The Add to Amazon Wish List button is an easy way to add your most coveted prints to your Amazon Wish List directly from 20x200. Don't you want all your friends and family to know which prints you love most ---especially with the holiday season quickly approaching? PLUS you are automatically eligible to win $100,000 in Amazon's Wish & Win Sweepstakes! We're just saying, $100,000 can buy a lot of 20x200 prints!

Levi's Shape What's to Come interviewed Jen as a part of their initiative to create a place for women around the world to connect with their peers and mentors. Part one of the interview focuses on Jen's irritation with the art world as her inspiration for striking out on her own.

Amanda Mooney, for Levi's, calls Jen "a new kind of power player in the art world" for taking such an innovative approach to affordable art with 20x200. When asked about shifting her path from the tech world to the art world, Jen says:

Around the same time, I opened a home catalog and saw that it was selling a big stock photo of pigeons in Venice, or something like that, and it wasn’t cheap. It was like $250 framed. I thought, “That is so wrong.” It was wrong because some poor SOB probably got paid a stock fee for his work but also because it’s disrespectful to the consumer, the collector, that it was all that was available. To someone who’s willing to pay $250 for “art,” for something that’s going to become a part of their home, it should represent who they are. They deserve more than that.

Stay tuned for Part Two of Jen's interview next week! Until then, check out Jen's Tumblr and Twitter for her real-time perspective, or sign up for to receive Jen's 20x200 newsletter!

Car Free by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Bundle-up-it's-cold-out-there Tuesday greetings, collectors! NYC is in high gear right now--everyone's calendars are brimming over with openings, art fairs, benefits and soirees, and it's just the beginning. We've got lots of events coming up, here and abroad, and we're in the checking-it-twice phase of our holiday planning at 20x200 HQ. One recent addition made with all this in mind? Our wish list feature, powered by Amazon. You won't be surprised to hear that I think art is the very best gift to give and get, but it's surely not the only one. The Amazon Wish List lets you add items from any site, and we've got links next to every print on 20x200 to make adding your favorites that much easier. My artwork wish list is endless, but I'm also hoping that Santa puts a shiny new bicycle under the tree for me this year.

I used to pedal around the city, but as of late, I've lacked a trusty steed, keeping me toe-to-heeling up and down the Avenues. In the meanwhile, NYC's streets have become increasingly safe for two-wheeled commuters. We've got a ways to go before we're living in the Car Free utopia that Tatsuro Kiuchi depicts in today's utterly charming edition, but there have been an impressive array of cycle-friendly additions to NYC streets as of late. In celebration of increasing masses cranking over concrete, it's due time to bring this print to you.

Tatsuro's prints have traditionally rung in reasons for us to cheer. In previous editions: Tatsuro's 20x200 debut last year, In the Ballpark, commemorated the New York Yankees winning the World Series. (Coincidence?!: Last night, the Giants, home team of my home-away-from-home, cinched the title themselves.) Tatsuro's second edition, Photographer's Dilemma, was paired with 28 Camera Drawings by Christine Berrie, making for a picture-perfect start to last year's Twelve Days of Festivus. And it's just about that time of year again to be ringing in the season--stay tuned for lots more goodness here--as I mentioned earlier, the festivities have already begun.

If you're in NYC this weekend, please join us at the Editions | Artists' Books Fair. We'll have lots of prints on view to buy from 20x200 faves, including our not-to-be-missed first edition from Roger Ballen. For those of you away, we'll have more from Ballen, here, too, tomorrow! The details for this weekend:

Editions | Artists' Books Fair
Friday-Sunday, November 5-7, 2010
11 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday & Saturday
11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday
548 West 22nd Street
Between 10th + 11th Avenues
Booth 28

Come join 20x200 at the Editions|Artists’ Book Fair this weekend in NYC!

