September 2010 Archives

Alex MacLean's architectural training is deeply entrenched in his photographic practice. He exhibits an understanding-of and sensitivity-to the structures that people build and inhabit, some we were reminded with when observing his stunning photograph in the recent Land Use Survey exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery.

It seems very appropriate then, that Alex's aerial photography of Paris has been selected for inclusion in the Venice Architecture Biennale, which opened on Sunday. From the show announcement:

La Defense and Seine Arche have chosen to highlight the work of Alex MacLean, in the framework of the theme of the Venice Architecture Biennale: "People meet in architecture". Alex's aerial photographs of La Defense, Seine Arche, and the historical axis leading from the Louvre focus on the close relationship between the city's royal core and the modern urban architecture nearby.

If you are lucky enough to find yourself in Venice during one of the most exciting cultural events around, then make sure you swing by Alex's exhibition, which runs until September 19th, 2010.

The Details:
Alex MacLean for The Venice Architecture Biennale
On view: August 29th - September 19th, 2010
Open every day (except September 2nd, 7th, and 14th), from 2:00 to 8:00 p.m.
CA'ASI Architecture Studios
Campiello Santa Maria Nova
Cannaregio 6024, Venice

Casino Employee's Dayby Jeremy Kohm

Happy September collectors! I know I promised Jen's return but it's Sara here—Jen is technically on vacation. While her IM handle has been flashing green and the opportunity to bring you fresh art is awfully tempting, rumor has it that for the rest of the week she's planning on doing what comes most unnaturally to her: resting and relaxing. It's a rare—inconceivable indeed!—but much deserved occasion.

While Jen's away, we'll continue to play—I know she wouldn't have it any other way. 20x200's birthday is just around the corner, giving us lots of reasons for cheer: it's been three years! We're not ones to celebrate alone so we're offering an uncommon deal to all of you out there:

Consider this a stock up sale! You'll be saving lots by picking up scores of 8"x10" and 11"x14" prints. Usually shipping starts at $8.50. One minor stickler: the $3 shipping and handling fee is applied per size, so if you're mixing things up with both 8"x10" and 11"x14" prints, the absolute most you'll pay is $6—still a steal.

To kick-off this birthday special, we present to you Casino Employee's Day, a fitting follow-up to Chateau by the clever Jeremy Kohm. As in Chateau, Jeremy's preference for sharp edges and order is evident, even in the fun and fancy free environs of this water park. A row of lounge chairs hugs the horizontal border below while a gray-blue sky keeps the colorful chaos at bay. Crisp outlines allow the eye to roam from person to person, from slide to slide, from Ferris wheel to whited-out waterfall.

With that, I bid you all good-bye. Take cue from our fearless leader and indulge in some R&R—September's snuck up upon us so I hope you'll enjoy this last long weekend of summertime!

* Rate is applied per size. Special rate can only be applied to orders within the U.S. and does not apply to international orders.

Untitled, from the series Playing by Alex MacLean

Welcome back to the Week In Review, collectors! WIR is a short-'n-sweet recap of news and links.

20x200 News

• Did you know that 20x200 is a Virgo, as is its erstwhile founder, Ms. Jen Bekman? It's our birthday week, and in celebration of our 3rd anniversary we're passing on a little gift to you: $3 FLAT RATE shipping on 8"x10" + 11"x14" prints NOW till Monday at midnight EDT! (the rate is applied per size, can only be applied to orders within the U.S. and does not apply to international orders.) If you, like many of us here who work for 20x200, have had your eye on a few prints and have been meaning to grab them sooner rather than later, this is a great time for some savings, as shipping usually starts at $8.50 per print. If there are still a few that you have to wait until later to purchase, check out our nifty "Save to Amazon Wish List" feature next to every edition (right underneath the edition sizes).

• Last week we posted about Try, a benefit auction held at the Jen Bekman Gallery to raise funds to help research and fight terminal illnesses. We're very happy to report that the auction raised nearly $3000, all of which will go to the charity. There are still a handful of works available if you missed the auction; check out their website to see if there's something you'd like to bid on.
• Coke Wisdom O'Neal shares some sage musings and tales about art-making in this short interview with filmmaker Poppy de Villeneuve.
• Looking for some good, new reading material? Long Shot magazine, formerly 48HourMag, has just released its inaugural issue, featuring the work of Wendy MacNaughton, author Alissa Walker, one of our VIP edition pickers and co-founder of The Awl, Choire Sicha. Read selected stories from Issue One here, and if you like what you see, purchase a copy on MagCloud.
• Venice, anyone? Photographer Alex MacLean has his work of aerial photographs of Paris on view at the Venice Architecture Biennale, on view through September 19th, 2010. Though not featured in Venice this year, we wrote earlier this spring about MacLean's Return of the Landscape project, in which he examined the relationships between two "artificial" cities that have very different relationships with water, Las Vegas and Venice. His work was also featured in our recent Land Use Survey exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery.
• Continuing in the tradition of the Surrealists' parlor game Exquisite Corpse, 100 artists were selected by the good people at Chronicle Books to play a new collaborative game, the end result of which is the publication The Exquisite Book. Kate Bingaman-Burt, Jill Bliss, Lisa Congdon and Mike Perry have all contributed pages.
• And lastly, in honor of Labor Day, we've posted a few new jobs to our site. If you've got the skills and are looking for something new, this is a great place to work!

New Editions

Stormville, by Kevin Cyr	Casino Employee's Day by Jeremy Kohm

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

Untitled #105 by Marcie Paper

Marcie Paper's magical abstractions will be given some well-deserved attention this weekend, featured in a new exhibition titled Mama Pajama Rolled out of Bed at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, VA.

Her solo show of paintings and animations takes its inspiration and title from the second side of Paul Simon’s eponymous solo (and first post-Garfunkel) record of 1972. ("Mama Pajama..." is the first line of perhaps its best-known track, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard). All of the exhibited works were created during a two-year period that Marcie spent listening solely to the latter half of this single album, and seek to examine the act of remembering, the role that music plays in this, and the powerful associations that musicians and songs can inspire. From the show announcement:

[Paper] notes that this particular album brought her back to a former time and place in her life, and 'began to wonder how much "memory-time" one album or song could hold.' The images that comprise this exhibition represent and capture specific moments in time and explore questions that arise as the artist investigates memory, experience and nostalgia.

The Details:
Mama Pajama Rolled out of Bed
On view: September 3rd – October 9th, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, September 3rd, 6:30 – 10:00 p.m.
Artist talk: Friday, September 3rd, 7:00 p.m.
1708 Gallery
319 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23220
Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Saturday: 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Nice Pants by Landon Nordeman

Hip, hip, hooray! 20x200 turns three today! It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating birthday numero uno and now... here we are two years later. Where, oh where does the time go?

Way back then, we were reveling in our first 120 editions created with 84 artists; today, we couldn't be more proud to commemorate the 203 artists we've worked with to create 451 editions. As in Landon Nordeman's Nice Pants, that "good things come in threes" has proven to be true (in spite of our affection for the number two). What a wonderful year it's been! We're looking forward to many more years of working with great artists to present great art to you.

We hope you'll join us with whoops and hollers for our $3 flat rate shipping offer on 8"x10" and 11"x14" prints through this long weekend only. We broke the news on Wednesday but think it's worth repeating as a reminder:

Three cheers as this kind of offer only happens very occasionally, and rarely before the holidays. Consider this our early gift to you: pick up a peck of prints now and start ticking off your gift list. With all that you'll be saving—S&H usually starts at $8.50—you can afford to do a little, "one for me, one for you" and still feel generous and virtuous too.

* The rate is applied per size for a maximum shipping and handling charge of $6. Special rate can only be applied to orders within the U.S. and does not apply to international orders.

Holden by Jacob Escobedo

Tuesday greetings collectors! It's Sara for one more day. The long birthday weekend has left us feeling a little disoriented—as if we're awakening from a long summer night's dream. Suddenly, the party's over and it's the second week of September. And while the celebrating's been nice—thanks to all of you who joined us along the way!—we couldn't be more excited about what's to come.

As we sometimes do when looking forward, today it makes sense to look back a little too. Holden is the fifth edition we've released by Atlanta-based artist Jacob Escobedo. Like the fine, furry and feathered friends of prints past, Holden is called so for the boy who likes the slithery-est sort of snakes the best. Elephant Sophie, Kerry the bat, crow Brandon and Jake the wolf, carry the names of the friends that chose these animals as their favorites.

Jacob's meticulous maps of the scales and finer details of small creatures, like this snake, have been fodder for rich discussions about the nature of animals and our most personal relationships to them. Jen has pleaded for her own drawing of an otter, after Ollie the Otter, who is in fact a dog. She also outlined a very appropriate excerpt from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, that I'll leave you with again today:

32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

And so we set forth this serpent into the 20x200 menagerie.

