson's photography, and in particular, the body of work that Behind the Bay City Log Sorting Yard, Cosmopolis, Washington comes from—and which is also a book, titled Sawdust Mountain—because it was warmly familiar. No where else have I lived are the culture and economy so entwined with and dependent on natural resources as in the Pacific Northwest. Timber and salmon define the region as much as the Chrysler and Empire State buildings distinguish New York's skyline. No where else are these relationships so visible.

On any venture outside of the small port cities that dot Washington's waterfronts, you will inevitably meet a truck over-loaded and tipsy with felled timber and see acres of stumps supplanted with new saplings. BBQs are nearly never absent of salmon and heading upriver to witness the spawning season is a right of passage. My alma mater maintains The Logger as our mascot, as we are generously supported by funds from a corporate champion of "innovative forest products." The blue-turning-white collar town that the campus is nestled in is occasionally graced by the peculiar aroma of the pulp plants that reside along the industrial tide flats.

Johnson's photographs acknowledge these connections—and further, make them visceral. In Behind the Bay City Log Sorting Yard, Cosmopolis, Washington, a single-family home is ceaselessly blasted by the floodlights of the lumber yard, literally casting an eerie glow on what it would be like to live here and to hear the constant hum and buzz of chopping and sorting. Two towering trees, on the right, oppose dozens of their kind, defiled in piles on the left. Without these little hints, this image could have been taken anywhere else that industry has invaded remote, rural or domestic corners. Other evidence is less specific: calla lilies and a kiddie swimming pool abut the house, implying a defiant sweetness of the family that lives here. The grass appears bone-dry as if the light has leached the life from it. As in Johnson's other photographs, the lush colors are unsettlingly seductive.

To see more of the work, pick up a copy of Sawdust Mountain from Aperture. They're in the midst of a summer sale; the $50 price tag has been slashed to a steal of $35, for a limited time (much of their inventory is 30% off). I do recommend you get one to accompany your print. (If you had submitted your work to JBP's Hey, Hot Shot! photography competition by now, you would have been in the running to win a slew of books donated by HHS! panelist Lesley Martin from Aperture, including Eirik's. It's not too late to enter now though, see the competition site for more details; the opportunities for photographers are unparalleled!)

The pages of Sawdust Mountain are matte and muted, much like the water-infused light that soaks the Northwest. (Our print, like Eirik's other prints has a warm, luster surface.) The edges of the cover and back are left unbound, exposing the pulpy skeleton of the book. Holding this object is a light reminder that we are all, everywhere else, somewhat complicit in the taking of the trees that grace the cover. Just what we are able to do about it is the question that remains unanswered.

Lately, the weather has been a bit bipolar—last week it reached a whopping 103 degrees Fahrenheit, and today it is 75 degrees with scattered thunderstorms. Working in Midtown Manhattan, I was able to pick up a personal fan and an umbrella on both days to combat the elements. Without them, I'm just not well equipped to deal with such a wild climate!

Jump by Thomas Prior

Some artists, like mosses, enzymes, and lichens, are extremophiles—an organism that lives and thrives in an extreme environment. The most famous of these artists is probably Georgia O’Keefe, who after her first summer in New Mexico, fell in love with the barren landscape and expansive skies of the desert. She relished the desolate and decaying bone graveyards. She loved the burning, hot tones of reds and oranges. O’ Keefe wrote:

I have picked flowers where I have found them—have picked up sea shells and pieces of rock and wood that I liked... When I found the beautiful white bones on the desert I picked them up and took them home too... I have used these things to say to me the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it.

20x200 has our very own extremophile, Thomas Prior, who is working on several documentary projects that look at beautiful and dangerous recreation spots around the world. He's photographed in the Bonneville Salt Flats, whose highest recorded temperature was 112 degrees Fahrenheit in 1939 and whose lowest recorded temperature was -18 degrees Fahrenheit in 1990. His photographs at Blackrock Tower in Ireland are slippery, treacherous, and filled with nervous anticipation. Prior says it best:

It's a mixture of the super dedicated people and beautiful open landscapes. I remembered the changing light and engine noise of Bonneville, Utah. Starting at about 4 p.m. in summer, the light changes by the minute all the way till dark after 10 p.m. Blackrock diving tower is such a cool structure, out there on that pier all by itself, and it’s so un-Americanly dangerous. The locations are simple yet not at all boring. They’re visually incredible but made more amazing by humans.

Steps by Thomas Prior

But, maybe the most extreme is Steve Eiden’s account of Leonard Knight who for the past 24 years has been living alone in the desert of Niland, California, a few miles from the shores of the Salton Sea, working ceaselessly on a giant monument to God known as Salvation Mountain. During the five coldest months of the year, he sleeps in the back of an old broken down flatbed truck. The other seven months of the year, he sleeps in this bed.

