Show & Tell Poster by Frank Chimero

Do you live in Portland? Or, are you planning to be there at any point over the next eight months? Portland State University’s Graphic Design Program (where Kate Bingaman-Burt is an Assistant Professor) has just launched a fantastic lecture series to take place over the coming school year, called Show & Tell.

The series will feature one guest nearly every week – some virtual and some in person – from October 7th, 2010 to early June 2011. There are some terrific names on the roster, whether you're a designer, artist or curious about both, including Lisa Congdon, 20x200-logo designer Mikey Burton and many friends of JBP. Lectures will take place (almost) every Thursday at noon, in Room 160 of the Annex of P.S.U.’s Art Building.

Not enrolled as a P.S.U. student? Not to worry! The Show & Tell Lecture Series is free and open to the public. Take a peek at [command save], the Graphic Design Department’s excellent blog, for a complete list of speakers and we’ll keep you posted of any major developments in the series line-up, and informed about approaching lectures.

USA Network's Character Approved blog lauds Jen and 20x200 with making art collecting accessible and fun! The article, written by our friends Marc + Sara Schiller at Wooster Collective, features Jeremy Kohm's Chateau. The duo calls 20x200 one of their favorite places to start when it comes to collecting art:

20x200's concept is simple: Depending on the week, the website offers new work by either an emerging or established artist. 8"x10" editions of 200 sell for $20 (hence the name 20x200), while 16"x20" editions of 20 sell for $200, and 30"x40" editions of 2 sell for $2,000. As 20x200 has grown over the years, along with discovering new talent, Bekman has attracted to the project such blue-chip photographers and artists as Todd Hido, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner and many others.

Thanks, USA Network, for your seal of approval!

Untitled II, Urban Scotland by Christoph Gielan

Happy Friday, art lovers! Welcome back to your regularly scheduled Week In Review, where we deliver to you good people all the art-related news that's come across our desk this past week:

20x200 News

• First things first! We are front and center at this year's Affordable Art Fair. We're doing all kinds of cool things there, like introducing our Pop-Up Frame Shop and having a host of great talks throughout the weekend. Ms. Jen Bekman will be giving a talk tonight, at 7pm, on collecting, why she started 20x200 and stories from the vault. Check out our post for all the dates and times of events and get out to meet us this weekend!
• Shack Nation revealed that at this week's EisnerAmper panel discussion, "Digital Cocktails: Art Investment 2010" panelists were urged to visit 20x200, reporting that, "What began as a modest gallery on the Lower East Side, Bekman transformed into an online undertaking. As the site’s clever tagline reveals, “It’s art for everyone.” So glad the word is getting out!
• Mark your calendars for the NURTUREart benefit, set for Tuesday, October 12th. Greg Lindquist will have work on preview for the benefit, among a host of other great artists. All artworks will be available for purchase at the gala for $150 each. Read more about the event on NURTUREart's benefit page.
• Speaking of great opportunities to see and collect art while supporting worthwhile art venues, Radius Books will be hosting a silent auction benefit Thursday, October 21st at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A full list of participating artists is available at the benefit announcement page.
• One more benefit! The Drawing Center will be having its 7th Annual Benefit Auction on Wednesday, October 6th at 6:30pm at the former DIA Art Foundation. William Powhida, Xylor Jane, Elizabeth Peyton, Fred Sandback, Ed Ruscha and Sol Lewitt will all have works on display and bidding.
• Wendy McNaughton has a new monthly column, "Meanwhile" in The Rumpus. In her words: "Every month I'm hanging out with a different subculture in San Francisco—spending time with them as they do what they do, drawing and interviewing them. The results become a visual narrative or portrait of sorts using my drawing and the subject's own words. This first one is on the chess players at 6th and market street."
• Is it just me, or are there an unusually high number of really top-rate, stimulating online photography magazines? Add another one to your list: Unless You Will, founded by Heidi Romano, has just launched its tenth issue. This issue features Hot Shot Julianne Eirich and 20x200 artist Bryan Schutmaat. Best thing about online magazines? They're frreeeeeeee.
• Christoph Gielan, most recently seen at our Land Use Survey show, was featured in the NYT this week for his ongoing work on contemporary urban sprawl. Read "The Geometry of Sprawl".
• I'm always game for a good lecture, and if you're on the left coast there will be a bevy of them this fall at Portland State University (where Kate Bingaman-Burt teaches!). Their graphic design program has launched Show & Tell, featuring a fantastic roster of artists and designers for the entire year. Lectures are free and open to the public; details and a schedule can be found on the departmental blog.
• Are you a collector of photobooks? Are you trying to get a grasp on the wild (and exploding in number) world of self-published monographs? We sat down with a list of questions for Larissa Leclair, the founder and curator of the indie Photobook Library, whose main purpose is to collect, archive and share just this kind of work from all over the world. Check out what she had to say over on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog.

New Editions

Central Park South by Joseph O. Holmes	prettymaps(la) by Aaron Straup Cope

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

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Tory Burch, fashion designer and blogger extraordinaire, mentions 20x200 as a valuable resource for affordable art on her popular blog. The article features Michelle Hinebrook's Sugarcoat, a piece which is "something between a Marilyn Minter photograph and Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory." Hinebrook describes her work as such:

Sugarcoat is part of a series of work that focuses in on the sensations of the body and the experience of taste and touch. The candy paintings are filled with intricate details, imagery and candy-coated colors. The painted surfaces are expressive, sensual and extremely tactile.

We couldn't be happier to hear that Tory loves affordable art as much as we do!

prettymaps (nyc) by Aaron Straup Cope

Good morning collector friends, it's Sara. prettymaps (nyc) is finally here! We toured around the West Coast before arriving home sweet home with today's third edition by Aaron Straup Cope from Stamen Design.

Succeeded by the dizzying brilliance of prettymaps (sfba) and prettymaps (la), the prettymap of the city nearest and dearest to us (though SF is a close second!) does not disappoint. Manhattan appears, as I think Aaron was aiming for, to shimmer between the Hudson and East Rivers, nestled next to Long Island, its bounds most visible from great heights. Flying above and wandering among the streets below provide two disparate views of the city and somehow this map, cleverly, manages to capture both.

There aren't many things that compare with circling the five boroughs in a plane at dusk. Golden light arrows across landmarks as skyscrapers illuminate and pierce the horizon. As you near the ground the stillness breaks--tiny trucks, cars and boats motor about like ants and tadpoles--evidence of the nine million plus people that populate the city.

All these inhabitants make NYC so great--friends and most-often friendly strangers--and the encounters with all sorts--secret societies, scoundrels and smiling subway riders. Our trodden paths, where we go everyday, and where we've traveled to take pictures--commemorating occasions and documenting our small space in a vast polis--are highlighted in prettymaps (nyc), glowing in memory as much as in archival inks on smooth paper. All this information was culled and organized with the help of the good people at OSM. So good are the efforts of these folks that Aaron and Stamen are offering up their share of proceeds from all three of the prettymaps editions to the humanitarian arm of OSM. The good deeds of good people abound!

The West Coast certainly has no lock on good, whether in people or in deed. We were happy to see many of you good people at the Affordable Art Fair last weekend. We can't wait to see the good things you do with the great art you acquired from us, so do send pics once you've decked your walls. We'd love to see your prints in-situ. We're also cooking up a good-deed edition with one of NYC's more prominent denizens. More on that next week, but I have a feeling that Jen might drop a hint or two when she's back tomorrow with a new print from a 20x200 photographer much beloved--till then!

Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) by Youngna Park

Hello collector friends, it's Sara. Jen had the best intentions to be here today but some unfortunate aches and pains are keeping her away. But as promised, I have lots of exciting news to share.

First, today's edition! Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) is our fourth from JBP superstar--producer/photographer/writer/editor/foodie/bride-to-be--Youngna Park. Its red and pink balloons infused with light and just barely contained by the windows of a Midtown office are apropos of hushed anticipation--we've got lots to celebrate. Not the least among our reasons for cheer: Youngna's getting married this weekend!

In work, play and wedding planning, no detail goes unnoticed; Youngna's careful contemplation is ever unfettered. Jen and I have oft talked about her particular way of paying attention to the everyday. It's something we agree not only makes her own life richer but ours as well. Her ability to share with us is burnished by her words and pictures; evidence lies in her previous editions, Salmon Hole (Chico, California), Winter Flags (East Village, New York) and the sold-out Brooklyn Morning. Her cleverly crafted wedding invites, which are winning accolades all over the web, are also due a mention.

With three cheers for love, balloons, light and little details, we're sending Youngna and her fiancee Jacob off with warmest wishes--may "The Best Time Of The Day" be your everyday together.