BG-0004-5 by Bert Teunissen

BG-0006-25A by Bert Teunissen

Hi collectors! It's Sara, filling in for a sad-not-to-be-here Jen. These editions have been on the books for what seems like ages and we've been eagerly anticipating their release amidst winding three-way, long-distance conversations. Jen and I have both been out of the city for a bit and our respective returns are appropriate to these works from Bert Teunissen.

Bert's long sought and documented the day-lit interiors of his childhood home for his series Domestic Landscapes. As he's been seeking these spaces, he's covered over 50,000 kilometers of road. Two slivers of these infinite stretches are stilled in BG-0006-25A and BG-0004-5, both from his book On the Road. These photos are definitely Bert's own and closely linked to his other work in Domestic Landscapes—of which we've featured two—Saugnac et Muret #1, 27/12/2005 11:27 and LA ALBERCA #6 1/3/2005 12:56. Jen will be back with a third edition (!) from this series and more about the links between the two, tomorrow.

At once silky and rough, warm and isolate, sunlit and spattered, BG-0006-25A and BG-0004-5 (and the title of his book) are also part of a long tradition. Dorothea Lange photographed The Road West. Garry Winogrand shot through his dirty, dusty windshield. Todd Hido, whose work we brought to you a few months back, is also one to give into the road's sirens and whims; he writes: "I drive and drive and I mostly don't find anything that is interesting to me. But then, something calls out." There is possibly no more famous on-the-road photographer than Robert Frank of The Americans who partnered with On the Road writer Jack Kerouac, who wrote the intro to that seminal book.

Why is is that we find these photographers photographing roads again and again and again? The answer, I think, is that they are just like us. And that the road is full of promise—of both lightness and weight—as it brings us simultaneously farther and possibly closer to where we want to be. As Bert writes, "[The road] is both the bridge and the barrier between me and my destiny. It is inviting and defiant at the same time."

During his travels, Frank picks up two mean looking strangers and lets them drive, proving, sharing, affirming, that most of us are more alike than we think—"all [we] want to do is arrow on down the road and get back to the sack." (Jack Kerouac, introduction to Robert Frank's The Americans.) Home, we all want to get home.

Azaruja #1, 23/7/2001 11:58 by Bert Teunissen

Thursday greetings, my long lost collector friends! My re-entry into the urban atmosphere has been admittedly rocky, and for good reason—the Otter and I have spent the last couple of weeks filing sunset reports from the storm swept shores of Amagansett, surrounded by the people we love. Fortunately, there's much goodness to return to, including tomorrow night's opening of Derek Henderson's Mercy Mercer at the gallery—from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., be there!—and today's edition from my favorite dashing Dutchman, Bert Teunissen.

Azaruja #1, 23/7/2001 11:58 is our third release from Bert's ambitious and ongoing Domestic Landscapes series. As Sara wrote yesterday, Bert's covered over 50,000 kilometers of road to document the dwindling populations of rural European residents in their homes. Aperture, publisher of Bert's gorgeous monograph, describes the spaces as "built before the World Wars, before electricity was a standard feature, a time when sunlight played a pivotal role in the conception of architecture." While people are present in all of the photographs, the images that Bert creates are primarily portraits of the places that they occupy—each one an ode to natural daylight, and to a time when its illumination dictated the way a space was built, used and decorated.

The images are heavy with age, the air seemingly infused with a certain thickness. It's easy to imagine the light holding little bits of dust aloft, and in that dust a certain smell: of cooking, of things of dwindling use, of the past. And while it's certainly sad, there is something comforting in its solidity and in the fact that Bert has traveled so long and so far to be sure that what is important and real and disappearing isn't forgotten. This color work is beloved by both critics and fellow photographers, garnering international acclaim. It stands in stark contrast to the also adored, grainy, black and white editions we introduced yesterday, which are more diaristic.

Over the years, Bert has become a good friend, each of us having a chance to show off the hometowns we're so proud of. Whether in tucked-away cafes in NYC or brilliant bookshops in Amsterdam, I've always found time spent with him to be energizing and inspiring. Knowing him as I do, I often try to imagine him at work, in these rooms that he makes portraits of, or traveling on the roads that connect them to each other. The on the road part is a bit easier to imagine—as @OcularOctopus described: "the 'open road' shot is like a photographic 'jazz standard.'" And as Sara wrote, the tradition is thick with the works of Lange, Winogrand, Frank and Hido—also noteworthy are Lee Friedlander's cleverly organized mirrors and windows on view at The Whitney right now. But Bert's pictures have a scrapbook quality—they're more personal and more about him and the process that gets him to the places where he takes these pictures.

With that, I'm going to hit the road myself—see you next week, when we'll be back with new work from two West Coast artists.

Today marked the start of New York's Fall Fashion Week: seven days of non-stop parties, runway shows and models spotted on the subway. But, the couture and the hubbub aren't just behind closed doors—tomorrow, September 10th, is Fashion's Night Out, a global celebration of fashion, the retail industry, and a way for stores to often artfully celebrate patrons—like you—through parties, exhibitions, installations, refreshments and special deals.

In New York, over 800 stores across the boroughs will participate from 6 to 11 p.m., so if you're out and about: walk briskly! Our pick for the evening (aside from Derek Henderson's opening at the gallery, of course) is what's on view at Partners & Spade, Andy Spade's Great Jones Street storefront that's part gallery boutique, part creative consultancy and part cabinet of curiosities.

Spade will be teaming up with fashion label Vena Cava and mobile retail company Subports for Non-Fashion People's Fashion Night Out. They've invited a cast of not-usually-fashion designers—including visual artists of all mediums, a gardener, a boardgame designer, a metal fabricator and a wallpaper designer—to create beautiful objects and wearable items that will be exhibited through Sunday, September 12th and are available to buy by text message.

William Lamson's Automatic Tee

Several 20x200 artists will have works on view, including the Automatic Tee, designed by William Lamson. This limited-edition t-shirt's design was inspired by a contraption Lamson made while in Uruguay. Lamson rigged a drawing tool to a kite and as the kite was carried back and forth by the wind, what emerged was a kinetic explosion of inky black lines. The pattern was screen-printed by hand onto cotton t-shirts in Brooklyn, and are available in several sizes. You can also watch the video Lamson made of his kite-drawing contraption that produced the original design.

Kevin Cyr, whose paintings of iconic and eclectic vehicles we've released as prints over the last few years, has die cast his vans and re-created them in miniature. If you're a fan of his 2-D work, we bet you'll like his 3-D; Cyr's vans will also be on display at the store tomorrow night.

Without further ado, head to Partners & Spade tomorrow evening to catch sight of Kevin and William's creations, then have a gander around the neighborhood to check the evening's many other events.

Fashion's Night Out at Partners & Spade
40 Great Jones St.
September 10th, 2010
6:00 - 9:00 PM

Clothespins by Lisa Congdon

Precisely 253 days ago, Lisa Congdon embarked on a far-reaching and deliciously compulsive year-long project, titled A Collection a Day, for which she arranges and reproduces objects from one of her many, many collections. Most often these are (beautifully) photographed; sometimes they are drawn; and on occasion, she paints them. Lisa vowed to post one of these groupings on her blog, every single day for the duration of 2010, and is well on her way to completing this goal.

As we mentioned back in January, Lisa writes of the project, "Since I was a young girl, I have been obsessed both with collecting and with arranging, organizing and displaying my collections. This is my attempt to document my collections, both the real and the imagined."

It's a project that is very close to our own collector hearts over here at 20x200 and as the year progresses, A Collection a Day never ceases to delight. In recent days she's documented collections of golf tees, vintage food stamps, sewing ephemera, buttons, pendants and bookmarks. Sometimes the collections are budding—two items making a dashing pair—at other times they reveal that Lisa has likely stashed away one object at a time, only to find herself on day 225 with a group of ten beautiful vintage coat hangers. The project has appeared on myriad blogs throughout the year, including a feature just yesterday on NPR’s Picture Show.

It is thus very fitting, and very well-deserved that the project is being made into a book by the fine folks over at Uppercase Publishing. Though the year and Lisa's documentation will eventually come to an end, they'll be preserved in this publication, scheduled for release in Spring 2011. (You can pre-order your very own copy at Uppercase today.)

In the meantime, you can also listen to Collector by Brooklyn band Here We Go Magic, the very fitting song that first came to our minds while browsing Lisa's site. They sing,

I've got a mild fascination for collectors
I've got a mild fascination for collectors
Where'd you find all that time,
a place for everything in the house?
I've got a mild fascination for collectors.

A piece of wood from Noah's Ark,
a thing collected from the start.
And if there is another flood,
your house will float on Noah's wood.