Leonard's Bed, Niland, California by Steve Eiden

Starlite Drive-In, Roseburg, OR from Sawdust Mountain by Eirik Johnson

Happy Friday, Collectors! Welcome back to Week In Review, a (somewhat) short-and-sweet recap of 20x200 news and links!

• The image above is from Sawdust Mountain by this week's edition-maker Eirik Johnson. The work was recently featured on The Morning News, along with a great interview.


• We prefer air conditioning, but some artists like it extremely hot, cold or just plain dangerous. Check out our roundup of artists who are weather extremophiles!


• Mike + Doug Starn and Carrie Marill both have work in From the Ground Up, an exhibition at Lisa Sette Gallery in Arizona.


• Have you seen Americans for the Arts 40 Best Public Artworks of 2009? It's quite the list, and we're proud to say that it includes Mickey Smith, selected for her glass photography installation at University of Florida. If those panels look familiar to you, it's because they're also available as 20x200 editions.


• Mike Monteiro has turned his Brooklyn Museum 1stfans Twitter project into a self-published book, with photographs by Ryan Carver.


• Jane Mount's bookshelves are spotlighted in a Forbes.com article on things for bookworms (besides books, of course!) and also in lmnop magazine.


• Chad Hagen's Nonsensical Infographics were recently featured on Motherboard.


• Some(Are) Painting, curated by David Gibson, is up at Jaeckel Gallery through July 31st and includes two works by Sean Greene.


• Thanks to ParentDish for their 20x200 feature this week—art is great for kids too!

The Tortoise by Carrie Marill	Behind the Bay City Log Sorting Yard, Cosmopolis, Washington, by Eirik Johnson

Wedding Portrait by Jorge Colombo

Hi collectors! It's Sara this Tuesday morning, writing to introduce you to our newest edition from Jorge Colombo. The season of matrimony is in full-swing, making Wedding Portrait an appropriate image for all of you who are out and about celebrating the love of friends and family over long weekends (need I remind you that art makes a great gift for such occasions!?). But, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about a different sort of happy union—that between Jorge and all of 20x200. By all of 20x200, I mean Jen, and the rest of us here at HQ, and all of you, collectors out there, and the infinite web that connects us and works in mysterious but lovely ways.

While one of our greatest pleasures is bringing you new artists every week—we've now worked with close to two hundred—there are a few that we continue to bring back into the fold. This is the eleventh (!) edition we've put together with Jorge. Jen and Jorge met a few years ago, at a party and would run into each other at openings and at the JB Gallery. Some time passed and Jorge painted, photographed and drew and Jen hatched 20x200. Eventually, Jen, being the omnivorous consumer of art and technology that she is, spotted some drawings Jorge created on his iPhone, using the Brushes app, over on Design Observer. Smitten, she asked Jorge if he'd be interested in making editions. He was.

From the hyper-extended-walls of 20x200, Jorge's drawings won over one legendary art editor—Françoise Mouly, of The New Yorker (yes, The New Yorker!)—among many other fans. The venerable Ms. Mouly saw Jorge's work here and inquired about putting one of his sketches on a cover. From there sprang not one but several Colombo covers and a video series on The New Yorker blog.

And now, we're pleased to announce that we're partnering with our friends at Chronicle Books to publish a book: a collection of close to one hundred of Jorge's iPhone sketches of New York City. It's no wonder they were receptive when we first pitched the idea: Jorge's work has sparked discussions about artists and their role in contemporary culture; it's been featured in the press and interviews and made a cameo during the highly-anticipated iPad introduction. It's brought artists, technology and popular culture together in a whole new (back-lit) light.

That his work will now be the subject of a beautiful hardcover tome is a fairytale ending that's really just another beginning—it speaks to the highest possible ideal that we're striving for in terms of the opportunities we hope to provide for artists—prints leading to magazine covers, leading to a published book, leading to... Who knows what's next? We're a pretty idealistic bunch, but our optimism isn't unfounded and it doesn't end with Jorge. What we're doing is working. Turns out even postmen in Portland have been bitten by the collecting bug. Matt Niebuhr's story is the latest anecdote to make us melt.

While I can share these links with you, they certainly don't cover all of the stories we hear from artists and collectors the world over. Ever jump out of bed in the morning because you know what you're going to do that day will be ridiculously rewarding and incredibly inspiring? I do.