There's still more for us to rejoice: We're putting together a benefit edition with our friends at Creative Time! We've long been huge fans of the work they do: commissioning, producing and presenting incredible installations, events and art interventions, engaging millions of people all over the city and supporting artists' biggest and boldest ideas. We're über excited to have this opportunity to support them and think you'll be thrilled too when you find out just whose work we'll be presenting to you--he's a multi-talented superstar artist who's always been very (very!) high on Jen's list of dream collaborators. Creative Time will make the official announcement in their newsletter on Monday. Sign up for the scoop! Once you're hooked, I recommend you one-up yourself and become a member. You'll get insider access to their projects, fabulous events, artist meet and greets, a tax deduction, and so much more. Most importantly, your membership directly supports artists' dream projects. Join here.

While we'll be heading up to Connecticut for Youngna's wedding over the weekend, we'll keep one eye and ear on the web. We'll be up to our usual shenanigans on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook and keeping an eye on Creative Time's Livestream broadcast of their *sold out* event, The Creative Time Summit.

Salut!

Teaser video for The Creative Time Summit

This weekend is an exciting one for the New York arts community: Creative Time, one of our favorite organizations, is hosting the two-day "Creative Time Summit: Revolutions in Public Practice." The event will bring together over forty artists, curators, and thinkers from around the world to present their work in The Great Hall of The Cooper Union in New York.

Creative Time writes:

Their international projects bring to the table a vast array of practices and methodologies that engage with the canvas of everyday life. The participants range from art world luminaries to those purposefully obscure, providing a glimpse into an evolving community concerned with the political implications of socially engaged art. The Creative Time Summit is meant to be an opportunity to not only uncover the tensions that such a global form of working presents, but also to provide opportunities for new coalitions and sympathetic affinities.

Tickets to the event sold out in the blink of an eye (I'm happy to report that I snagged one for myself!) but for those who can't make it, Creative Time will be streaming the entire event online for free, live! Online viewers will also have the opportunity to submit questions, chat, and participate in a conversation with artist Gregory Sholette, who will be running the @CreativeTimeNYC Twitter account during the event.

As we hinted in Wednesday's newsletter, we're just about ready to announce a ridiculously exciting benefit edition with Creative Time. They're going to announce the artist we're partnering with in their newsletter on Monday—make sure you're on their list by then so that you don't miss out!

If you find yourself hooked, consider becoming a Creative Time member. You'll get insider access to their projects, fabulous events, artist meet and greets, a tax deduction, and so on. Most importantly, your membership directly supports artists' dream projects. Join here.

The Creative Time Summit
October 9 - 10
The Cooper Union
7 East 7th St.
New York

This year's conference will feature presentations by Danielle Abrams, Basekamp, Saskia Bos, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Chen Chieh-Jen (represented by Amy Cheng), Chto delat/What is to be done?, Phil Collins, Agnes Denes, Dilomprizulike, Claire Doherty, Eating in Public, FEAST, Amy Franceschini, Andrea Fraser, Regina José Galindo, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Shaun Gladwell, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, InCUBATE, The International Errorist, Jakob Jakobsen, Laura Kurgan, Surasi Kusolwong, Dinh Q. Le, Learning Site, Aaron Levy, Chus Martínez, Otabenga Jones & Associates, Trevor Paglen, Claire Pentecost, PLATFORM, J. Morgan Puett, Oliver Ressler, Laurie Jo Reynolds, Bisi Silva, Superflex, Christine Tohme, Anton Vidokle, WAGE, Eyal Weizman, Stephen Wright, and more.

Untitled from Korea Diary, 2007-2008 by Juliane Eirich

Cooler temperatures and turning leaves are all around us. And it's another week gone by, which means another dose of 20x200's Week In Review!

20x200 News

• This weekend only! The Brooklyn Navy Yard Arts Group Exhibit will be going on Saturday, October 9th and Sunday, October 10th. Tamara Thomson will be among the artists featured, and she just *might* be having a new edition coming out in the near-ish future with us, so get on our mailing list to keep up to date!
• Spells, Spoils and Lucky Charms, the solo show of painter Echo Eggebrecht, is on view for one more weekend at Horton Gallery. Like a love-child between the psychically loaded Gauguin, and the lushly flat coloring of Matisse, the exhibit would be a shame to miss.
• Our friends at Creative Commons have launched their fall campaign. Read about their fight as Superheroes for openness and innovation, and what you can do to contribute, here.
• Michael David Murphy's solo exhibition The Certainty Principle, a collection of photographs and the unphotographable, is on view through October 30th at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. ArtsCriticATL has a review of the show here.
• The 2010 Hey, Hot Shot! semi-finalists have been announced! We'll be making the big announcement of the five Hot Shot finalists on October 29th, 2010 at the first ever Blurb/Popup NYC event at 60 Mercer Street. RSVP here to join in the festivities!
• Some 20x200 love from around the web this week: grateful to be gracing the pages of of the Tory Burch Blog, A Continuous Lean and USA Character Approved, all of which are prosthelytizing our message about affordable art for everyone. Thanks for the shout-outs!

New Editions

prettymaps (nyc) by Aaron Straup Cope	Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) by Youngna Park

We want to extend a huge thanks to all who stopped by our booth at the Affordable Art Fair the weekend before last! We hope you picked up some sound advice from Jen and Jeffrey, grabbed a tote and some chocolate, and/or left with freshly-framed 20x200 prints to hang on your walls. Or course, we hope you also enjoyed seeing a special selection of 20x200 editions on the walls of our booth, too. Team JBP really loved mingling with our collectors and checking out which editions you brought to be framed at our Framing Pop-Up Shop.

For those of you who couldn't make it, here are some snapshots from the fair. Hopefully we'll see you out there next time! For all of you who did stop by—do you have your art up on your walls yet? Send us pics of your install shots!

Photo by Don Hamerman

Playing the Building by David Byrne, presented by Creative Time, NYC 2008, photo by Justin Ouellette

In David Byrne's world, bicycle racks are reborn as sculptures, abandoned buildings are wired up to become gigantic musical instruments, and PowerPoint is subverted into a tool for making art. The best part is that all of these works are made available for all to enjoy. Byrne's prolific interventions with the everyday bring delight to places that were once overlooked, in a sense personifying our motto: "Art for Everyone."

We're honored and crazy-excited to be releasing an edition by David Byrne, on Monday, October 18th, to benefit our friends at Creative Time. Make sure you're on our list (and ready to click!) to get first dibs on the edition.

Portrait of David Byrne, Chris Buck, 2004

While he is widely known as the co-founder of the band Talking Heads, Byrne has also had an active solo and collaborative music career. His work as an artist (DB is represented by Pace/MacGill) writer and thinker is all over the map—in the best sense! Browsing his website you'll find music, art & books, film & theater, sound & video, a personal radio station and a funny, thoughtful and frequently updated journal. Most recently Byrne released an audiobook of The Bicycle Diaries. In addition to music and narration by DB, it also features location sounds, creating an atmosphere more akin to a radio show than a simple reading of the book.

Arboretum by David Byrne, published by McSweeney's

This summer, Byrne exhibited drawings from his series Tree Drawings at Electric Works in San Francisco, alongside Dave Eggers (founder of McSweeney's who published a gorgeous book of the drawings titled Arboretum in 2006).

Byrne describes the drawings, mostly in the form of trees, as a combination of faux-science, self-therapy, and irrational logic. He writes:

The world keeps opening up, unfolding, and just when we expect it to be closed—to be a sealed sensible box—it shows us something completely surprising. In fact, the result and possibly unacknowledged aim of science may be to know how much it is that we don’t know, rather than what we do think we know. What we think we know we probably aren’t really sure of anyway. At least if we can get a sense of what we don’t know, we won’t be guilty of the hubris of thinking we know any of it. Science’s job is to map our ignorance.

Corporate to Personal Homeomorphism, 2004, by David Byrne, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

And using his pencil as a "flashlight," Byrne plumbs the depths of satire, culture, and self to create these drawings. It's this delightfully irrational logic which that makes Byrne's work so lovable. He pushes sense all the way past nonsense, until it becomes a whole other invigorating and inspiring kind of sense.

To drop a final hint before the big release, the edition is an image that can be found somewhere in the pages of the Arboretum book, but it's none of the diagrams featured in this post...begin the process of elimination, art-sleuths!

More of David's tree drawings:

You'll Get Used to It, 2004, by David Byrne, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

From a Seed it's All Downhill, 2007, by David Byrne, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

Human Content, 2002, by David Byrne, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

Military Technology, 2004, by David Byrne, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

Paper Magazine's Word of Mouth blog is helping to share exciting 20x200 news: Starting next Monday, October 18th, we'll be selling an exclusive print from David Byrne's Arboretum series! The edition will benefit Creative Time, one of our favorite nonprofit organizations, which engages the public in social progress through art.

As Paper points out:

Though many rock stars pass their time outside the recording studio doing not much of anything, David Byrne has always remained artistically engaged, dabbling in media ranging from graphic design to photography. It's unsurprising, then, that he's now collaborating with 20x200.com, an art website that seeks to democratize and broaden art collecting by printing its works in editions and fairly pricing them.