Maurea Marae, from the series Mercy Mercer by Derek Henderson

Welcome, art-lovers, to your regularly scheduled Week In Review, where we dish out our favorite links, and recap the week's events and stories. Here we go!

20x200 News

• Jot this down in your day book (or calendar app.!) and be sure not to miss the opening reception TONIGHT at the JB gallery of Derek Henderson's Mercy Mercer exhibition. The reception will be held from 6-8pm. Henderson's photographs will be on view Saturday, September 11th through Sunday, October 24th, at Jen Bekman Gallery, located at 6 Spring Street, New York, New York. Get a sneak-peek of the show's installation on the gallery blog.
• We're not sure what it is about the end-of-summer/beginning-of-fall, but as soon as that last fleeting three-day weekend of Labor Day comes to an end, our art dance card fills up really fast! This week's long list of openings confirms that for us, with NYC's Fashion Week providing numerous spin-off events, including the Partners & Spade contribution to the Fashion's Night Out celebration. William Lamson and Kevin Cyr will both have works on view; read the full write-up for all the details.
• nota bene: Lamson will also be opening his new solo exhibition A Line Describing the Sun at The Boiler, 191 N. 14th Street, Brooklyn. The reception is also TONIGHT, Friday, September 10th, from 7 to 9 p.m. This new body of work combines performance, video, drawing and sculpture, created in the Mojave Desert earlier this year. This is Lamson's fourth solo exhibition with Pierogi.
• For those on the left coast, we've got things for you to do this weekend, too: This Saturday, September 11th, cartoonists and illustrators will gather at the Charles Schulz Museum to collaborate in a live drawing event in celebration of the 60th anniversary of Peanuts (can you believe Snoopy & Woodstock are 60 years old?! I can't!). Paul Madonna will be there, along with over a dozen other artists. The Charles M. Schulz Museum is at 2301 Hardies Lane, Santa Rosa. Admission is $10 general and $5 for ages 4-18 and 62-plus, and college students with valid ID. For more information, visit SchulzMuseum.org
• Here's a little advance notice on an upcoming exhibition combined with a worthy cause: Trey Speegle will be having a one-night only exhibition and silent auction of his works at Benrimon Contemporary
  , Thursday, September 16th, 6-8PM at 514 W 24th Street, 2nd Floor. A portion of the proceeds from the silent auction will be donated to the Trevor Project, the leading national organization focused on crisis and suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth.
• If you're lucky enough to live in the beautiful Berkshires region, or will be traveling through there this weekend, Sean Greene will be exhibiting his paintings at the Geoffrey Young Gallery, at 40 Railroad Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230. The opening reception is Saturday, September 11th, from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.
• Massachusetts representing! Robert Knight will be exhibiting Sleepless, one of my most uncomfortably favorite bodies of work I've come across this year at the Danforth Museum of Art, in Farmingham, MA. As we wrote earlier this summer, Sleepless is a multimedia work whose end results are portraits of sleepers made over a long period of time—a reconsideration of what it is to rest and what it is for rest to elude us. Knight has said of the work that, "[It] reveals a state of restlessness through the ethereal and translucent bodies which are captured during long-exposure nighttime shots. The resultant images are nighttime narratives—stories of our night's sleep which suggest a contemporary sleep crisis in our society." The images are transfixing and consuming. Knight will be on hand at the opening reception this Sunday, September 12th from 5 to 7 p.m. He will also be giving a lecture on October 24th at 3 p.m. Sleepless will be on view at the Danforth until November 7th. For more information, please visit the Danforth Museum's site.
• Maybe you're jet-setting off to France this weekend. If so, we've got an event for you! Publish It Yourself, an artist's self-publishing event, will be going on just outside of Paris in Nogent-sur-Marne at the Maison d'art Bernard Anthonioz. The event features photographers that have self-published their own work, and will include Geoffrey Ellis, Justin James Reed, Bert Teunissen and Alec Soth among many others (btw: if you haven't seen the new special and limited edition book Broken Manual, four years in the making, that Alec Soth and Lester B. Brown have just released through their self-publishing site, Little Brown Mushroom [in conjunction with Steidl], it's really worth a look. Custom publishing and labors of love at its best).
• Prolific and productive artist Lisa Congdon has less than two weeks to go in her quest to document her collections at the rate of one a day, which she has been cataloging on her blog for the past year. NPR's Picture Show chimed in this week with a feature on the approaching culmination of her project, following Congdon's favorite collections she's shown this year.
• The new issue of FOAM magazine is out, and for their Talent issue they've selected 15 photography portfolios (out of more than 1000 submitted). Luke Stephenson is one of the lucky 15 whose work is featured in their pages.
• Can't a brother get a shout-out? Mike Monteiro's painting I Should Do Drawings Girls Can Pose For is featured prominently in this Dwell slideshow that is otherwise showing off some custom built-in woodwork, but makes no mention of the ironic and imposing art on the wall of the master bedroom. Monteiro thinks it's wonderfully, randomly weird. We do too.

New Editions

Azaruja #1, 23/7/2001 11:58 by Bert Teunissen	Holden by Jacob Escobedo

BG-0006-25A by Bert Teunissen	BG-0004-5 by Bert Teunissen

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

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

Things Happen by Wendy MacNaughton

Fresh out of advertising-land, 20x200 edition-maker and prolific artist Wendy MacNaughton has recently taken to being a full-time artist in San Francisco. We sent Wendy a few questions about what it's like to make that transition, and what she's up to next!

First of all: congratulations on quitting your day job! What made you decide to become a full-time artist?

Thanks—it was a big move for me. Scary and exciting. My job was a great job as far as jobs go, like a little family, and all the work was for a good cause, so it was tough to leave—not only because it was a shift from security to risk, but also I was nervous about leaving a social life for a more reclusive one. But I didn't have a choice really. My artwork had been my priority for a long time, and my day job was not getting the attention it deserved. Towards the end there I was basically working two jobs—I would get up and go to my job from 10-6, then come home, eat dinner, hang out with my girlfriend for an hour, then do my "real work" from 8-1 a.m.

I made the final switch when I had enough commissions, sales and illustration jobs to know I would be okay for a few months, and most important: the timing just felt right. Things were taking on a life of their own—one opportunity leading to the next, and it felt like, "if there is ever a time to do this it is now—and if I don't I will have missed my chance." So to not make the leap because it is scary, well, that would have been a terrible mistake.

I'd like to imagine you roaming around San Francisco by trolley (and other less romantic forms of public transportation, of course) with a drawing pad, pencil case, and a set of keychain watercolors. But what does a typical day actually look like for you these days?

I thought that would be every day, too!

I mean, that is true, I do that, but it's not every day—it's maybe one day a week. When I had my day job there was a structure imposed on me that I had to work within—I was literally on public transport every day, so I had at least 40 minutes of public drawing time every day. Now it is up to me to get myself out into situations to work. I am still learning how to create that structure for myself. mainly, how not to get stuck behind the computer with emails, invoices, marketing, all the stuff that leads to the actual drawing. Not that I don't enjoy that stuff—I do. But it is the exact opposite of making something, headspace-wise. It is a different brain mode for me, and once I start working at the computer, I promise you I am not going to draw. Or at least not very well.

But to answer your question more directly—I wake up later than I used to and check emails in my robe. I draw midday and paint at night—sometimes 'til 1, but that's fine as I can sleep later now. I go to the gym in the evening. I do errands in the afternoon. It is a VERY different life than a 9-5, less regularity, less predicability. But I have always preferred to shift between crazy busy and crazy mellow than to have a steady, plodding pace.

Untitled, from Commuters, 2010, by Wendy MacNaughton

A lot of your subjects so far have been commuters, will you continue commuting now that you're self-employed?

(See above) I've been drawing commuters for almost 5 years. There are other groups of people that I never had the time to explore that I can start to now—some short term projects, some longer term. But I won't stop drawing the commuters. It is such an interesting space to me&mdashthe commute. I'll always be hopping on one train or another, and hopefully in different cities more, too.

What's the hardest part about being an artist?

Remembering to change my clothes? That might be runner-up. Right now the hardest part is balancing all the different types of work I have while still keeping my eye on the direction I want to move in with my work. Not only do I make my own work, but I also do freelance illustration and commissions. I love doing it, it's fun to draw and I like working with people&mdashbut they are very different experiences. The only thing they have in common is that they both require me to draw. And because the illustrations and commissions are a more reliable source of income, and I enjoy the interpersonal side of it, it is easy to get caught up in those jobs and put my own work to the side. Which, of course, takes a toll on my work (and me). So now I am trying to find that balance, which I think is more about behavior than math.

As part of your humanitarian efforts, you've previously designed ad campaigns for non-profits, and produced a film about political elections in Africa. Can you tell us a little more about this aspect of what you do? Does this feed back into your work?