Post #471 by Thomas Prior

As I wrote when first we introduced Tom's work, we go way back. But it took a long time for us to start collaborating, so now we're making up for lost time with not one, not two, but three editions, plus a flurry of blog posts. [Being the fan that she is, someone like fellow 20x200-artist Rachel Hulin would say: it's about time!] In contrast to Steps and Jump—which come from a highly polished body of work—Post #471 arrived by way of Thomas Prior's less-formal outlet, his blog: The Curving Hip, The Soothing Shade, a document of his ongoing practice of photographing everyday.

Like most people, I could never make this picture; mine would be crooked, with a camera strap or thumb in it. It would be from a different, less-interesting angle. But through Tom's lens, and with its ethereal quality, it's a place I've been or a dream or a memory. It's also both a product and evidence of him being a great photographer; it became what it is as if by reflex, not because it's effortless to do so, but because his experience suffuses his picture-taking, even when a larger project is not part of his intention.

This image was taken on the 24th day of May on the Jersey Shore; the tides of the internet carried it into my curatorial universe — and then out again — via my Tumblr stream. As much as I enjoy contributing to making an image internet-famous, I'm really much more interested in getting pictures up on walls. (Your walls, for instance!) Certain as I was about this photograph, it took some considerable cajoling by Sara and me to convince Tom that his digital snapshot, diaristic though it may have been, was indeed edition-worthy.

As when proofing his first two images, Tom was meticulous. We all deliberated, first on the scale of the image—as you know, we like to offer the most economical print size, 8"x10", whenever we possibly can. But in this case, it really just didn't make sense. We don't like to disappoint and at that scale, the image started to feel a little claustrophobic. Once we brought the proofs up to 11"x14", it became clear that was the smallest size possible at which this image could feel intimate and inward-looking and yet, expansive. Worth noting: its expansiveness increases exponentially with every inch added to its dimensions, so I encourage you to go big on this one!

Tom's intent on going big himself, with a brand-new body of work, he's a HHS! contender again. What will happen in this round? Only time will tell.

If your sights are only set as far ahead as tomorrow, we have just the event for you: Artlog's Collect LES–Lower East Side Artcrawl. Don't miss it! Get tickets online ($20 and for ages 21 and over only!) then meet at The New Museum at 6:30 p.m. sharp.

At 20x200 we take our art seriously. Even before we opened our doors, many of the longest planning discussions were about the integrity of our editions: How do we guarantee museum-quality prints? How do we assure fidelity between the artist's proofs and the images on your screen? How do we guarantee authenticity? Etc...

We have, I think, come up with best-in-class solutions to all these questions. But of course while we attempt perfection, sometimes (very occasionally!) a print slips through the cracks and arrives bent in the mail, with a stray spot of ink, or has gotten rained upon. In at least one case, a mailman pushed our package through a mail slot into the mouth of an art-loving English bulldog named Alfred.

We hate it when our prints arrive less than perfect, but at the same time, can't just blindly issue new prints because we have to protect the editions' integrity. If an edition has 20 prints, there can't be 21 prints. We solve this problem by asking our collectors to destroy—that's right, destroy—flawed prints, then send us photographic evidence of the imperfections on the artwork when it arrived. This might seem like an extreme step but we also believe it's the right thing to do before we can send you a replacement. And while it's a hassle to document the print's destruction, many collectors end up thanking us because it shows our respect for the art.

When sending back their photographs of destroyed prints, our collectors often respond with great humor and little glimpses into their own lives. So without further ado we present the real reason for this post, an excuse to present a gallery of 20x200 print destruction:

death2vader from christian baujard on Vimeo.

While all our images go through a meticulous proofing process, mistakes do happen. Back in 2008, we released an image, then a sharp-eyed collector noticed a white speck on our print that did not match that image in a book by the same artist. It turned out to be a flaw and the entire edition had to be replaced. While this meant bringing the attention of the mistake to some of our unknowing customers—we knew we had to replace the print, to know that perfectly printed versions were in our collectors' hands. Our customers showed their sense of humor about the incident in the prints they sent back.

As we say in our FAQ, when you receive your prints, please inspect them carefully. We want them to be absolutely perfect, and not a speck less!

Installation shot from New Work by Ky Anderson at Dolphin Gallery

Welcome back to Week In Review, a (somewhat) short-and-sweet recap of 20x200 news and links!