Paper is certainly not alone in their excitement for David Byrne's 20x200 edition--check out these posts on Refinery29 and Huffington Post too! The trend-spotters at Refinery29 pointedly note:

A steal that won't be off-trend come next season and supports a cause? That's a choice investment that just might override those boots we thought we couldn't live without.

And there you have it! Make sure you're signed up for our mailing list for a head start on purchasing this once in a lifetime David Byrne 20x200 edition.

Momento Vitae by Alexander Beeching

Temperate Tuesday greetings, collector friends. Today's clear skies are a welcome change after last night's freaky-deaky NYC weather: thunder! lightning! ba-zonkers hail! (No, seriously: hail.) Turns out it's not only the weather that's been unpredictable 'round these parts as of late; I've been dealing with some freaky-deaky back stuff that's kept me from sitting down and away from writing for a few weeks, so being back in front of the keyboard is also a welcome change.

Plus: there's so much goodness to share! Today, we cast our eyes towards the stars, and next week: superstars! Before I get into today's celestial doings, I want you to mark your calendars for next Monday, October 18th at 11 a.m. sharp. That's when we'll be introducing an edition by none other than David Byrne, to benefit our fabulous friends at Creative Time. Once you're done reading about today's edition, head on over to the 20x200 blog for the scoop on his Tree Drawings print.

Today's edition--Momento Vitae--our fourth from Brit Alexander Beeching, was proofed and queued months ago, with Halloween and one or two of my skull-obsessed friends in mind. It joins our two other editions from his Constellation series: The Constellation of the Elephant and The Bison Constellation, which was introduced by a star-struck Sara in the waning days of our recently past (sniff!) summer. I was off at the beach back then, where the night sky got dark enough to allow for some cosmos contemplation.

Trying to remember the constellations as taught to me as a child was relatively fruitless--I think I got as far as the Big and Little Dipper--but it did afford me the opportunity to recall that feeling of being young and curious and safe against the inky darkness with a grown-up beside me who knew practically everything. And even then, like our Mr. Beeching, I had the urge to connect those dots to create a mythology of my very own.

I haven't met Alex in person yet, so I've been connecting the dots to conjure up an image of him as well. With each new edition I get a clearer picture of who he might be--creative of course, and what with his star-gazing ways and all, a bit of dreamer--and based on his choice of phrase for this edition, momento vitae rather than the more familiar momento mori, I think of him as a glass-half-full sort of fellow. With momento vitae the exhortation is to remember you're alive, which is really a far more encouraging take on the "we're all going to die" message of momento mori, wouldn't you say?

Beeching isn't the first dreamer to give the heave-ho to others' ideas about the heavens. Walt Whitman cast a gimlet eye upon the learn'd astronomers of yore, way back in the 1800s. I'll leave you (till tomorrow!) with his witty words:

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

--Walt Whitman

195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships by Jenny Odell

Wednesday greetings to you all, collector friends!

Today's edition is a 180 on yesterday's, which had us looking up at the stars and creating constellations of our own. I'm ever-so-pleased to debut 195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships, our first edition from San Francisco-based artist, designer and fellow-obsessive Jenny Odell, who is looking down (albeit virtually) and creating impossible-in-the-real world collations of common structures culled from satellite imagery.

I've clocked a lot of hours up in the air over the past several years and the truth is that I've never been very good at it. Still, one thrill that never fails me is looking down from above and watching a sprawling city become small; its buildings, roads and cars shrinking down into little bits that I'd need to pick up gingerly between two fingers so as to not break them. It's easy to imagine then, an Alice in Wonderland-type inversion, with a giant Jenny reaching to Australia to pluck the perfect tanker for her palette.

Illusions of airborne omnipotence aside, I also find it easy to identify with the hours upon hours of scouring that must have gone in to collecting and arranging all these parts into the glorious whole you see here. (cf. me on Twitter at 1 a.m.). Jenny's speaking my language when she talks of "explor[ing] the (dis-)connection between virtual space and lived experience." I share Jenny's abiding obsession with Google Maps, but I've never put it to such beautiful use.

Sara and I deliberated whether the photos in this series should be released as 8x10s. We agreed with a hearty "Si!" as the photos in this series are almost different pictures entirely when viewed at various sizes -- so much so that I can see hanging graduated sizes of the same piece. As the dimensions of the print grow, the fact that the objects in it are sourced from all over the internet moves to the forefront. As some objects soften and pixelate, the shift in appearance puts the focus on her process and the origins of the elements that make the whole. The effect is not unlike Kent Rogowski's Love=Love series. As his images of repurposed puzzles increase in size, so do the gaps between each piece; fine lines, initially a by product of the process become black marks, increasing in their weight and importance.

Rearranging and re-using objects and the creation of unexpected order is something wholly satisfying -- and often aesthetically pleasing. Things Organized Neatly, the site via which I discovered Ms. Odell's series, amply illustrates my point. As does our very own Lisa Congdon's amazing, and yes maybe a wee bit obsessive, Collection a Day project, some of which will appear on this very site as editions in the not-too-distant future. Plus, as I said above, 195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships is the first edition from Jenny's series -- you can look forward to seeing more of them here before year's end. (Did I just talk about the end of 2010? Already. Egad!) There's plenty of other great art queued and waiting between now and then. Speaking of which! Set your phone/computer/alarm clock and/or put the butler on notice for Monday, October 18th at 11a.m. (Eastern time, y'all) for our hotly anticipated David Byrne to benefit Creative Time debut.

The L.A. Times suggests keeping tabs on 20x200 for stylish Southern California living! Beginning with our most recent release, Jenny Odell's 195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships, the article highlights several editions to explain exactly what makes 20x200 so distinctive:

Untitled (Santa Barbara) by Liz Kuball

West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress) by Joe Holmes

Chateau by Jeremy Kohm

BG-0006-25A by Bert Teunissen

The article also wisely advises readers to act fast:

Many of the $20 prints sell out quickly. I am still kicking myself that I did not buy Joseph O. Holmes' wonderful photograph of a father holding his son in front of a display at the American Museum of Natural History.

The best way to avoid missing out on those hot $20 editions? Sign up for the 20x200 newsletter! We'll keep you in the loop on the newest editions, latest events, and special offers.... including the first scoop on this coming Monday's print from David Byrne!

From a Seed It's All Downhill, 2007, by David Byrne, Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

Happy Friday, everyone! We've got a slew of exciting news and announcements for you this week's Week In Review:

20x200 News

• Are you spending your autumn days across the pond? Artist/printmaker/vintage-appropriating-dynamo Linzie Hunter is having an open studio weekend this Saturday and Sunday, October 16th and 17th, from 12pm to 6pm. The open studio event is at the Erlang House, 128 Blackfriars Road, London. For those stuck stateside or otherwise, Linzie will be posting photos from the event on her website.
• Photographer and founder of Collect.Give, Kevin Miyazaki has a full dance card this fall: Images from his Camp Home series are included in the group show, along with those from a coupla Hot Shots and a future 20x200 edition-maker (hint, hint), Repercussions: Tides and Time at Soil in Seattle. Soil is on view through October 31st. Kevin will also be at PhotoMidwest on October 21st, giving a lecture on his work.
• Prolific and popular artistJennifer Sanchez has just been accepted into the Bronx Museum's AIM (Artists in the Marketplace) program. AIM is a program that embodies the Bronx Museum's ongoing commitment to provide professional development opportunities to early career artists in New York. Sanchez will also have several of her panel pieces on display at Art Toronto from October 28th through November 1st. Congratulations, Jennifer!
• Sean Greene has work in an exhibition Skateboarding Side Effects, through November 28th, at Artisphere, in Arlington, VA. This weekend, from 3 to 5pm, there will be an Action Painting Workshop with Sean, and again on the following weekend, October 21-22, from 7 to 9pm. Among the works on display will be the original painting of Try Letting Go, of which there are still prints remaining.
• If you're on an American Airlines flight and short on reading material, the October 15th edition of American Way has a great article, Mission Improbable, on Jason Polan's ambitious and populist mission to draw every person in New York City. Ms. Jen Bekman is also interviewed in the piece, and says of Every Person In New York: "The part of it that's so awesome is that he's saying to every individual person that they matter...It is a hopeful, optimistic, well-intentioned thing." Check out the article from 25,000 feet, or right here.
• We gave away a teaser with the image at the top of this WIR, but our biggest news of the week just might be our announcement of an upcoming David Byrne edition, the proceeds of which will benefit our friends at Creative Time. This is a special Monday edition, which will be released to those on our mailing list at 11am sharp. Make sure you're signed up for that list, 'cause the chance to own a David Byrne piece for $50 won't last very long.
• Mike Monteiro is keeping his name circulating around the web with both his essay in Good Magazine this week, Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow, a part of a larger post featuring five artists and what it means to work as one today. In a post on his Mule Design blog that has gone more viral, Monteiro writes an open letter to GAP offering a peek behind the curtain of the perfect logo he says he's designed for them (and if you're not current on current corporate and web controversies, you can bring yourself up to speed by taking a look at the 99designs site here).
• Lastly, we got a good dose of lovin' from our friends around the web this week:
  In an L.A. Times piece in their Home section, Lisa Boone featured 20x200 as a go-to source for great and affordable art, and displayed several of her favorite works that are still available for purchase. Kat over at the Corporette blog, suggests 20x200 as a good solution to livening up that space you spend 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week in. And on the Chronicle Books blog, Suzanne LaGasa praised our providing the ability to search by so many variables: artists, category, price, date and color. Thanks for the positive press, everyone!