Absolutely it does. I have a curiosity about all different types of people, how people think, how they live, why they feel the way they feel, and why they do what they do. My degree was in social work, and I think the ethos of empathy and self-determination are integral in everything I do. I approach people through drawing with a little bit of a social work lens, a little bit ethnography, a little bit voyeur, and a lot of appreciation...so whereas I might not work directly as a social worker or on specifically social or political projects, I hope the work I do still brings up the important issues and question grappled with in the field.

A lot of your work incorporates writing. Do you ever write without drawing or draw without writing? What's the relationship there like?

Drawing is how I experience a feeling related to a person or a place&mdashit literally allows me to work through the subject&mdashand writing is how I put a meaning or narrative to that feeling. I do sometimes draw and without writing for sure, though I haven't written without drawing in a while. Maybe I should try.

There Are So Many Things I Would Be Doing if I Didn't Work in Advertising, from Commuters, 2008 by Wendy MacNaughton

Your recent projects have included some fast-paced artmaking in conjunction with Longshot Magazine, guest-illustrating for Gizmodo, and an installation at ShoeBiz in San Francisco. What's next for you?

Those projects were so fun and the people at those places are all so great. Right now, I have a couple commission jobs with non-profits (TechSoup Global and the California Women's Foundation) which is great, I'm drawing a shirt for Gizmodo (their first!) and painting a website (The Scuttlefish), and I'm working on a couple pieces for 20x200(!). A chinese fashion magazine, Vision, is running a story on my work, which is fun and Katie from Juxtapoz (who we all love) is coming over for a studio visit in the next couple weeks. Also, I am also starting a monthly visual column in the literary journal The Rumpus, which will be a new adventure in narrative for me. I started working on it a week ago. The first piece will be on the motley crew of chess players at Market and 6th Street in Downtown SF. Wish me luck.

A huge thanks to Wendy for taking the time to answer our questions! You can learn more about the artist herself (and take home a print) at Wendy's 20x200 Artist Page and website, and keep up with her drawing adventures over at her blog.

Drawings for Longshot Magazine, 2010, by Wendy MacNaughton

This month's Lucky Magazine Shopping Report picks 20x200 as a favorite affordable online art resource. Featuring James Griffioen's Feral House #13, their list directs shoppers to several of the trendiest web stores around.

This Griffioen edition is selling out quickly, but sign up for the 20x200 mailing list 'cause (hint hint), there may be another in the works.

Primos by Robert Garcia

Hi collectors, it's Sara this morning. A couple months ago, we introduced our first edition from Robert Garcia. Today, we're following up with its sibling print: Primos.

Like We Are Who We Are, writing and thinking about Primos surfaces sweet nostalgia—for seemingly endless days spent running around outside, in various stages of costume, dress or undress, whatever the game of the moment called for. And also, slightly unsettling muddles—where were we? Why did we think that? What exactly were we doing? Like my own memories, the details in Robert's paintings are limited but specific. Colors, items of clothing and individuals are rendered but the environment in which the events of the day took place, as well as whatever is about to happen, or has happened, is unclear.

What we choose to remember and what we choose to forget are both augmented and disputed by who was there with us—cousins, siblings, friends. Robert's works are alternately bright and sharp and dull and soft, fusing both the present and the past—the people documented the most precisely. The rest of the information falls off at the periphery, following the same panoramic sweep of the eyelids. The invented and imagined, the real and fabricated, the stuff that becomes myths and legends is documented and somehow remembered, retold and shared.

Like Bert Teunissen's quest to record the light of his childhood home and preserve, on film, the architecture of pre-WWII Europe and Clare Grill's recognition that what was can never be again, and her paintings of what was in spite of that, this looking back might be what keeps us moving forward.

For collectors looking to decorate, Elle Décor suggests shopping at 20x200! In this piece, the folks at Elle Décor highlight just how simple it can be to find affordable artwork both by emerging and museum-caliber artists on sites like ours:

Works are typically offered in three or four sizes and priced accordingly--great for those with space or budget constraints. In many cases, $20 will buy you a small print from a run of 200, as the titular formula suggests.

Mike Sinclair's Las Vegas, Nevada, November 2000, which is featured in the slideshow, is one such work. As Elle describes, Las Vegas, Nevada, November 2000 is indeed available in four different sizes and a variety of price ranges. Pick one up and start quelling your decorating needs today.

The Amsterdam-based photography publication (and exhibition space) Foam has just released a new issue of their quarterly magazine: #24/TALENT. For this, the editors sought submissions from young, emerging photographers, and—after receiving work from over a thousand artists—selected just 15 for inclusion in this edition.

Luke Stephenson, (whose photograph just so happens to be featured on the magazine’s cover!) is one of these artists, and he is in good company. From Issue #24’s release announcement:

This special Talent issue is the result of our call to young, talented photographers to send us their work. For the editors, an important criterion was: to what extent does a photograph add something to that which already exists and to what degree are we touched by it because it is unfamiliar, provocative or challenging? After an intensive process of looking, judging and sifting, fifteen out of more than a thousand portfolios remained. We agreed not only that they were the best, but that it would be possible to use them to create a powerful issue of the magazine.

You can see the complete list of the chosen photographers, and a gorgeous selection of images from the issue online here and also order your very own hard-copy here).

What's more: if you are lucky enough to find yourself gallivanting about Europe these days (hey, it’s the Venice Biennale!) or if you just happen to be in Amsterdam this weekend, make sure you stop by the issue launch party this Saturday, September 18th, from 3:15-6:00 p.m. (but don’t forget to RSVP first!) It will include artist interviews and an introduction to the issue, not to mention drinks and socializing!

The Details:
Foam Magazine: #24/TALENT Launch at Breda's Museum
Saturday, September 18th, 3:15-6:00 p.m.
Parade 12 / 14 – Chassépark, Amsterdam

Brides Magazine, a monthly guide for the bride-to-be, ranks 20x200 as one of the most original gifts for guys.

We have to agree that an edition from 20x200 is a great way to wow groomsmen. Whether your Best Man is a sportsman, a foodie or a geek, we have editions to suit both his interests and his wall space.

All Over Coffee #508, 07 11 10, Buenos Aries by Paul Madonna

On top of producing two weekly strips – one for The San Francisco Chronicle and one for theRumpus.net, Paul Madonna has been keeping himself awfully busy. This past Saturday he joined fifteen other comic artists in a fun, interactive draw-a-thon at Santa Rosa’s Charles Schulz Museum, in honor of Peanuts’ 60th anniversary.

This week sees an exhibition of his work, titled All Over Coffee and Creative Practice, up at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, (on view September 10 – November 5, 2010). What's more, Paul will be giving a public talk about his creative process in conjunction with the show, at the club on September 23rd (tickets for the event can be purchased here).

Paul’s also got original drawings from his first ALBUM Collection on view at the nifty San Fran Café, Ritual Roasters (team JBP's West Coast coffee shop of choice), a fitting venue for his work, given the title of his strip for The Chronicle: "All Over Coffee". If you're in the Bay Area, be sure to swing by any or all of these events in the coming weeks!

The Details:
1. All Over Coffee and Creative Practice
Exhibition on view: September 10 – November 5, 2010
Artist talk: Thursday, September 23rd at 6:00 p.m.
The Commonwealth Club
595 Market Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco CA

2. Original drawings at Ritual Roasters
1026 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA

Over on the HHS! blog last week, we got to brag about Spring 2005 Hot Shot Rachel Sussman's TED talk on her ambitious project The Oldest Living Things In the World. Watching Sussman eloquently present her research, findings and artwork, we were struck by the (re-)realization of how our own creativity, wonder, and aesthetic sensibilities can be piqued and informed by the TED talks, an amazing (and free!) resource.

If you're anything like me, your RSS feed reader haunts you with unread posts. Ditto on the Instapaper app, your subscription podcast lists, your 43 things, and countless other higher-self, time-saving developments that sometimes serve to create more anxiety in what else I didn't get to that week than alleviate it. So I'm going to make things simple for you. Bookmark this, read it now, send it to yourself in an email, whatever will make you eventually sit down with this post with your headphones on (or what-you-will), and listen to these modern day sages hold court. Trust me, it's worth your while. I give you, dear reader, a totally subjective but art-ified Top Ten TED list:

Maira Kalman: The Illustrated Woman
It's no secret that many of us at JBP HQ have a love for the stream-of-conscious metaphor-making art that Kalman is famous for. In this talk centered on the theme of "simplicity," she begins with the seemingly simple statement that, "I'm trying to figure out two very simple things: How to live and how to die. Period. That's all I'm trying to do, all day long."