To kick things off, we're giving away *free* passes to the Opening Night Preview on Thursday. Find us on Facebook to participate by telling us which print from the featured artists below is your favorite. We'll randomly be selecting winners a few times a day through Thursday. Every pass admits two people--a $40 value--for a first look at the latest in contemporary publishing while enjoying a glass of champagne and an extraordinary view of the Hudson River from the rooftop lounge.

If you’re in the tri-state area, here are some excellent reasons to stop by--admission to the fair is free over the rest of the weekend:

+ 20x200 art--out of your computer, into frames, and onto walls. Come gather inspiration for affordable framing and creative hanging, check out a selection of 20x200 prints, and find out just how large those 40"x50" prints really are.

+ An immediate cure for your affordable art cravings: we’ll be selling a special selection of $20 (8"x10") and $50 (11"x14") prints, right in the booth. No need to delay gratification!

+ Art by Aaron Straup Cope, Alex Brown, Alex MacLean, Alexander Beeching, Amy Stein, Bert Teunissen, Bryan Schutmaat, Carlo Van de Roer, Carol Padberg, Carrie Marill, Chad Hagen, Christian Chaize, Derek Henderson, Dorthe Alstrup, Dylan Fareed, Greg Allen, Hollis Brown Thornton, James Deavin, Jane Mount, Jason Burch, Jason Polan, Jenny Odell, Jeremy Kohm, Jessica Snow, Jorge Colombo, Joseph O. Holmes, Katie Baum, Kent Rogowski, Kurt Tong, Landon Nordeman, Lawrence Weiner, Marian Bantjes, Marion Belanger, Matthew Tischler, Michelle Vaughan, Mike Monteiro, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss, Paul Madonna, Penelope Umbrico, Rachel Hulin, Roger Ballen, Ross Racine, Shawn Records, Thomas Prior, Tierney Gearon, Trey Speegle, Tyson Anthony Roberts, Valerie Hegarty, William Lamson and William Powhida.

+ Free admission all weekend! Stop by and say hi, or peruse the fair all afternoon—definitely worth it either way.

The Details:
20x200 at the Editions|Artists' Book Fair
FREE to the Public: Friday–Sunday, November 5–7, 2010.
Hours: 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Friday & Saturday; 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday.
548 West 22nd Street, Between 10th & 11th Avenues
Booth 28

Here's a map of where to find us in Booth 28:

Look forward to seeing you this weekend!

Scenes from past NY Art Book Fairs

What do you get when you cross a museum and a bookshop? Printed Matter's fifth annual NY Art Book Fair, which returns to MoMA PS1 this weekend! The three day fair is completely free and open to the public, taking over three floors of the museum to occupy every nook and cranny with the art of the book.

The New Yorker writes:

Does the artist’s book contain the art, or is the book itself the art? Not limited by materials or size, the artist’s book can take any form: letterpress and bound by hand, photocopied like a zine, contained in a cigar box, as big as a table or as small as a fingernail. This free, hands-on event features more than two hundred exhibitors from two dozen countries...

The friendly, hands-on environment is part of what makes the event an annual favorite event among Team JBP. The fair is a great chance to see what's happening in the world of books, from established publishers like Aperture to independent zine makers and self-publishers like Little Brown Mushroom Books, with whom Jason Polan and photographer Trent Parke are collaborating on posters specially for the fair. Not only is the fair a great chance to purchase great books and get to know the people behind them, but several experimental publishers and artists will be holding events in the fair's project spaces:

Bedford Press & AA Bookshop (London), in collaboration with artist Joseph Grigely, will present Exhibition Prosthetics, an examination of art, architecture, and the conventions of exhibition production; Andrew Roth (New York) will present Ten Years of PPP Editions, a retrospective of work examining the historical intersections of photography and book art; e-flux (New York) will map a cosmology of texts, ideas, and contributors for its journal; Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI; New York) will present a screening program featuring new and historical video works drawn from its extensive collection; Fillip (Vancouver) will operate a free-distribution center for critical texts from the database of AAAARG.ORG (Los Angeles); PictureBox (Brooklyn) will present a survey that includes work by graphic artist King Terry, imagist Karl Wirsum, and horror-core draftsman Mat Brinkman; and students of Werkplaats Typografie (Arnhem), the Dutch super-school, will establish an alternative economic system for design services.