New Editions

Momento Vitae by Alexander Beeching	195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships by Jenny Odell

Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return) by David Byrne

Important note: There is a limit of one print per collector for this edition. We reserve the right to cancel completed orders if we determine that someone has ordered more than one.
_____________

As I've often opined here, elsewhere and aloud (nearly every day!) I really, really, really love New York. I love it for its 24-hour-deli-ness, its international-ity, its art, its bookstores, its pedestrian- (and increasingly cycle-!) friendliness, and its best-of-everything-ness. But ultimately why I really, really, really (really!) love New York comes down to one thing: its people.

Today's edition-maker--David Byrne--and the people behind the organization which its proceeds will benefit--Creative Time--embody and epitomize exactly what makes New Yorkers so lovable. They are not just living in this city, they are part of it--they don't just talk about its public space--they're embracing it, bettering it, and are visible parts of the city's fabric. For all of these reasons, both have been very high on my wishlist of collaborators for 20x200, so it's quite an honor to introduce today's incredible edition: The Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return), a print based on an original piece from Byrne's Tree Drawing series (courtesy of Pace/MacGill Gallery).

The Tree Drawings are particularly resonant--no artist myself, I find my creative comfort in words (as evidenced in the abundance of text-based works in our archives) and have been an inveterate connector of the unlikely and the disparate since childhood. With on-the-surface simplicity and humble source materials--"straight from the sketchbook," he writes in his statement--Byrne's sketches reveal an enviable breadth of knowledge, wit and humility, all in the pursuit of making sense of the often nonsensical.

It's no surprise that Byrne's drawings sometime border on the Byzantine. What makes him so interesting is how interested he is; what makes him remarkable is how generous he is about sharing his experiences and insights. If asked to recommend a single blog, his would be the one I'd point people to. He's curious about everything, and qualified to talk about it all because the only authority that he assumes is sincere engagement and an enthusiasm for sharing; this enviable mix makes for consistently compelling reading.

He's an omnivorous consumer of culture and ideas, and a prolific producer of them as well. Aside from his storied musical career and his formidable artistic accomplishments, he's an ardent urban cyclist who's created bike racks for our fair city and shared tales of his wanderings. (His newly released Bicycle Diaries: Audiobook is a multidisciplinary delight.) Playing the Building, perhaps the most monumental example of Byrne's cross-disciplinary derring-do (and one I had the very good fortune to experience in person!) was done as a collaboration with none other than Creative Time. Which brings us full circle back to today's edition--I've got a few more details to share before taking my leave!

Long-time collectors know that we take enormous pride in the quality of our prints, and this one is no exception. In fact, it's a reproduction so faithful, so verité, if you will, that I experienced a moment of panic when I saw the final proof sitting on Sara's desk. Why on earth was the original lying on her desk like that?! Picking it up didn't quell the instinct either, looking and feeling as it does like the real McCoy. It wasn't till I flipped it over and saw the printer's notations about paper type that I was able to exhale. (And, admittedly, gloat a bit about how awesome all of this was going to turn out to be!) Furthering the wondrousness, like all of our prints, each one of these comes with an artist-signed and numbered certificate of authenticity.

We decided to carry over that aforementioned verité to this particular print in another important way as well: the edition of 600 is only available in a single size--11" x 14", echoing the proportions of the original work. We're trying to accomplish a lot with this edition: first and foremost, to release a print of which we're proud (check!) while honoring our "art for everyone" commitment by offering prints at a price than almost anyone can afford, and we want to send a big, fat check to Creative Time as well. Faced with this triumvirate of challenges, we decided to price the edition on a schedule, with its cost rising (moderately!) as it sells out. Here's how it will work: The first 200 prints are $50 each, the second 200 are $100 each, and the final 200 are a still-very-reasonable (hello, it's David Byrne!) $150 each.

One final reminder: There is a limit of one print per collector, and we reserve the right to cancel completed orders if we determine that someone has ordered more than one. I expect that these will be gone in a flash, but fear not! We'll be back tomorrow--and the next day--with some excellent new editions.

This month’s InStyle Magazine features one of Jessica Snow’s 20x200 editions in an article about framing. In the article, Snow's Curvilinear Time is paired with an ornate frame as an example of creating “old-meets-new synergy” by placing contemporary art in an antique-looking frame. While we’re all for bending the rules, we’re itching to bend this particular frame 90 degrees to the right, so that it is displayed horizontally, as the artist intended!

Curvilinear Time by Jessica Snow

But any way you turn it, we're thrilled to see that InStyle recommends editions from 20x200! Don't forget--if you're interested in keeping up with our own recommendations, sign-up for the 20x200 mailing list!

Subdivision: Sunshine Acres, 2006 by Ross Racine

ARTJAIL (an NYC gallery space and visual effects boutique) is now exhibiting a new group show curated by David Gibson (Article Projects), titled Lost Horizon. Gibson writes of the show on his website:

“Lost Horizon” represents a critique of themes related to the professional practice and socialized ideal of architecture, its enveloping culture of construction, and the ironic ideals that emerge from assumptions of progress. Any context related to architecture is also related to urbanism or to the iconic status of buildings as well as to the transient nature of city living. The city is a landscape in a state of constant flux, first in terms of outward appearance or beauty, second in the power systems supported by these appearances, and third by the sense of space that is transmuted by the interaction of so many disparate forms of expression.

Ross Racine's stunning digital drawings, depicting aerial views of fictive suburban communities (one of which was featured in Land Use Survey this past summer at JBG) is included in Lost Horizon, among many other terrific pieces. (A complete list of participating artists—and more images—is available here).

If you're on the LES before November 13th, make sure you pay Lost Horizon a visit.

The Details:
Lost Horizon
On view: October 14 - November 13, 2010
at ARTJAIL
50 Eldridge Street, 6th Floor,
New York NY 10002

Art and design power-couple Kate Bingaman-Burt and Clifton Burt have co-guest-curated a show called Collateral Matters, currently on view at Portland's Museum of Contemporary Craft. For the exhibition, the pair was invited to mine the M.C.C.'s extensive archive, and (from the Museum website):

...to create an exhibition from materials often overlooked in museum collections. Using printed materials and ephemera from the Museum archive, the exhibition reveals stories about the history of printing and design in Portland, and communicates how such printed materials construct institutional identity.

Collateral Matters will run until January 8th, 2011 and before you go (or if you can't make it to PDX), you can take a look at some installation views on the Museum's flickr page.

As an added bonus: in conjunction with the show, the couple will host a special participatory program on November 20th, from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m., titled Attic to Archive, where visitors can come in and talk to Kate and Clifton about the exhibition—and are encouraged to contribute bits and pieces from their own collections to the museum:

Dig into your desk drawers, clean out your closets and shuffle through your shoeboxes—turn your housecleaning into archive-building for the Museum! Blow the dust off those boxes and bring your ephemera to the Museum on November 20. Through conversations with co-curators Kate Bingaman-Burt and Clifton Burt, you can learn how your Museum-related paper piles tell the story of craft and graphic design in the Pacific Northwest. As the Museum nears its 75th anniversary in 2012, those photographs, invitations and correspondence from the 1930s to the present could fill the gaps and help us tell stories about the Museum for future generations.

We're big fans of Kate's (and now Clifton's) interactive-art-endeavors; back in June, Jen Bekman Gallery hosted an awesome Draw-a-Thon with Kate! If you're in Portland on the 20th, swing by the Museum with your old papers—and potentially become a part of design history!

The Details:
Collateral Matters: Selections by Kate Bingaman-Burt and Clifton Burt
On view: August 26, 2010 – January 8, 2011
Museum of Contemporary Craft
724 Northwest Davis Street
Portland, Oregon 97209

Attic to Archive
November 20, 2010 - 2:00-4:00 p.m.
at The Lab at Museum of Contemporary Craft

Rose-breasted Grosbeak by Amy Jean Porter

Today's edition, Rose-breasted Grosbeak is by Amy Jean Porter, an artist I've been pursuing a collaboration with for a mighty long time. Our correspondence started when 20x200 was an about-to-be-born thing, a time when my sleepless hours were spent scouring the internet for artists to invite (rather than today's scouring of my brain for the words to write about all the amazing artists that we work with.) On August 19th, 2007, I wrote her this note:

Hi there, I came across your site via the Drawing Center and then I spent a long time IMing about how great your work is with one of the artists I represent, Amy Ross. I'm launching a new project very soon called 20x200 and wanted to pass along info about it to see whether you might be interested in doing an edition with us.