Olafur Eliasson: Playing With Space and Light
This master of spatial experience gives a lecture that at moments seems like continental philosophy, at others like you've wandered into an ethics course. The ethics of the art-maker. An excerpt:

How do we configure the relationship between our body and space? How do we reconfigure it? How do we know when being in a space makes a difference? It's about Why? rather than How? The "why" means really: What consequences does it have when I take a step? Does it matter? Does it matter if I am in the world or not? Does it matter whether the actions that I take filter into a sense of responsibility? Is art about that? I would say yes.

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Genius

Unless you've recently woken up from a decade-long sleep, you've probably heard of, and have an opinion on, the work and quick rise to fame of author Elizabeth Gilbert. Whatever your opinion on her best-selling memoir is, this talk is not about that (not really), and is a wonderful meditation on what it is to quell the creative demons both within and without in the ongoing battle of trying to maintain a creative life. Her historical semantic lessons on the meaning of the word are worth the price of admission alone.

Stefan Sagmeister: The Power of Time Off
What's so revolutionary about this talk is that it is a call to a reordering of our values, where we actually act to value our time at least as much as our money. He asks that we wonder aloud (and perhaps act upon) the questions: Is what we are doing with the majority of our time a job, a career or a calling? And does one manage to get from one to the other, if one so desires? This is a great discussion on what it takes to self-regenerate. (Ignore the comments that descend into a discussion of class warfare at the end of this talk.)

Dan Barber: A Surprising Foie Gras Parable
This is my very favorite TED talk. In the spirit of the talk above, it's about how to re-order one's thinking and by doing so, re-order one's value set and personal vision in a way that rings considered and true. Someone send this talk to me on Facebook right after I spent my honeymoon in Montreal consuming vast quantities of foie gras. I didn't click on this link for a month because I thought it was going to be a tsk-tsk lecture on the horrible realities of foie gras production. I was very very wrong and this talk is transcendentally good. And very funny. Don't make the same mistake I did!

Full disclosure time: Because, like you, I am a busy bee, I have not had time to actually listen to all the TED talks on my short-lsit. But I've bookmarked them! And I plan to come back to them! Because there are something on the order of over 500 of these incredible little gems of wisdom provoking things in me that need to be provoked. So I've resolved to "make" myself listen to them so I can make room for more. My Ted To-Do list of my remaining five are after the jump. I'd love to read your favorites and suggestions in the comments, if you're a devoted TEDster or one, like me, who does what she can.

Vik Muniz: Making Art With Wire and Sugar

Edward Burtinsky: Manufactured Landscapes

Raghava KK: Five lives of an artist

Rob Forbes: On Ways of Seeing

Taryn Simon: Photographing Secret Sites

Grassy Girl by Tierney Gearon

Happy Tierney Gearon Thursday collectors! It's Sara today, presenting Grassy Girl. Grab your print now! I highly recommend you pick up at least an 11"x14"—there's a lot going on in this image and it's evermore present, tangible, as the picture gets bigger.

You all had a chance to check out her story yesterday. Discovered by a European modeling scout early on, jet-setting around the world, and eventually launching into art-stardom—Tierney is spinning and glowing, unstoppable. From the outside in, it all sounds terribly glamorous. But beneath that seeming perfection is someone whose creativity has been shaped by challenges and disappointments and who is also refreshingly forthcoming about the lows that shadow the highs—falling in love and the subsequent heart-breaking divorce, the joy of being a parent and the difficulty of doing it on her own (with no small amount of noise from the peanut gallery), and confronting her manic-depressive, schizophrenic mother—Tierney is human.

Vulnerable but buoyant and resilient, she's moved through all of this, creating critically-acclaimed and often controversial work: I Am a Camera, which features her children, The Mother Project, a frank exploration of her emotional journey with her own mother, and Explosure. One part reality, two parts fantasy, Explosure is created with in-camera double exposures; the images carry Tierney's bright colors and chaos, conflating people—lovers, mothers and offspring—and places—implying travel while putting here and there on the same plane. Children become adults, adults become children, the organic and man-made collide. The images, ephemeral and surreal, are, as she says, "a celebration of a world that is crashing and blossoming at the same time."

The edges of this world are raw and salted, sometimes sharply disturbing. But they exist in the embrace that everything is always changing, we are covering great distances—geographic, psychological and emotional—between the people we love the most, and most often misunderstand, perpetually unsettled in time, place and state. Grassy Girl is a modern day Dorothy, brazen and confident, basking—there's no place like here.

the cover of Longshot Magazine

In a recent Week In Review post, we mentioned the release of the first issue of Longshot Magazine – a new(ish) and noteworthy publication co-founded by Mathew Honan, Alexis Madrigal and Sarah Rich. Now, a closer peek into what's on those pages:

Formed under the precept that an entire magazine could be created, compiled and printed, all in a single weekend, the first issue was published in May 2010 under its original title, 48Hr Mag. Its makers, however, were forced to change the name of the magazine by CBS, who produces a television program of the same name (you can read the full story of the lawsuit on the NY Times blog). It is entirely fitting then, that for its new incarnation as (the more poetically-dubbed) Longshot Magazine, the title and theme of the issue is “Comeback”.

For this issue, the creators sent out a virtual call for submissions, and were overwhelmed by the response—more than 500 writers, artists and general creative types—both well-known and more obscure, sent in work. From the magazine’s website:

Over a 48 hour period from noon August 27, 2010, through noon August 29, 2010, hundreds of writers, editors, artists, photographers, programmers, videographers, and other creatives from all around the world came together via the Internet, and in offices in Los Angles, Portland, and San Francisco to make a magazine and build this website, from start to finish.

Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton, "the drive to GOOD magazine's offices in LA (our hosts for the making of issue one.)"

The result is an unpredictable and ceaselessly entertaining assortment of articles, stories, drawings and miscellany, and features the work of Wendy MacNaughton, (who graced us with a terrific catch-up interview earlier this week). Works by author (and JBP friend) Alissa Walker and VIP Choire Sicha of The Awl also appear in the publication.

During the 48 hour period, Wendy created illustrated documentation of everything from driving to the offices of GOOD magazine where they produced the first issue, and the bleary-eyed faces of the editors crouched behind their macs.

Illustration by Wendy MacNaughton who notes, "proper diet of pop chips, pizza, ice cream sandwiches, beer and coffee."

You can read selected articles from the first issue here (and see the complete list of contributors here). A couple telling examples include the "Which Celebrity Comeback Are You?" quiz, and an essay celebrating butter’s recent return to popularity, titled “This Isn’t Why You’re Fat”. If you like what you read, you can also order your very own print copy (with all the pictures!) from MagCloud.

I Win, You Lose, 2009 by Robert Garcia

Welcome back to the Week In Review, our weekly dish recapping the best art events and links for your reading pleasure. Let's get started!

20x200 News

• 20x200 artist meet up! Lauren DiCioccio and Paho Mann have been curated together in Scatter & Heap, a two-person show at the Sheppard Gallery in Reno, Nevada. Mann will be at the closing reception on September 23. The exhibition runs through September 24, 2010. More information at the gallery site.
• Connecting sound and sight, Eirik Johnson will be exhibiting images shot in the Peruvian Amazon with stereo audio recordings made in situ at the ICA in Boston as a part of the 2010 Foster Prize exhibition. Johnson will be speaking about his work on November 21, 2010, and a preview of what is on display can be viewed here. The show runs from September 22, 2010 through January 17, 2011. More information available at ICA.
• Our 5th Curator's Choice Award, selected by Alec Soth, was announced this week. Contender Glen Erler was the lucky recipient of The Little Brown Mushroom Lovepack, consisting of some rare and out-of-print publications and a LBM t-shirt. Congratulations, Glen!
• Speaking of keeping your eye on the prize, the HHS! judging panel met yesterday for a marathon session of reviewing over 6000 photographs! Winners will be announced at the end of next month, and we will continue to feature contenders over on the HHS! blog till then.
• Christina Muraczewski received some critical praise in the LA Times this week, for a painting featured in the 2010 Los Angeles Juried Exhibition. Christopher Knight writes that this painting, "establishes a Rorschach test of subjective perception."
• Paul Madonna is keeping busy with multiple exhibitions, drawing events and lectures about his work and creative practice. Read about what he's been up to and where to see his newest work.
• In a creative slump? Pull yourself out of the doldrums by watching our pick of the Top Ten TED Talks, selected for their emphasis on art, the creative process and re-orienting of self and values.
• And if you're looking for a little inspiration closer to home, read all about an artist taking the leap of quitting her day job and going creative full-time, in this completely engaging interview that Casey Gollan conducted with Wendy MacNaughton.
• Wendy is also part of the first issue of Longshot Magazine, now out, which sourced over 5,000 virtual submissions from creative types from all over the world and edited them down into a publication over the course of 48 hours.
• JBP's Youngna Park is featured in a new publication by Lines & Shapes titled Brooklyn Diary, which takes a look into the daily lives of twenty-one Brooklyn artists.
• Got writing skills? Love art? We're hiring a copywriter over here at JBP HQ. If you're interested, send your resume and cover letter to jobs@jenbekmanprojects.com with the subject line: “Copywriter, Last Name, First Name.”