20x200 News

• What happens on the rare occasion that a 20x200 print gets messed up in printing or transit? We help you replace it, of course, but not before we see proof that the faulty print has been destroyed. We explain this process a little more, and share a few of the best of these stories in our post Achieving Perfection Through Destruction.
• Ky Anderson has updated her website with new work from her solo-show at Dolphin Gallery in Kansas City.
• Work from Mark Menjivar's series You Are What You Eat is included in (Por)trait Revealed a juried group exhibiton of portrait photography at RayKo Photo Center, opening on Wednesday.
• Flipping through Thomas Prior's blog, I was overjoyed to read that sales of his last two 20x200 editions fully funded his trip, equipment and film to create the amazing new body of work he's been making (which we recently wrote about on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog).
• ...and speaking of HHS!, there is less than a month left to apply. We've been updating the blog like crazy with write-ups on the amazing entries that are pouring in.
• JBP's Assoc. Producer (and one of the very first 20x200 edition-makers) Youngna Park will be guest curating the Bodies of Water showcase on Pictory. Send in your picture stories by August 11th!
• From the Desk Of... has posted a short interview with Don Hamerman, including a peek into his studio and a shot of his baseball collection.

New Editions

Wedding Portrait by Jorge Colombo	Post #471 by Thomas Prior

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to. — Jim Jarmusch

Well, ironically (in the Alanis Morisette way), because nothing is original and because I feel like Jim Jarmusch says it better than I ever can, I essentially copied and pasted his quote in order to preface my opinion that there is nothing new under the sun. OK, OK, as a lover of art and all things creative how could I say such a thing? Simply speaking, we as humans continually find ourselves inspired and reinspiried by the same transcendental sentiments: love, religion, life, death, depression, happiness, etc. Whether it is Chuck Close pulling from his love of tapestry weaving in order to create his hyperrealist images, or Duchamp using the“new age mechanical reproduction” known as the video camera in order to produce Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 in 1912, artists have always been aware of and informed by the affects of the popular culture surrounding them.

Liz Lerman, the renowned choreographer from Maryland, says "[Lately], I'm doing work with physicists smashing particles. They talk a lot about making something out of nothing. But no one knows how to make something out of nothing like artists."

After one has taken enough surveys in Western art, seminars in Dadaism, courses in gestural abstraction, divisionism, and postmodernism, symposia on regional folk art, and workshops on Pre-Renaissance Byzantine and Gothic art, patterns start to emerge. It is not so much that the art looks the same, but certain allegories and symbols start to repeat. Recycled inspiration.

Here's some quick time travel from the annals of the New York Public Library Digital Collection to the present tense of 20x200's archives, where artists, consciously or not, have re-interpreted and recreated works with related inspiration.

From Turdus pilaris migratorius, The Fieldlfare of Carolina; Aristolochia pistolochia, The Snake-root of Virginia by Mark Catesby in 1754 to The Faceted Couroucou by Carrie Marill in 2010:

From Arents Cigarette Cards offset, photochemical lithographs from the early 20th century to Sharon Montrose’s Baby Giraffe No. 5:

From Yoshiyuki Hagino’s A color combination chart for layered clothing in 1868 to Vanity Fair MAY08:pg269 (and, incredibly, looking not a day older) by Lauren DiCioccio in the 2000’s (both inspired by periodicals of the day):

From Emile Mercier’s bookbinding in the 19th century to Mickey Smith’s conceptual bookbinding photography in 2007.

Smith writes:

Searching endless stacks, I am continually struck by physical mass of information and tenuousness of printed works as they fade from public consciousness. The irony and graphic quality of repeating titles fascinate and draw, no matter how mundane, from known to obscure, from Vogue to Blood. I photograph titles that are flirtatious, utilitarian, and personally or socially symbolic.

All things eventually fade from public consciousness; it takes an artist to make old ideas contemporary, exciting, and unique once again.

Prairieside Forks by Ross Racine

Hello collectors! We're interrupting our regularly scheduled writing with a note from Jeffrey Teuton, Associate Director of Jen Bekman Gallery. He's pulled together our fabulous summer show, Land Use Survey, which today's edition-maker, Ross Racine, is a part of. You have less than three weeks to visit 6 Spring Street, NYC, before the closing on August 15th, to see the show that's been written up as "at once elegiac, angry, and bedeviled" on Dwell.com and reviewed in Dart.

Without further ado, here's Jeffrey with a few words about Ross and Prairieside Forks:

At first glance, Ross's work appears to be very straightforward. Upon closer inspection, roads don't make sense and the humor in the patterns begins to show. Roads would never function like that, and what seemed to be unambiguous becomes a caricature of the endless miles of suburban sprawl. I love work that has humor and depth that unfolds as you view.

[Ed. note: Prairieside Forks definitely warrants close viewing! The size and scale of Ross's homes, trees and roads, and the infinite detail that is visible are important elements in the work. All of these things are totally altered at 8"x10" and smaller, so this edition begins with 11"x14" prints.]