There was enthusiasm and interest, but it wasn't till the dog days of this past summer that we got any momentum. One sweltering day in late July, my friend-on-the-internet Choire Sicha pinged me, asking if I was familiar with Amy's work. I've known Choire since, well, a while ago. Like maybe 2004 or something? I had recently launched Unbeige for Mediabistro and Choire was the only other art dealer I knew who was similarly immersed in this whole wacky blogging thing, which was still pretty new. Having someone to commiserate with over IM about the art world and the internet was awesome--back then, sitting by myself in the gallery, I often felt like little more than a glorified shopgirl. Plus, Choire's got great taste (obvi!) and is sharp of tongue and wildly intelligent. Today, he's forsaken the chilly frontiers of Chelsea and is the proprietor of The Awl, where his good taste and wit are amply evident. Also evident: Ms. Amy Jean Porter, whose work he used to show at Debs & Co, the gallery he used to own. Over IM (again! still!), he awed over today's edition:

Amy Jean Porter is the best! This print is fantastic because it's cheery without being soppy, it's somehow a little bit funny without being ironic, it's gorgeous while being plain. Look at that bird! It's like the bird is about to say something really unexpected. It's about to tell you its opinions on the latest Jonathan Franzen or the hockey scores. Ha, birds! What can't they do?

Amy Jean's blue-beaked feathered friend, perched over pastel-y pink flowers and flocked by black leaves on red stems, is a little off kilter--all those colors aren't quite right. But somehow, subtly, they work and are tucked among friends--birds and animals are abundant in 20x200's ever-growing menagerie. But that's not the only thing that makes Amy Jean and Rose-breasted Grosbeak right at home amidst our offerings. She's been included in all kinds of books put together by our friends at Chronicle and their friends at McSweeney's. The McSweeney's link runs deep this week, from yesterday's benefit edition by David Byrne, which is apart of Arboretum, a book beautifully produced and published by them, to tomorrow's new edition. It too has a little bit to do with McSweeney's and books, with a screenplay written by their founder Mr. Eggers and the directorial virtuosity of Spike Jonze thrown in. With those clues, I'll take my leave til then.

Body Watching, Atlanta, 2008 by Michael David Murphy

Attention, Southern art-goers! Michael David Murphy has an exhibition, titled Certainty Principle on right now at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta. The show features photographs, as well as an installation from Michael's ongoing series, Unphotographable—his catalog of never-taken photographs: regretfully missed opportunities, memorialized in words.

Certainty Principle has been getting some fantastic press; Jason Francisco for ArtsCriticATL.com writes:

Taking on the guise of an everyman with a camera who appears anywhere and everywhere without explanation, Murphy approaches the commonplace as a field of random connections, or more strictly, random connections that seem ineluctable once made. Murphy is a conceptualist alternately chasing and being chased by his own observational acuity, an artist for whom clear-sightedness is enigmatic. He is deeply concerned with photography as a power to heed.

If you're in or around Atlanta this month, stop by Spruill Gallery and take in Michael's show (it's up until October 30th!) If not, you can have a look at images and installation views from Certainty Principle (and even a video of Michael giving a talk about his work at the opening reception) on the show's Tumblr page.

The Details:
Certainty Principle by Michael David Murphy
On view: September 24th - October 30th, 2010
at Spruill Gallery
4681 Ashford Dunwoody Road
Atlanta, Georgia 30338

Modern Art by Craig Damrauer

We're normally pretty tight-lipped about our upcoming editions to preserve the integrity of the new prints as they come out. But every once in a while we get so excited about an upcoming edition that we can't help but drop a few hints.

If you use the internet, chances are that you've come across at least one of Craig Damrauer's clever and hilarious New Math equations. Kate Donnelly recently interviewed Craig for her "From the Desk of..." blog and got a look at the space where he works plus some hints about what he's working on next.

Here's an excerpt:

Craig, talk about your great hue of blue. What is it called?

The blue has no name other than I know it when I see it and I’m pretty particular about it. I’m doing two projects right now, a book of the complete set of formulas and a series of lovely prints with Jen Bekman’s 20×200 series based on relationships. That blue is the elusive partner in all of this. I’ve been looking at a lot of paper samples, let me tell you. Maybe we SHOULD give it a name? Darrin?

That’s a start. How you derive your formulations?

The formulas, believe it or not, are pretty hard to come up with. What it amounts to is fiddling with things in my mind and giving myself the space. It’s definitely a writing process. In other words, they don’t just float into the head. I sit down and grind them out much the same way I’d write a story. When they’re right they feel right.

Craig put out a set of New Math Postcards, hand selected by the one-and-only Ed Ruscha, but they quickly sold out. We can't wait to bring you more New Math! If you want to be the first to know make sure you're on the list.

From the desk of... also has plenty of great artists in the archives, so poke around and you'll discover the desks of creatives near and far.

New Math Postcards, hand selected by Ed Ruscha

On Monday, we had the honor of releasing an edition from musician, artist, bike advocate, and cultural icon, David Byrne, Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return). Byrne wrote his own mailing list this morning, talking about his relationship with Creative Time, whom the edition benefits, and of the purpose, history and "roots" behind this drawing.

Hello out there

I've done a couple of public art projects here in NYC (Playing the Building and "I Love this Crowd!") that were presented by a wonderful organization called Creative Time. To return the favor I have done a limited edition print on nice fuzzy archival paper of one of my "tree" drawings, and the money goes to said organization-Creative Time. An art edition place called 20x200 is selling the print. Obviously these are not drawings of real trees, they're more like family trees or evolutionary trees. They show how things evolved and where they come from. For me they are not exactly literal; they're more like mental maps or aids to my thought process, or to your thought process-but sometimes I can actually explain a little of what it's about.

In this drawing I propose that the roots of conflict and wars lie in popular song. Well, not exactly. But yes, also. Popular song can be viewed as a measure of sentiment, feeling, and values, and of what a culture projects as their identity. I'm not being as obvious as drawing a line from "The Ballad of the Green Berets" to the war in Vietnam, or from "Deutschland über alles" to WWII; the connections are more subtle than that. Songs and the sentiments that they contain are emotional memes that worm their way into the general culture and are at the same time a reflection of that culture. In that sense they're a distillation-culture concentrate. And the hubris, vanity and self-image of a people are all there, waiting to collide with those of The Other, like particles in an accelerator. Lots of energy is released as a result. Is this crazy talk? Maybe, but do you feel lucky? Whatever, the song titles are pretty good-but they're not, I admit, verifiable.

So, if you like trees, unexpected connections and supporting arts organizations, the purchase of this relatively inexpensive print will satisfy all of your needs.

DB
Midtown

Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return) by David Byrne

Image Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery

Untitled from the series Owner of This World by Shawn Records

Life-is-weird Wednesday greetings collectors and how are you today? It's been a pretty incredible week here so far at 20x200 HQ, in no small part due to our outstanding editions by David Byrne and Amy Jean Porter. One of the most gratifying things about this gig is how we get to work with such a broad array of interesting artists; they often overlap, sometimes in the most unlikely ways.

This week's artists are an excellent example of our interconnectedness since all of them, today's Shawn Records included, have collaborated with David Eggers on books, exhibitions and/or films. (Six Degrees of David Eggers?) Today's edition, Untitled, from the series Owner of This World, comes from a body of work that Shawn created while on the set of Where the Wild Things Are, as his son, Max, played the role of Max in the film. Its screenplay is an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book penned by Eggers.

Fond memories of my own dog-eared copy of this beloved book are nice and all (not to mention powerful!) but what's most compelling about Shawn's project, and this image in particular, is how it evokes the often heartbreaking dynamic between parent and child. What makes it sort of mind-bending is how meta it is: we're seeing a moment of Shawn's invention, captured as he observes his child who's working to recreate the make-believe version of the make-believe book, its mise-en-scène revealing all the unfinished edges that go into the creation of such fiction.

The first thing I thought of when seeing this photograph was: "Sure this might be pretend and all, but that water is most definitely real and is it cold?" (Note: all the camera men are wearing what look to be pretty thick wetsuits!) Then I gasped a little, thinking of how many exquisitely painful moments Shawn might have experienced while observing and recording his son's adventure, imagining whether he was cold, or scared or really maybe just awfully tired. The thing I've come to realize though, is that kids are simultaneously more fragile than they realize and tougher than we can imagine.