New Editions

Grassy Girl by Tierney Gearon	Primos by Robert Garcia

That's it for this week, folks! See anything that we missed? Reply to @20x200 on Twitter or Facebook!

Early Morning Rain Breaks in Palm Grove, Blanquillo, 13.20 minutes exposure, 2008-2009, by Eirik Johnson

Eirik Johnson will be exhibiting a new photographic and sound-based installation as part of the 2010 Foster Prize exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, opening this Wednesday. The 2010 biennial exhibition includes nine finalists—Robert de Saint Phalle, Eirik Johnson, Fred Liang, Rebecca Meyers, Matthew Rich, Daniela Rivera, Evelyn Rydz, Amie Siegel and Steve Tourlentes—one of which will be selected to receive a $25,000 award.

The ICA writes:

The artists selected for the 2010 Foster Prize offer a wide-ranging view of the art being created in the Boston area today. Showcasing and celebrating work in our own community has been an integral aspect of the ICA’s exhibition program since the prize’s inception in 1999.

This year, the biennial award show takes a new, expanded format, featuring work by nine artists. The exhibition, including sculpture, installation, film, video, painting, drawing and photography, culminates in the selection of the Foster Prize recipient in January 2011.

While Eirik's installation surely requires your presence for the full effect, he has posted this virtual preview of the images paired with their ambient soundtracks:

Excerpts from Installation "Madre de dios" by Eirik Johnson  

Eirik writes:

The installation consists of several large-scale light boxes which illuminate photographs from the Peruvian Amazon. During the long photographic exposures, I would simultaneously record the ambient sound at the same locations. As each light box gradually illuminates for the duration of its exposure, the sound from that image is amplified throughout the installation space as well.

You can see more work by Eirik at his website and purchase Eirik's edition on 20x200.

2010 Foster Prize
September 22, 2010 - January 17, 2011
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston
100 Northern Avenue
Boston, MA

Note: On Sunday, November 21, Eirik will be speaking about the work at the ICA.

prettymaps (sfba) by Aaron Straup Cope

Greetings from the West, collector friends! I write to you from my second city of San Francisco, which is fitting, considering it's both the subject of today's edition and the happy home of its makers. As long-time subscribers know, I spend a lot of time in the Bay Area and like it that way. Living here in the 90s was formative and it's a place that continues to inspire the tech-centric entrepreneurial side of my Jekyl & Hyde / art & tech existence. Its community of creative technologists is dismantling the wall that exists between the two, as exemplified by today's edition, prettymaps (sfba) by Aaron Straup Cope, produced in association with Stamen, an innovative studio founded by my long-time friend (and high school classmate!) Eric Rodenbeck.

We live in a time of big (huge!) data; Stamen was among the first to recognize that all this data can be beautiful and has made a name for itself by creating stunning, often interactive, visualizations of complex datasets. Their vision was endorsed by MoMA, when Paola Antonelli included Cabspotting in their history-making Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition. As Stamen was making a name for itself in the art and tech worlds, Aaron was making some ground-breaking of his own in the engineering group at Flickr, doing amazing things with photographs and mapping data. prettymaps is the product of the convergence of not just data, but talent and what a beautiful result! With beauty comes understanding—by making data beautiful, a path is cleared into an overwhelming and often intimidating barrage of information.

This edition is particularly exciting to me because it's a MAP and maps are something that we're really nuts about.* What exactly are prettymaps made of? They're made of you! When you visit prettymaps.stamen.com, what you're seeing is an amalgamation of community-generated data. It draws from things like Flickr Shapefiles, which are Flickr's geo-tagged photos plotted out (there are lots and lots, like, tens of millions) and road, highway and path data collected by Open Street Map.

Today's SF map is the first in a series from Aaron. You can count on seeing prints documenting our favorite cities released in the coming weeks, and that's just the start of it! Our editions past also evidence our affections for making sense, and sometimes nonsense, of information: Stefanie Posavec's dismantling of Walter Benjamin, Chad Hagen's Nonsensical Infographics and even Wendy MacNaughton's attempt to turn emotions into parse-able pieces. We're information junkies when it comes down to it, and our aesthetic addiction is well-evidenced in the editions we're queuing up for the balance of the year.

Tomorrow, we'll turn our attention back to what's happening in my ancestral home of NYC, with a pair of editions by Derek Henderson, whose gorgeous exhibition Mercy Mercer is currently on view at JBG. We'll also have news of some upcoming excitement that'll help all of you living near art—the sort that's unframed and sitting in envelopes—to start living with it, framed and up on your walls!

*We've been drooling over The Map as Art at 20x200 HQ. The book features the work of more than a couple artists we're crazy about, including a not-to-be-named (yet!) legendary artist/designer we're working with to bring editions to you.

Paddy Johnson, friend of JBP and the illustrious editor of Art Fag City - recently initiated a very exciting Kickstarter campaign, with the ultimate goal of producing an album comprised of a variety of New York art sounds. Fittingly titled The Sound of Art, she describes the project as such:

For the past five years I’ve been looking at art and writing about what I see. But I’ve also been listening. Does art have a distinctive sound? Sometimes I think I could be in a remote cabin in Maine, and still instantly recognize the sound of an art video or a performance piece. Yet the things I hear in galleries and performance spaces don’t seem to share any formal qualities – they run the gamut from noise to melody, recitation to wordless grunts…The Sound of Art is a limited edition vinyl LP composed of sounds heard in New York galleries, museums, and project spaces over the last five years. Inspired by classic DJ battle records, it features forty tracks of diverse sounds culled from art video, performance footage, and kinetic sculptures. This is not an easy listening record. It's an audio document and a tool to create new sounds and new work.

For this particular project, Paddy has sweetened the deal by offering a number of contribution incentives – for starters, if you put in $20, you get a copy of The Sound of Art once it’s completed. Larger pledges beget larger rewards, including, but not limited to: tickets to the album's launch party, studio visits and gallery tours, original art and personalized haikus (!) by Paddy herself.

Now, a few words about Kickstarter for the unfamiliar: it's an innovative means by which anyone with a great idea can potentially realize creative projects that might otherwise be intimidating or even impossible, from a financial standpoint. Back in June, we wrote in-depth about how it functions as an excellent funding platform for creative types, and about a number of artists' specific endeavors including Kevin Cyr's Camper Kart and Rachel Sussman's The Oldest Living Things in the World, which both successfully reached their financial goals.

You can learn more about The Sound of Art, the many artists involved, watch a sample video and make a pledge on the project's Kickstarter page. If you like the look (sorry, sound) of Paddy’s dream LP, contribute to the project and help her make it a reality! And, act fast: there are only two weeks left to become a backer for this fantastic project.

Motukakho Island by Derek Henderson

Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm by Derek Henderson

We've been obsessing about Derek Henderson's photographs since he entered Hey, Hot Shot! in 2008, winning a spot in the group exhibition that year. After the show, Kevin Simmons, Leanne Hema and Troy Burton, Reid's Farm hung in our then teeny-tiny office, attracting everyone's attention and affection. Unable to get the work out of our heads and hearts, Jen, Jeffrey and I began plotting Derek's NYC solo debut, meeting with him over the winter, gushing over Mercy Mercer, the book, in its solemn, gray, linen-bound glory, and charting the dates. Two Fridays ago, Mercy Mercer, the exhibition featuring twelve color photographs, opened amid friends and fans at the JBG. And finally, today, I (it's Sara) have the pleasure of introducing all of you to Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm and Motukakaho Island. Our celebration is in full swing!

Both images are from the book (Motukakaho Island is also on view at the gallery). It opens with a series of landscapes and interiors; the first person we are introduced to is a blind girl. Without gloating, without being unkind or crass, the portrait suggests the good fortune we have to be gazing at these photos, and in a larger sense, at the world in general. It's closely sequenced with the sister image to Motukakaho Island, an almost overwhelming, crowded frame of fragrant hydrangeas, serving (I think) as a reminder that looking at these photographs engages all of the senses--sight does not operate alone.

On seeing it, I was terribly disappointed that I either couldn't remember or didn't know what hydrangeas smelled like--even after spending four years in the Pacific Northwest where they are abundant--but the image embedded itself, a rich replacement for my lack of memory. Other scents are rife throughout the book: woodsmoke, drifting from campfires--or in Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm, a stove--and the smell of damp, mossy air.