Land Use Survey is a here we are; here is what we are doing with the land; here are the myriad ways we document and react to the land around us. In the exhibition, we included photography, painting and documentation of installation pieces, artists working both representationally and abstractly. As the nature of land use is diverse, so is the practice used by artists to respond.

Finding out that Ross works from his doodles is brilliant to me -- it laughs in the face of the studied patterns and geometries of planned communities. His lines, and their curves and patterns, are beautiful and satirical.

In the exhibition as a whole, there is no overly grand statement about man and our use of the land, but more an appreciation for the artists, like Ross, who are working within the wide topic of "land use" and landscape. We did not want it to be a show simply focusing on development and the destruction-through-construction idea. I think it is easy to focus on the dire -- on imagery of over-development. I wanted to show as many of the ways that the land is used and the assorted ways artists are capturing the environments around them.

As you view the show, moving from the left-hand wall around the gallery, clockwise, I began with untouched landscapes. Then, slowly, evidence of man's hand comes into the work. As you progress, the work becomes more and more about the urban and developed landscape and the resulting dizzying geometries. It is almost like when you are flying into the city and below you see forest and squares of farmland slowly transition into the grid of the city.

----

Tomorrow we'll have another new-to-20x200 artist who is also featured in Land Use Survey. Till then!

Moore Estates (West) by Matthew Moore

Moore Estates (detail) by Matthew Moore

Triumphant Wednesday greetings, collectors! Today's editions by Matthew Moore are a testament to the triumph of persistence. I am so excited to be finally releasing this edition. I've been working on Matthew for eons: I can recall at least three separate meals, shared with him and his wife, the uber-talented Ms. Carrie Marill, over which I pleaded, cajoled and otherwise hectored the poor fella.

Persistent though I was, I proceeded with care because Matthew's reticence wasn't such a mystery to me. His work is deeply personal, connecting as it does with his family, his history and being created, quite literally, from the soil he grew up on. Yet, the places he's channeling -- the suburbs that have steadily encroached upon his family home throughout his lifetime -- are arguably the most iconic symbol of contemporary American anonymity and alienation. As Jeffrey has realized while watching people interact with Matthew's work in Land Use Survey at the gallery, the forms in Moore Estates (detail) and Moore Estates (West) are ingrained in us. He wrote:

The piece hangs close to my desk and more than a few times throughout the day I get a sideways glance and and hear, "What is going on? Are these crops? No, it's a subdivision. That is not real is it? There's no way." I watch as visitors try to find the ways to prove that the image is in fact a document of development, instead of something farm-able on farm land. It seems these patterns are burned in our minds.

I've been thinking about his work a lot lately, and not only because it's hanging in Land Use Survey right now. But, partially, because of time I've been spending out in tony East Hampton (of all places!) with David Steward and his partner, Pierre Friedrichs. Pierre is growing the most amazing garden out there, at the EECO farm. Going there with them a few Saturdays in a row to prune and pick stuff has been considerably transformative.

What Pierre has created at the farm is completely different, and in many ways, more real, than anything I make and/or most of the things that occupy the majority of my brainspace. It's entirely different to eat food once you've see where and how it's grown, and have subsequently been involved in its preparation. And while there is some obvious satisfaction in enjoying the fruits of ones labors (yuk yuk) it also has a lot to do with how freaking long it all takes. This is something I find incredibly vexing on the surface, but ultimately connective, both to the food itself and to the people I prepared it with.

Sincerity and authenticity play a huge role in Matthew's work -- there is no bobo pretense afoot, nor is he humorless, preachy or scoldy. While the suburbs are also, one might argue, the cradle of irony, Matthew himself is so totally unironic, sincere and passionate, I would hate to for anyone to interpret him as being anything but.* He doesn't want us to feel guilty or bad, he wants us to feel connected: to the food we eat, the places it comes from, and the people who grow it.

*Listening to a talk that Matthew gave awhile back actually made me cry. Matthew, too, was choked up as he described how he and Carrie are literally surrounded by the encroachment of suburbia. I don't remember what he said exactly, but it was about his family and his history, but also about us, Americans and our history, and our ever-more-distant relationship with food and our physical selves.

Morningsands, 2009 by Ross Racine

Welcome back to Week In Review, a (somewhat) short-and-sweet recap of 20x200 news and links!

20x200 News

New Editions

Prarieside Forks by Ross Racine	Moore Estates (West) by Matthew Moore	Moore Estates (detail) by Matthew Moore

That's it for this week, collectors! See anything we missed? Let us know on Twitter @20x200 or our Facebook!