Shawn himself is a long-time member of the JBP family. He officially joined us as a Hot Shot in 2005 and was a contender this year. He also serves as President of the Board of Directors of Photolucida. So, we've crossed paths online and in person at many a photo-centric event. I'll hope to see him again soon at one such event, our upcoming shin-dig with our friends at Blurb. Won't you join us too? Next Friday, October 29th from 6 to 9 p.m., we'll be celebrating at the first-ever Blurb Pop Up/NYC at 60 Mercer Street (between Broome and Grand). Space is limited to please be sure to RSVP. I'll see you here, before then, with a brand-new edition next Tuesday.

Untitled, from the series Erasure by HHS! contender Ben Alper

It's no secret that many of the photographers we work with on 20x200 are discovered through our photography competition, Hey, Hot Shot! We at JBP are excited to invite you to celebrate our five newest 2010 Hot Shots on Friday, October 29th from 6 to 9 p.m. at the first-ever Blurb Pop Up/NYC at 60 Mercer Street (between Broome and Grand).

Jen Bekman, members of the Hey, Hot Shot! Panel and the Jen Bekman Projects' team are excited to meet and mingle with you—the New York City photography community. We'll have wine and snacks, you'll be able to browse a library of Blurb books, meet fellow artists, have the chance to win 20x200 prints and be able to learn about creating your own book. At 7:00 p.m., Jen Bekman will announce the five 2010 Hot Shots.

Space is limited, so make sure you RSVP here by Thursday, October 28th.

Who: Hey, Hot Shot! Panelists, contenders, Team JBP + the NYC Photography Community
What: Meet the 2010 Hot Shots
When: Friday, October 29th, from 6 to 9 p.m.
Where: 60 Mercer Street, New York, NY

Jen will also be giving a talk, Getting Your Work Out There, earlier that afternoon from 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.

You've collected the best of your work, checked and triple-checked that each image is the absolute best it can be. But who's going to see it? Jen Bekman, founder of Jen Bekman Gallery, 20x200, and Hey, Hot Shot!, will give you the scoop on presenting yourself to potential fans and collectors online, as well as how to land a spot on a gallery wall. Jen is an art dealer, curator, writer, and entrepreneur whose inventive approach to the art world has created new models for connecting artists and collectors.

RSVP for Jen's talk here and be sure to take a look at the full schedule of events, lectures and workshops happening at the Blurb Pop Up/NYC from October 21 - 30th. See you on the 29th!

Theme Magazine’s “The Collectors” issue (guest curated by Marc + Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective), takes a close look at the motivations of art collectors, and interviewed Jen about the gallery and 20x200, and her philosophy for collecting.

Writer Jiae Kim for Theme asks,

And what are some of the mistakes that young collectors make?

Jen Bekman: You have to value experience and you have to be able to say, what are the things around me that I’ve spent this amount of money on, and is it going to be worth it? People buy expensive things all the time. They buy shoes, handbags, cars, computers, very expensive TVs, so we all have considered big purchases. Set a budget for yourself and say I’m going to buy three significant pieces this year and I’m not going to spend more than $1,000 on each one of them but I’m going to do it.

Jen also recommends buying art because you want to live with it, rather than buying art based on the future dollar value of the purchase. She points to a few avenues for finding good art (aside from the 20x200 newsletter, of course!) such as swissmiss, Paulson Press, and Crown Point Press.

Read the full interview with Jen here [PDF download]!

Get Excited And Make Things by Matt Jones

We’re huge fans of the ideals of free and widely accessible information that Creative Commons embodies, and the work that they do to (as they put it) “increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content)…that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing”. We’ve written about them in the past, and furthermore, the proceeds from Get Excited And Make Things, the very, very nearly sold out edition that we put out with Matt Jones, directly benefit the organization.

If you’d like an idea of how the information-sharing endeavors of Creative Commons can function to make the world a better place, here are a few examples:

GlaxoSmithKline, a major pharmaceutical company, recently released its entire malarial data set using CC tools, speeding the urgent search for new medicines to tackle the devastating disease. Online communities at Flickr, SoundCloud, and Vimeo are making creative works available for anyone in the world to use freely and legally through license adoption. Publisher Pratham Books has begun to CC license more and more of the textbooks it provides to 14 million children in India, lifting them from a future of poverty and miseducation. When the earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, Google and Wired used CC tools to keep information widely available to relief workers, journalists, and governments worldwide.

These days CC deserves some more attention: they’ve very recently launched their Superhero fund-raising campaign, and are looking for supporters to help them reach a goal of $550,000 (after less than two weeks, they’ve already passed the $50,000 mark!)

You can read more about the campaign here, and go here support this cause of superhero magnitude.

Jen and 20x200 are featured in an episode of Small Business Rules on American Express: OpenForum. The episode focuses on Jen's endeavor to connect emerging artists with emerging collectors through Jen Bekman Gallery and 20x200. The takeaway point: "If everyone likes what you're doing, you're doing something wrong."

The interview, which takes place in our very own 20x200 HQ, features art from 20x200, Hey! Hot Shot and Jen Bekman Gallery + cameos by members of Team JBP! Host Lindsay Campbell talks with Jen about innovation in the art world, starting Jen Bekman Projects and our broad audience. Says Jen:

We have cops that have bought editions...postmen, pharmacists...all different types of people who never thought they would buy art before, and then on the other end, we have a lot of serious collectors who've collected with us from the very start.

We couldn't be more excited to share what we do here at 20x200 through this video. Learn more about the specific prints & original works they featured in the segment and if you're not already on the list—sign up for the 20x200 mailing list to receive Jen's bi-weekly newsletter.

Canopy, 2009 by Scott Reeds

Yesterday marked the opening of New Prints 2010/Autumn at the International Print Center New York, and the 10th Anniversary of this exhibition series. The show features forty-three recent prints, by forty-three artists (both emerging and established), selected from an astounding 1,500 submissions. From the IPCNY website:

New Prints 2010/Autumn, is the thirty-seventh presentation of IPCNY’s New Prints Program, a series of juried exhibitions organized by IPCNY four times each year, featuring prints made within the past twelve months by artists at all stages of their careers. The Exhibition represents a cross-section of some of the most exceptional printmaking today while continuing IPCNY’s commitment to provide an ongoing exhibition venue for contemporary prints and a major source of information about artists working in the medium.

The Details:
New Prints 2010/Autumn
On view: October 21 - November 20, 2010
at IPCNY
(New address!) 508 West 26th Street, Room 5A
New York, NY 10001
Open Tuesday to Saturday, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Untitled, from the series From the Bottom of a Well, by Shawn Records

Happy full moon Friday, art lovers, and welcome back to your regularly scheduled Week In Review!

20x200 News

• Didja catch Ms. Jen Bekman spreading the art gospel this week for Small Business Rules? She says: "If everyone likes what you're doing, then you're doing something wrong." Many other insights and back story to the history of 20x200 can be gleaned in under 4 minutes—well worth your time.
• And also elsewhere: The current issue of Theme magazine focuses on "Collectors" and features Jen discussing everything from what does vs. what should motivate collectors, as well as other venues for collecting that she recommends.
• If you're going to be in NYC in the next week and have been following this year's Hey, Hot Shot! competition, give a thought to penciling in a date with us for next Friday, October 29th from 6-9 p.m., when we'll announce the HHS! finalists for this year in the first-ever Blurb Pop Up/NYC. Jen will also give a talk on the best practices for artists to get their work out and seen. Check out our post for details and RSVP to the event.
• 2009 Hot Shot + 20x200 artist Mike Sinclair has joined the Jen Bekman Gallery roster. See his portfolio of works.
• Michael David Murphy memorializes all of those never-taken photographs in his exhibition Certainty Principle, on view at Sprill Gallery in Atlanta through October 30th.
• Creative Commons, a huge proponent of open and accessible information, is running their Superhero fundraising campaign through the end of the year. Help them reach their goal of $550,000 in the name of increasing creative content that available to the public.
• Artists and dyanmic duo Kate Bingamam-Burt and Clifton Burt have guest-curated a show, Collateral Matters, at Portland's Museum of Contemporary Craft. The show is on view until January 8, 2011, with a participatory archive event scheduled for November 20, 2010.
• Conceptual artist and bibliophile Mickey Smith has an exhibition of new work, Believe You Me, showing at Invisible-Exports. The artist's opening is next Friday, October 29th, from 6-8 p.m. and the show runs through December 5, 2010.
• IPCNY's New Prints 2010/Autumn exhibition opened yesterday featuring work by forty-three artists, including William Powhida and Ross Racine. On view through November 20th.
• Ross Racine also has work in the Lost Horizon show, curated by David Gibson, at the ARTJAIL space on the LES through November 13, 2010.
• We loved the edition put out this week by Shawn Records, from his series Owner of This World, which documented the four months that Records' son Max, worked on the film Where the Wild Things Are with Spike Jonze. If you were moved, as we were, by the fragile anxieties that were so poignantly rendered in that edition, you might be interested in checking out the full book of the whole project, available through Publication Studio.
• Aperture is hosting their semi-annual Benefit, Auction and Snap! party on November 1, 2010. There will be a silent and then a live auction, followed by a dinner honoring Richard Misrach, Steven Ames and Julie Saul.
• If you're aesthetic inclinations lean towards the arborial, you might appreciate what Suzanne LaGasa had to say about us over on the Chronicle books blog. Speaking of trees, our recent awesome edition by David Byrne just was featured in this week's Flavorwire. There are still some prints remaining, so grab yours today while making a contribution towards Creative Time, an organization that helps fund and promote artists.
• We don't usually reveal new artists in advance, but we couldn't miss the opportunity to share this interview with Craig Damrauer, forthcoming 20x200 edition-maker and the man behind New Math. Kate Donnelly of "From the Desk of..." interviews Craig about his work and workspace.
• Images from Nina Berman's Purple Hearts series have made their way to Amsterdam and are part of an exhibition that will open on November 3rd a The Melkweg.