The water--as it dissolves above the river, cools wading feet, condenses on grass, mists over edges and sparkles through narrow passages, is omnipresent. In a way, it echoes Derek--or maybe it's the other way around--Derek follows the water's lead, as a sort of unobtrusive narrator. It imparts the feeling that the narrator is omniscient, presenting everything, all the details, for us to absorb through sight, sound, smell, touch and taste--as if taking these photos too, was a task for all of Derek's senses.

With that I'll leave you till next week. We'll be back with more news about the quickly approaching Affordable Art Fair in NYC. As Jen mentioned, we have lots of good stuff in store for all of you who are in dire need of getting your art up on your walls. Mark your calendars for the following Saturday and Sunday, October 2nd and 3rd--more details soon!

Do you need an inspired idea for a last minute holiday? Have you always wanted to take up painting, but never found the time? Do we have a suggestion for you!

Amidst a flurry of activity that includes the daily documentation of her numerous and extensive collections, and a subsequent soon-to-be-published book about this very project (both of which we've written about recently),
Lisa Congdon has somehow managed to make time in her busy schedule to lead a 3-day/4-night retreat and painting workshop for Angela Ritchie’s ACE Camps. It is to be held at the magical-looking Whisper Canyon Ranch in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, this coming October 7th – 11th. The workshop is titled It’s What You See that Matters (a quote from the ultimate nature-lover, Henry David Thoreau).

From the ACE Camps website:

Join Lisa to explore how to create your own paintings of the natural world—as you see it—through your own distinct vantage point. Lisa will lead the group in exercises designed both to help participants see the idiosyncrasies in the natural world and to draw and paint them in their own unique ways. Participants will learn to recognize and honor their own personal perspectives and translate them into their paintings and drawings.

Break-Through Miami, a new site-specific installation by Valerie Hegarty, employs a trompe l'oeil painting aesthetic that reverses the flat gallery space into a vibrant rendering of the Miami landscape and architecture directly outside its walls. Hegarty applies thousands of layers of painted fragile materials (paper, foamcore, glue, etc.) to the walls and floors and then alters them—ripping and removing—until she achieves her desired effect. This painstakingly detailed process is one that she's developed a reputation for—a technique she calls "reverse archaeology."

Installation view of Break-Through Miami by Valerie Hegarty

Old building architecture and nature coalesce in the installation. Three-dimensional native sea fowl lend a heightened sense of reality to the crumbling brick and peeling paint Hegarty creates, providing viewers extra opportunity to explore and interact with Hegarty's creation.

The gallery, Locust Projects, writes of Hegarty and the installation:

Informed by the current turbulent state of our country while also excavating from America’s past, Hegarty turns the gallery into a dramatic place of change. Often informed by the existing architecture and collaging onto the original structure, Hegarty creates the illusion of an environment under transition or altogether forgotten. Hegarty collapses exterior and interior space with the finesse of the artist’s hand and calls into question the stability of the institution. The viewer is left to ponder the gallery’s altered interior and the veracity of the transformation.

Hegarty interacting with her Break-Through Miami installation

If you’re lucky enough to be in the Miami area, don’t miss out on the chance to stop by Locust Projects to see Hegarty’s installation, which runs until October 16th, 2010.

Valerie Hegarty's Break-Through Miami
On View: September 11th – October 16th, 2010
Locust Projects
155 NE 38th Street, Suite 100
Miami, FL 33137

Hegarty's edition, First Harvest in the Wilderness with Pileated Woodpecker, is also still available at 11"x14" size on 20x200.

Aaron Straup Cope's latest 20x200 edition, prettymaps (sfba) is right on-trend, according to Bay area mag 7x7. His map uses an aerial perspective that's intended to disorient viewers; he says of the project:

I'd like to generate map tiles that give you that same dizzy feeling you get when you look down at a city at night, from an airplane. We've spent so long fussing over the relentless details in cartography that we've sort of forgotten what things (should) look like at a distance.

And it's not just the folks over at 7x7 who are digging this bright map; our collectors are intrigued too! There are less than 25 8"x10" editions left, so pick one up today!

video still from A Line Describing the Sun, 2010, by William Lamson

Welcome, art-minded alike souls, back to the Week In Review, where we dish out the week's best art-related links and events for your happy consumption. We've got a lot on the menu this week:

20x200 News

• A little bit of advance notice on where to catch 20x200 in action: We'll have all hands on deck at NYC's Affordable Art Fair next weekend. We'll be hosting a 20x200 Pop-Up Frame Shop Saturday, October 2nd and Sunday, October 3rd, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We'll be posting more information on the blog, but if you're not already signed up for our newsletter, it's the best place to stay on top of our comings, goings and new edition releases.
• Prolific and environmentally mindful artist William Lamson has been enjoying a lot of positive press for his latest work, A Line Describing the Sun, currently on view through Pierogi's artist-run gallery located at The Boiler. Make sure to read the piece in the Huffington Post for a peek into what it is about Lamson's work that is leaving them all slack-jawed.
• Fernanda Cohen will be having a retrospective of her work at the Consulate General of Argentina Art Gallery from November 4-24th, 2010. The opening reception will be November 4th from 6-8pm.
• One of our favorite eyes-on-New York artists, Joseph O. Holmes will have work on view at the Capture Brooklyn photo exhibition at the Powerhouse Arena. The exhibition will be on view now through October 15th.
• Greg Lindquist will be having an exhibition, Odes (to the present forgotten), at the Ober Gallery in Kent, CT from October 2-28th. The opening reception is Sat, Oct 2, from 4-7 pm. A catalog will also be available. Lindquist also has work in a group show Planet of Slums, curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud and La Toya Frazier, at Mason Gross Galleries, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ from Sept 24-Oct 23, opening reception: Wed Oct 6, 5-7 p.m.
• Our ears were burning a bit from this happy plug we received from Annie Pauza, founder of Decorator in a Box. Happy to stop hanging up dime-a-dozen reproductions, Pauza boasts that 20x200 makes it possible for her to finally have an art collection of her own. We couldn't agree more—thanks for telling your readers about us!
• Not that we're prognosticators or anything, but we were pretty thrilled to read that Blurb's Photography Book Now awards selected three artists for prizes that are either 20x200 artists or were featured contenders in this round of Hey, Hot Shot! Contender Judith Stenneken took the top prize for her work on the closing of Berlin's Tempelhof airport, Last Call, and Emily Shur placed both as a first runner-up and an honorable mention for her works The Woods and Shizenkan. Our first-curator award winner, Phil Underdown, also claimed a first-runner up award for his book project Grassland. Congratulations to all, and stay tuned for the announcement next month of the 2010 Hot Shots!
• Valerie Hegarty is working her tromp l'oeil magic in a site-specific installation, Break-Through Miami at the Locust Projects gallery space in Miami. The show runs through October 16th, 2010.
• Ever want to take an art-related vacay? Lisa Congdon provides you with just that opportunity this October as she leads a 3-day/4-night painting workshop at a ranch in Oregon. Full details on the blog.

• Art Fag City's Paddy Johnson is on Kickstarter, with her project proposal Sound of Art: "...a limited edition vinyl LP composed of sounds heard in New York galleries, museums, and project spaces over the last five years." Read more about it and how to make a donation in our post.

New Editions

Motukakaho Island by Derek Henderson	Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm by Derek Henderson	prettymaps (sfba) by Aaron Straup Cope

The Affordable Art Fair 2010 is coming to NYC this weekend. It seemed like a great place for us to connect with collectors who will get excited about our whole "art for everyone" mission, so we've cooked up quite a presence for 20x200 at this NYC event. If you're in the tri-state area this weekend we'd love to see you. The chance to see your favorite 20x200 prints live and in person, all framed up and pretty, is reason enough to make a beeline for Booth E-200, but there's more! So much more! We're hosting a series of presentations and our pop-up framing shop will be making its grand debut.

Plus, friends of 20x200 (that means you!) get $5 off AAF admission (tickets are regularly $20). Get your discounted tickets here.

Here's where to find us:

20x200 at The Affordable Art Fair
The fun starts TOMORROW, Wednesday, September 29th, and continues through the weekend–Saturday, October 2 and Sunday, October 3.
7 West 34th Street
11th Floor Market Suites
Booth E-200 (scroll to the bottom for a map!)

There's so much to cover that we'll break it down into sections:

GREAT ART TO BROWSE (AND TAKE HOME)

We went through our archives and plucked prints from a wide range of 20x200 artists, which we've had professionally framed. See something you like? Take it home!

We'll be showing (and selling) work by: Clare Grill, Bert Teunissen, Carlo Van De Roer, Christian Chaize, Don Hamerman, Greg Allen, Hosang Park, Jane Mount, Jason Jagel, Jennifer Sanchez, Jeremy Kohm, Jessica Snow, Jonathan Lewis, Kent Rogowski, Kevin Cyr, Lauren DiCioccio, Michael Lundgren, Michelle Hinebrook, Mickey Smith, Penelope Umbrico, Sharon Montrose, Stefan Ruiz, Wendy MacNaughton and William Powhida.