You can see a full list of exhibitors at the NYABF website. For extra pointers, check out T Magazine's feature on booths to check out while you're there. There's only one NYABF a year so if you're in or around New York, bring good walking shoes, a couple of dollars and head on over this weekend.

The New York Art Book Fair
presented by Printed Matter

at MoMA PS1
22-25 Jackson Ave. at the intersection of 46th Ave.
Long Island City, NY

Free and open to the public:
Thursday, November 4, 6-9 p.m.
Friday & Saturday, November 5 & 6, 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Sunday, November 7, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Culprit by Roger Ballen

PLEASE NOTE PURCHASING LIMITS BELOW.

Wednesday greetings, collector friends! It's our last hello of the week, online at least. If you're local, you can come by and see us at the Editions | Artists' Book Fair this weekend. We'll have tons of our prints on view, and many of us from team 20x200 will be there too--it's always fun to meet our collectors in person, after all. First things first, however! And what a thing it is--Culprit, our second edition by South Africa-based photographer Roger Ballen, is the stuff that dreams (sometimes bad dreams!) are made of.

For me, Ballen's work conjures up the places, characters and creepy-crawlies that populate the most anxious of dreams, the dread and regret that rise with the first ascent on a roller coaster, and the manufactured terror of a scary movie flickering in the darkness late at night. My stomach may be knotted at the recollection of all these things, but it's curious to observe how they stir my mind awake in a way that feels like it's good for me. As Sara wrote when introducing Place of the Upside Down, our first edition by Ballen, "these kinds of thoughts reside somewhere in all of us and recognizing that is probably one of the healthiest things we can do. It's, of course, a little clichè but we wouldn't appreciate lightness without some knowledge of darkness--we need both for the other to exist."

It's a short hop from dreamscapes to Freud (what would he think if a patient on his couch were to recount the tableaux depicted?) to an imagined sequence in some unshot Hitchcock film, its cast of characters culled from populations of the abandoned and misbegotten, with the occasional criminal in the mix. Whether it's Freud or Hitchcock driving the narrative I'm creating, there's a soundtrack that wells up in the background: a drumbeat that foretells certain and mounting danger, sharp screechy crescendos as creatures go from inanimate to skittering, and a carnival organ diving and climbing persistently in the background as some unseen protagonist struggles and fails at every attempt to wake from a dream (or perhaps to escape from some gritty reality?).

It's certainly exhilarating to get into and to emerge from Ballen's work, though there's not much that's easy about it. His images stand in stark contrast to the other creatures which have populated the prints we present to you, and being able to offer his work here, alongside some of the decidedly lighter fare found in our archives, is one of the clearest signs of success I can point to in our short history. In you, dear collectors, we have discovered voracious appetites for not just art, but for expanded horizons. Like Sara, many of you are artists who look forward to the opportunity to own work by legendary photographers like Ballen. Others might be skeptical about the grit and incongruity, but have been with us long enough (and read enough newsletters!) to be curious to hear more about how or why I see work like this fitting into our archives and/or on your walls. And some of you might be thinking "What ARE they thinking with this craziness?" But you know what? That's OK too. If you're sure you don't like something, I encourage you to embrace it and think about why it pushes your buttons in the ways it does. That's often the quickest path to figuring out why you love the things you love.