New Editions

Untitled, from the series Owner of This World, by Shawn Records	Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return) by David Byrne	Rose-breasted Grosbeak by Amy Jean Porter

ny.10.#36, 2010 by Jennifer Sanchez

We’re super-duper excited for Jennifer Sanchez for a number of reasons—for one, she’s among the latest participants in the prestigious (and awesome) AIM (Artist in the Marketplace) program, run by The Bronx Museum. For those unfamiliar with AIM, it’s a thirteen-week seminar series (which accepts only eighteen applicants for each session—Clare Grill was a past selectee), that helps to provide emerging NYC-area artists with various opportunities for professional development. From their website:

AIM sessions provide information, instruction, and professional guidance by addressing areas of practical concern to artists, such as curatorial practice, copyright law, exhibition and public art opportunities, gallery representation, grants writing, income taxes, and marketing.

Go here for a complete run-down of the fair's special events, and don't forget to stop by the Parts Gallery booth for a look at Jennifer's featured pieces.

The Details:
Toronto International Art Fair
October 28 - November 1, 2010
Metro Toronto Convention Centre
North Building, Exhibit Hall A & B
255 Front Street West

Now by Marian Bantjes

[Note: The image above reflects the 40”x30” ($2,000) print. Each size, from 10”x8” up to 40”x30” reflects a different portion of this print.]

Good day collectors! It's Sara with the great honor of introducing you to the brilliant, brave and devoted artist and graphic designer, Marian Bantjes, and the edition she made just for us: Now.

As I started writing this newsletter, Jen wrote to me this morning about how she got to know Marian's work:

Being the founder of Unbeige gave me such an amazing way to connect with the design community--especially to the people linked to Design Observer: Michael Bierut, Steven Heller, Bill and Jessica of Winterhouse--I learned so much from them! Bierut, in particular, was especially amused by my fandom--I wasn't an industry insider, but rather an enthusiast, so interested in and excited about all the stuff I was discovering. And there was a LOT to discover--after a few months of writing Unbeige, I realized I had been a fan on the most cursory of levels, which only amplified my ongoing excitement. Bantjes was someone that I discovered during that time, and well: Wow! She's the sort of designer that puts the whole question of whether design is art to rest very snugly. She is so clearly an artist--a passionate one, and one who celebrates materials and form.

And while she's been on the list of dream collaborators for 20x200 that is ever-floating around the office, we're not alone; her fans are many.

I'm admittedly a latecomer to the cult of the beloved Bantjes but all the praise is well-deserved. Her projects are generous, personal and brazenly beautiful. Her now-annual Valentines--of which Jen was a recipient and IMed: "I basically felt anointed when she added me to the list of the lucky ducks who receive her valentines"-- bear the intricacy, reverence and intelligence that she's known for. It's clear that no task she undertakes gets less than her full attention--even though she's in high-demand--so it's no wonder that this edition has been in the works since January.

True to form, Bantjes took the project and 20x200's model and made it her own. As you can see in the column to the left here, Now unfolds and grows with every edition size. At 10"x8", N-O-W runs from top to bottom, partially, deliberately disguised as pattern. At 14"x11", the text is most legible but evidence of the game at hand leaks into the edges. As the image continues to grow with the print size, NOW is slowly swallowed again, deftly woven into an ornamental tapestry that glows--dizzyingly, seductively, rainbow-bright. While the details in the smaller prints are delicious, splurging on a larger print is duly rewarded.

I asked Marian why she chose "Now" and she replied, cryptically, of course, "[it] can be interpreted by people in different ways..." I'll take some liberties to guess what it may mean, to me, at least. There are hints, I think, in her hot-off-the presses book, I Wonder, (which is really, truly an object to behold and is available in bookstores and on Amazon) and inspiring TED talk (which you should watch asap). Amongst the table of contents, acknowledgments, dedications and intros, including one by the venerable Stefan Sagmeister, there lies these words from John Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of Architecture: "For we are not sent into this world to do any thing into which we cannot put our hearts."

To neatly link this quote with "now" is insufficient but still, the idea is this: whatever you're doing right now, every day, with all your time (or the majority of it at least) should be something that you feel strongly, passionately about, and to be doing anything less, is a waste. Yes, I'm aware of how idealistic, and maybe a little naive, this sounds, but it doesn't mean that it isn't true. As Marian confronts, it's something that's especially hard to swallow for those of us who do things that have results that are difficult to measure. Unlike, doctors who can count lives saved; teachers who can number students helped, bettered, changed; unlike politicians, scientists and national leaders who can literally see worlds altered by their work, the benefit of the work of artists and designers isn't always calculable, which makes it easy to dismiss--as individuals and as a society as a whole. Marian continues in her TED talk:

It's very common for designers and people in the visual arts to feel like we're not contributing enough. Or worse, that all we're doing is contributing to landfill. Here I am showing you some pretty visuals and talking about aesthetics but I've come to believe that truly imaginative visual work is extremely important in society. Just in the way that I'm inspired by books and magazines of all kinds, conversations I have, movies, so I also think, when I put visual work out there, into the mass media, work that is interesting, unusual, intriguing, work that maybe opens up that sense of inquiry in the mind, that I'm seeding the imagination of the populous, and you just never know who is going to take something from that and turn it into something else. Because inspiration is cross-pollinating... I want as many people as possible to see my work. I actually really feel that it's worthwhile to spend my valuable and limited time on this earth in this way.

So, dear collectors, I know that you all understand the value of art in your lives, whether you are the makers or not, but I ask, what are you up to right now?

For the New Yorkers among you, Ms. Bantjes will be speaking next Monday at F.I.T. She'll be introduced by none other than Paula Scher (who has also long been on our wishlist and just may be coming to 20x200, soonish, hint, hint). The details:

Marian Bantjes: I Wonder
Introduction by Paula Scher
Monday, November 1st, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
F.I.T.'s Haft Auditorium
227 West 27th Street (between 7 & 8th)

Purchase a ticket for this event here.
An RSVP does not hold you a seat.

Hulk by Amy Stein

Powerpuff Girls by Amy Stein

Wednesday greetings, collectors. I am a little bleary after an evening spent at the Whitney Museum for their annual gala--an event full of glittering stars! And so many of them already knew about 20x200! Not just Anne Pasternak of Creative Time or Mike Starn or Robert Verdi (who is our #1 fan) but all kinds of people. It was amazing and fun and the best part is that I didn't wipe out in the ridiculously high heels I was wearing. Anyhow, more greatness ahead, including today's editions from Amy Stein, Friday's Hey, Hot Shot! proceedings at Blurb's NYC Pop-Up AND Jessica Snow's opening at JBG on Saturday, the eve before All Hallow's Eve. (Details on all, below!)

Speaking of Halloween, today's editions--Hulk and Powerpuff Girls by Amy Stein--are about as seasonally appropriate as you can get, plus utterly charming. Halloween in Harlem is one of my favorite projects of hers, because, let's face it: kids in costumes are cute. But aside from that, it's the one where I most see Amy's tender heart. Whether in person, online or via her work, I can see how most people who know her might think of her as being all-business and super-focused. And she is, in lots of ways.

Amy also happens to be a very lovely human being, and someone who's utterly devoted to her craft. I've had so many conversations with her about how hard it is to be an artist: to maintain a practice, to progress, to persist. She struggles in the same ways that every artist I know struggles, regardless of what level they're operating at. BUT I have always admired her so much--her commitment not just to her work, but to the photography community overall. She teaches, she blogs and tweets in a way that I think others can use as a standard to try to achieve. She's also involved in lots of photography-community projects, like Piece of Cake.