20x200 TALKS

We'll also be hosting five talks in our space about the 20x200 story as well as practical advice for collecting and living with art.

Live With Art
Date: Friday, October 1 at 7pm
Speaker: Jen Bekman
Summary: Jen will be giving a personal talk about why she started 20x200. She'll also share some of our best 20x200 stories from a wide range of collectors.

Get Your Art On
Dates: Saturday, October 2 at 3pm + Sunday, October 3 at 3pm
Speaker: Jen Bekman
Summary: Jen will be talking about alternative ways to learn about and buy art—including, of course, the abundance of great resources available on the internet, as well as more personalized services.

Finishing the Picture: The Basics of Framing and Hanging
Dates: Saturday, October 2 at 1pm + Sunday, October 3 at 1pm
Speaker: Jeffrey Teuton
Summary: Jeffrey, Associate Director of Jen Bekman Gallery, will share his knowledge on framing and hanging artwork. He'll have a variety of examples on hand and will demonstrate installation techniques and offer tips on how to organize and save money when approaching a big art-hanging project.

20x200 POP-UP FRAME SHOP

** If you will be at the fair, we have just a few spots left for our framing pop-up shop, which is by reservation only. You can reserve a spot here and we'll be in touch to confirm your appointment. **

How many 20x200 prints do you have that you've never managed to get up on the wall that are, instead, sitting in a drawer? (Don't be ashamed! Some of us are guilty as well.) To remedy this we're running an affordable framing pop-up shop. Make an appointment and bring in your 8x10 and 11x14 20x200 prints and you'll leave with art that's ready to hang on your walls. We'll be offering high-quality, black, wooden frames, fitted with glass and custom archival mats, cut on site for your prints.

You'll also get a one-on-one consultation as we assemble everything for you, hopefully imparting some helpful tips along the way. The whole package is a steal: $45 per 8x10 print and $70 per 11x14 print. Plus, we've arranged for everyone with a framing appointment to get free admission to the fair.

Fill out our form to schedule your appointment--it will be fun and fast--a matter of minutes per print!

Select a one-hour slot between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m on Saturday, October 2nd or Sunday, October 3rd and we'll have time to frame up to five prints together. Unfortunately, we have limited space; appointments will be filled on a first come, first served basis, so book today--don't delay! We'll be in touch to confirm your appointment and will look forward to seeing you soon.

WHERE TO FIND US

20x200 at The Affordable Art Fair
TOMORROW, Wednesday, September 29th–Saturday, October 2 + Sunday, October 3
7 West 34th Street
11th Floor Market Suites
Booth E-200

Here's a map of where to find us in Booth E-200:

prettymaps (la) by Aaron Straup Cope

California dreaming greetings, friends! It's Sara with our second edition from the prettymaps series, prettymaps (la) by Aaron Straup Cope from Stamen Design. Jen introduced the first in the series last week, prettymaps (sfba), and there's more to come for you East Coasters out there, next week... and this weekend: we'll be at the Affordable Art Fair in NYC! More details below.

For now, let's set our eyes West, on L.A. County. Like prettymaps (sfba), prettymaps (la) is derived from all sorts of information, from all over the internet. Its translucent layers illuminate information we're used to relying on maps for--the green lines are OSM roads and paths, and orange marks urban areas as defined by Natural Earth. They also highlight what's often not seen--the white areas show where people on Flickr have taken pictures. It's an inverse of a kind of memory-making--a record of where people were looking from instead of what they were looking at, as they sought to remember a specific place and time.

I've never been to L.A.--my ideas about the city have been shaped by songs and other people's pictures. That this map is made up of information that might otherwise be unseen is fitting. L.A. exists here as it does for me in my own head, a glowing mass of color that looks like refracted light--it's a comforting representation of something unknown. I'll admit that there's a lot out there that I haven't seen, don't know and don't understand, including a lot of things that prettymaps's creator, Aaron, knows lots about. A lunch shared with him, and JBPers Raul and David was peppered with talk about art, and the internet, of course, as well as programming and APIs, which I won't pretend to understand. But that there are people out there, like Aaron, Raul and David who do know about all of these things and are using these tools for the benefit of rest of us is reassuring. These maps are just one of those things.

Also affirming: looking at art in person. You'll find 20x200 at the Affordable Art Fair, tomorrow through Saturday, October 2nd and Sunday, October 3rd. We'll be manning the project space in Booth E-200. 20x200 friends and family (that's you) can pick up a discounted ($15, regularly $20) ticket here, then stop by and say hello. We'll have lots going on--talks, tips, a pop-up frame shop,* art (of course!) and more--full details can be found on the blog. Hope to see you there!

*Keep in mind that the Pop-Up Frame Shop is by appointment only. We're almost fully booked, so if you've got some 20x200 art to frame, reserve your spot right now.

Rock Generes, v. 21, 996-97, by Ward Shelley

The Drawing Center is back, with Drawing Gifts, its 7th Annual Benefit Auction, which will take place next Wednesday, October 6th, at 6:30 p.m. at the former Dia Art Foundation building in Chelsea. By buying a ticket, you can help support The Drawing Center—the only non-profit Museum in the United States that focuses exclusively on the exhibition of drawings—and perhaps pick up a drawing of your very own!

Works by an amazing selection of artists are available, including William Powhida and Xylor Jane (keep your eyes peeled - we just might have something to offer from her ourselves in the coming months!), not to mention Elizabeth Peyton, Fred Sandback, Ed Ruscha and Sol Lewitt.

Auction tickets are available for purchase here, and you can browse some of the available works here, and in certain cases even do a little online advance-shopping.

If you’re busy next Wednesday, but still want to see all of the drawings in person, you can also check out the Free Auction Preview (no tickets needed!) the night before the main event on Tuesday, October 5th, at 7p.m.

The Details:
Free Auction Preview
Tuesday, October 5, 7:00 p.m.

Drawing Gifts: the 7th Annual Benefit Auction for The Drawing Center
Cocktails, Live and Silent Auctions
Wednesday, October 6, 6:30 p.m.

Both the Preview and Auction will take place at 548 West 22nd Street, 2nd Floor.

Central Park South by Joseph O. Holmes

Autumn in New York greetings, collector friends! Travel and our prettymaps editions have had me focused on the Western frontier recently, but I'll always be an East Coast girl at heart. It's almost-but-not-quite sweater weather in today's New York, and its sunshine-y sky is a welcome respite from the soupy heat and rain that's been hanging around since my return from SF over the weekend. The change in atmosphere is a fine companion to the city's bustle, and is making this week's out-and-about-ness exponentially more pleasant.

And what a week it's shaping up to be! Sara and I have had a couple of downright spectacular studio visits with artists about upcoming editions, everyone's been pitching in on the feverish preparations for tonight's Affordable Art Fair preview and all the other fair-related events coming up this weekend, and it seems like everyone I know from somewhere else is visiting this week. To top it all off, I have the great pleasure of being able to introduce our thirteenth (!) edition from a favorite member of the JBP clan, Joseph O. Holmes.

I laughed as I read Joe's statement for Central Park South. Like him, I'm utterly smitten with New York City. In fact, I'm on record as saying "I really, really, really love New York." and wouldn't you know it, Joe was among the first to second that emotion. I'm prone to express my New York State of Mind in words, but to our great benefit, Mr. Holmes does so with pictures. He's always got an eye out for what's interesting and beautiful about New York, whether he's exploring its boroughs, roaming the corridors of its great institutions or looking down on it from above.

Today's not-quite-bird's-eye view takes us just far enough away to see how our fair city, even on the dreariest of days, can be an elegant backdrop for the glimpses of greenery that our great parks provide. There's something incongruous about how vibrant and lush the trees are, set against the seemingly inhospitable streets and buildings of NYC. But it's kind of like NYers in a way: brusque and businesslike, maybe even hard-edged at the surface, but infinitely and unexpectedly various once you pass through its gates.

A Continuous Lean, a blog about "good looking, well-designed things," writes home on their approval of Bert Teunissen's BG-0004:

BG-0004 by Bert Teunissen

In his Domestic Landscapes series, Bert has documented rural European residents in their homes. Along the way, he's covered 50,000 kilometers of road. In his statement, he writes:

The road

It brings me to my destination and away from home.
It is both the bridge and the barrier between me and my destiny.
It is inviting and defiant at the same time.
It is in front of me and behind me.
It can be smooth and it can be rough.
It is the vein of my world.
When I'm on it I'm on track.
I follow it to its source where I will find my treasure.
And then it will bring me back home again.

You can check out the rest of Bert's 20x200 editions, including BG-0006-25A, another from his travels on the road, here.