Love it or hate it--whether it's this particular edition or any of the hundreds in our archives--I believe that 20x200 is at its very best when it sparks conversations, challenges its collectors and broadens horizons. Our first Ballen edition precipitated an interaction that literally brought me to tears when I read about it on Tumblr this past summer. Upon having his Ballen print hand-delivered by his postman, Matt Niebuhr (a photographer himself!) discovered that the postman was a major 20x200 collector. And it didn't stop there! Turns out that the staff of a certain Portland P.O. makes a habit of exchanging 20x200 gift certificates and of talking about what they like, and why, to boot. How cool is that? Even cooler still was that this revelation prompted a conversation, then and there on Matt's porch, about Ballen's work.

I'll leave you collectors here to think and chat. If you are in NYC, I hope you'll take up the rare chance to talk with team 20x200 about the work in person--something that we're all looking forward to doing.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING PURCHASING LIMITS:
- We're limiting collectors to two 10"x8" and 14"x11" prints each, and only one per collector for prints 20"x16" and larger.
- This edition is not eligible for any discount or promotion.
- We reserve the right to refund purchases if we determine that a single collector has acquired multiple prints or used a discount code.
- We are also offering an off-menu edition of five 40"x30" prints. Please email collector@20x200.com for more information.

Untitled, from the series Owner of this World by Shawn Records

Just weeks ago we released a wistful and wonderful edition by Shawn Records, and wanted to take the opportunity to have a closer look at the larger series from which Records' image was gleaned. Shawn's project stands as a poignant meditation on parenthood and on growing up, as well a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse of Hollywood and the film industry. Shawn writes of the project:

Owner of This World is a series of photographs made during the four months that my son, Max Records, worked as an actor in Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's film adaptation of the Maurice Sendak classic. Max was nine-years old at the time, and neither he nor anyone in our family had been involved in the film industry before. Though the majority of these photographs were made behind the scenes, my goals were far more personal than objective. Beyond documenting Hollywood's incongruities, I think of this series more as a manifestation of my own anxieties; a collection of both fears and reassurances, upon letting my son out into a world that's beyond my control.

What's more, this series has been made into book of the same title by the remarkable Portland, OR-based Publication Studio, an "experiment in sustainable publication." They write of their project: "We print and bind books on demand, creating original work with artists and writers we admire, books that both respond to the conversation of the moment and can endure." (Read more about this innovative and outstanding organization here).

More images from the book manifestation of Owner of This World are available on the Publication Studio website—as well as on Shawn's own page. You can order your very own, (custom-printed!) copy of this book here.

Untitled, behind the scenes on Where the Wild Things Are, Bushranger's Bay, Victoria, Australia by Shawn Records

As you well know, we always love to hear how members of the JBP family keep busy, and Kate Bingaman-Burt has had her plate particularly full of late. Not only has she been co-curating shows and arranging interactive art projects, and helping to organize the ongoing Show & Tell Lecture Series at Portland State University, (where she's an Assistant Professor) that we mentioned a little while back, she's also been giving interviews galore!

Read Kate's musings on a vast range of topics (such as attending public school, her love of typography, Wes Anderson and living blocks away from the lead singer of Pavement), over on he Austin-based art and culture blog PUBLIC SCHOOL.

Her second interview is for Poketo, a design firm with which Kate has collaborated. This one sees her ruminating on craft, exploring her Daily Drawing project in detail, and creating new drawings of her pouch designs with Poketo, available nation-wide at Target! (See Kate's drawing above, and the real deal here).

Take a gander at these fun conversations with Kate!

Projects where artists give up or alter some crucial, tangible aspect of their everyday, non-artistic lives are always fascinating and particularly—if a little perversely—compelling. Artist Michael Landy enacted a drastic version of this in 2001 for London's Art Angel, when he systematically inventoried and subsequently destroyed every single thing that he owned in a lengthy public performance titled Break Down.

Marc Horowitz is in the process of doing something comparably extreme for a piece presented by our friends at Creative Time (our recent David Byrne edition to benefit the organization continues to fly off the shelves!). In this instance, however, Horowitz hasn't relinquished all of his worldly goods; his sacrifice, rather, is his free will—all of his agency—for a project titled The Advice of Strangers that will run for the duration of November 2010.