Her dedication to the community and her medium is universal; how she made this edition is a shining example of her commitment to her craft. I mean, we told her that it was a crazy idea, but she insisted until we found ourselves agreeing that yes, doing the entire edition as printed-in-the-darkroom-by-hand (like the olden days!) c-prints was the way to go. (And when she got into the darkroom and realized that we were right, and yes, it was crazy, she continued to persevere to bring you all these prints.) But she wanted them to be special--they would have been special regardless, I mean LOOK AT THEM--because she gets what 20x200 is about at its heart: creating the authentic experience of being a collector, no matter whether it's a $20 print or a $2000 print.

To purchase the larger digital c-prints from this edition--20"x20", edition of 10, $2,500 each and 30"x30", edition of 5, $3,500 each--along with other images from the series--contact her NYC dealer, Brian Clamp (who I adore! because he is awesome!).

Before I go for the week, here are the promised details about this weekend's big events:

Blurb Pop Up/NYC + Hey, Hot Shot! invite you to celebrate the 2010 Hot Shots!
Who: Hey, Hot Shot! Panelists, contenders, Team JBP + the NYC Photography Community
What: Meet the 2010 Hot Shots
When: Friday, October 29th, from 6 to 9 p.m.*
Where: 60 Mercer Street, New York, NY
Space is limited, so make sure you RSVP here by Thursday, October 28th. Complete event details are on the HHS! blog.
* At 7:00 p.m., I'll announce the five 2010 Hot Shots.

Jessica Snow's Multiple Plot Points Opens at Jen Bekman Gallery
Who: Jessica Snow + the JBP team, friends and family (that's you!)
What: Celebrate Jessica's new work
When: Saturday, October 30th, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: 6 Spring Street, between Elizabeth and the Bowery, NYC

Development by Amy Casey

It always gives us the greatest pleasure to hear about the projects that artists we work with are involved in, and this year has certainly been a busy one for painter Amy Casey.

To recap: her work has been included in a whole lotta terrific 2010 exhibitions around the country – a solo show at San Francisco’s Michael Rosenthal Gallery, and one titled State of the City—2010 at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center (read a fantastic interview accompanying the exhibition with Amy for the Rochester Center's blog, where she talks in depth about her work here, and a review of the exhibition here).

She's also had work in a group show at Chicago's Zg Gallery, another at Kansas City's Charlotte Street Foundation, and still one more—at the the Hopkins Hall Gallery in Columbus. Amy also recently completed a residency in Provincetown, MA with the help of the fine folks at the Ohio Arts Council and the Fine Arts Work Center.

Amidst all of this furious activity, she has still somehow found the time to update her website and to print some new etchings at Zygote Press in Cleveland. She is showing some of this work - along with paintings - in an exhibition with Jeremy Mora on right now at POVevolving Gallery in L.A. What's more, she's is also responsible for the cover image on a new book of poetry by Megan Snyder-Camp, called The Forest of Small Things.

If you missed out on—or loved—all of her work earlier this year, make sure you pick up your very own copy of this beautiful book - and check out her show at POVevolving, if you find yourself in Los Angeles over the coming weeks.

For the future: if you make it down to Miami this December, keep your eyes peeled for her work in the Michael Rosenthal Gallery station at the Aqua Art Fair, and if you're in Chicago, look for Amy's May 2011 solo show at Zg Gallery.

We'll be sure to keep you posted, as dates arrive and more information comes in. In the meantime, big congratulations to Amy, all around!

Where you can see Amy now:
POVevolving
939 Chung King Rd
Los Angeles, CA 90012-1710
(310) 594-3036
Call for gallery hours.

Untitled by Taj Forer

If there's an idea that we can get behind, it's awarding deserving artists the money to foster new ideas, projects and develop their practice. So, we are thrilled by this morning's announcement of the twenty-five artists AOL has selected for their 25 for 25 grant. For those of you unfamiliar with program, AOL is awarding twenty-five (!) grants of $25,000 (!!) to artists, writers and creative types – as they put it: “the next generation of culture shapers and influencers.”

It’s a project very close to our own hearts; Ms. Jen Bekman served on the esteemed advisory board that reviewed applications along with: Adam D. Weinberg and Chrissie Iles of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Andy Spade of Partners & Spade; Rafael de Cardenas of Architecture at Large; Kim Hastreiter of Paper Magazine; Christian Viveros Faune of The Village Voice and writer Glenn O’Brien.

What’s even more exciting: from the pool of more than 9,000 applicants, five members of the JBP family have been selected to receive grants. Yes, that’s right: Coke O'Neal, Jason Polan, Rachel Sussman, Tema Stauffer, Taj Forer have all been honored with this amazing opportunity that'll help them grow the projects we've long admired. Join us in congratulating Coke, Jason, Rachel, Tema and Taj as well as all the recipients of this grant.

You can take a look at the complete list of arts and selections of their work here. We can't wait to see how this group of creatives puts their grant money to use—and will, of course, keep you posted.

Curated Version of MoMA by Jason Polan

Filter Samples by Jessica Eaton

Time Out New York's "Home Design" Issue features none other than 20x200 and one of our edition-makers—Jessica Eaton! To transform your apartment with affordable decor, TimeOut suggests incorporating affordable art with your necessities and small-space furniture. Check out the extended online feature here, too.

Check out the featured editions by Jessica Eaton, Emily Noelle Lambert, and Amy Park + sign up for Jen's 20x200 newsletter to stay up with the latest affordable art that you can use to decorate your space!

Ambivalence, 2003 from the series Shadow Chamber by Roger Ballen

Happy Halloween weekend art lovers, collectors, and kindred spirits alike! It's Friday again, which means it's that time of the week where we deliver to you our favorite art links and stories that we've come across. Here's what's on the agenda:

20x200 News

• As Emma wrote yesterday, we couldn't be more thrilled by the AOL 25 for 25 announcement and proud that of 9000 applicants to the spanking new grant program, five of the 25 award recipients are part of the JBP family: Coke O'Neal, Jason Polan, Rachel Sussman, Tema Stauffer and Taj Forer have all been honored with this amazing opportunity that'll help them grow the projects we've long admired. Congratulations all around, and we can't wait to see what you create and put into the world next!
• Tippy top of our agenda today is our long and muchly anticipated Blurb Pop-Up/NYC event, where this evening we'll be announcing the five final 2010 Hot Shots Ms. Jen Bekman will be giving a talk this afternoon on getting your work out there—but if you're not near the city and still want to benefit from the wisdom she has to share, fear not: we're working on a way to share a recorded version of the talk with you.
• And just a hop, skip and a jump from our big event is the opening of Mickey Smith's Believe You Me at Invisible-Exports. After rubbing elbows with team JBP tonight, make sure to head on down the street and catch her show.
• Taking inspiration from Borges and Michel Foucault, curator Susan Thompson has put together the show The Chinese Encylopedia, which seeks to, "call attention to the various ways in which objects and information are given meaning through association and representation." We got word that all of the artists in the show are associated with—or are soon to be, hint hint—with JBP: Mike Estabrook, Paho Mann, Chad Hagen, and Jennifer Dalton will all have work on view from November 6, 2010 through December 4, 2010 at Cuchifritos, inside the Essex Street Market. Full details about the show can be found on the gallery site.
• Speaking of hints, and surprises, and of artists we've followed, featured and love, the George Eastman House was a finalist for the prestigious Lucie Award (considered the Oscars of the photography world), for their knock-out retrospective show on the career of Roger Ballen, which opened earlier this year. Our release of Ballen's Place of the Upside Down this year was one of our most thrilling to release, and we just might be telling you that if you liked that edition, you may be wanting to pay close attention to our newsletter very soon. And if you're not yet on our mailing list and want to be the first to hear about special upcoming editions, you should sign up now.
• Painter Amy Casey is covering all her geographic bases with showings on the west coast, east coast and stops-in-between, and has been granting interviews and keeping her website up-to-date with new work and musings. Read more about what she's been up to in our post from this week.
• Kate Bingaman-Burt has also been keeping busy, advertising her work and ideas in two recent interviews, one with the Austin-based Public School blog, and the other with the designer blog Poketo.
• Speaking of positive press, Diana Murphy over at s w o o n d just published a feature with an interview of HHS! contender and edition-maker Bryan Schutmaat. Over on the Beauty Equation blog this week, Chrissy Barker (makeup artist, model and wife of ANTM judge Nigel Barker) gives 20x200 a happy shout-out of praise.
• Our friends over at Creative Time have a stellar line up of events, talks, interviews and more going on this month. Check out their current program listing for more details and we'll have more info for you next week.
• Tamara Thomsen has new work on view in the group exhibition The New Intimists over at the NURTUREart space in Brooklyn. The opening is tonight at 6 p.m., the show runs through December 11th (another hint: we are currently in process of working with Thomsen on her third edition for 20x200!).
• If you're spending time with our northern neighbors in Toronto this weekend, you just might want to swing by the Toronto International Art Fair and catch up on Jennifer Sanchez's new work. A full list of highlights is in our post from last week.

New Editions

Now, by Marian Bantjes	Hulk by Amy Stein	Powerpuff Girls by Amy Stein