For the entire month Horowitz will base every one of his life decisions—from the totally trivial, to the momentous—on the online (and anonymous) votes of the public. Those who care to vote will have the final say on whether Horowitz grows a mustache or goes clean-shaven, how he votes in the November 2nd elections, how he conducts himself at work, what he discusses in therapy and much more. From the project website:

Each day, Horowitz will post the dilemmas he’s facing — from the seemingly mundane to the profound — for the public to vote on. The project, presented by Creative Time, tracks the results and follow the action and repercussions through edited video coverage. The Advice of Strangers constitutes a collaboration between artist and audience, comprised of anyone who visits the website and casts a vote, thus influencing the course of the project and Marc’s life at the same time.

It'll be fascinating as the project unfolds to see if those who participate really have Marc's best interests in mind. On the very first evening that The Advice of Strangers was underway, voters had him winding down by walking to 7-11, buying a 40 and drinking it on his way home—let's hope this isn't indicative of how events will transpire over the weeks to come.

You can follow Marc's progress (and have your own say in his future, if you so desire!) on the project's interactive website.

20x200's booth at the Editions|Artists' Books Fair

We've been down at the Editions|Artists' Books Fair setting up our booth and have to say: it's lookin' pretty darn good. Here's a shot of our wall to give you a taste of our booth, and to remind you to come visit us in-person to see these fifty framed prints!

As a reminder:
20x200 at the Editions|Artists' Books Fair
Preview Party: Tonight, Thursday, November 4th, 6-9 p.m. ($20)
FREE to the Public: Friday–Sunday, November 5–7, 2010.
Hours: 11 a.m.–7 p.m. Friday & Saturday; 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday.
548 West 22nd Street, Between 10th & 11th Avenues
Booth 28

We have work on view by dozens of 20x200 artists, with a special selection of $20 (8"x10") and $50 (11"x14") prints available for sale right in the booth. Check out our earlier post for a full list of artists whose work we'll have up on our walls and a map of where to find us.

See you at the fair!

Nonsensical Infographic No. 1 by Chad Hagen

We mentioned this in our last Week In Review round-up, but feel it warrants even further attention: there's a show opening tomorrow, Saturday, November 6th that we're *particularly* excited about: The Chinese Encyclopedia at Cuchifritos Gallery in the Essex Street Market. Curated by Susan Thompson and inspired by the writing of Jorge Luis Borges and Michel Foucault, the show will feature work by Mike Estabrook, Chad Hagen, Paho Mann and Jennifer Dalton (keep your eyes on the 20x200 Newsletter over the coming months—we just might have something coming up from her!) From the exhibition's press release:

This show calls attention to the various ways in which objects and information are given meaning through association and representation. The artists are interested in how information is filtered and presented. They formulate new structural systems, undermine pre-existing structures, or simply reveal the absurdity of the very concept of structure. They allow for the possibility of new categories to rise amongst the old and fill in the gaps of the excluded by forging new associational axes.

If you're in NYC this weekend, by all means make a stop at the Cuchifritos Gallery and check out great work by some of our favorite artists, (either before or after you come say "hi" to us at the Editions | Artists' Books Fair!)

The Details:
The Chinese Encyclopedia
On View: November 6 – December 4, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 6th, 4:00 – 6:30 p.m.
at Cuchifritos Gallery
120 Essex Street, New York, NY 10002
Located at the south end nearest Delancey Street, inside the Essex Street Market

Untitled, from the series Owner of this World by Shawn Records

Happy post Midterm-elections and Editions|Artists' Books Fair weekend! It's Friday again, which means we've lined up our favorite art links and stories that we've come across this week. Here's what's we've got:

20x200 News

• We're at the Editions|Artists' Books Fair all weekend long with framed prints on view by dozens of 20x200 artists and a special selection of $20 (8"x10") and $50 (11"x14") prints available for sale! We've also got framing inspiration and tips to share, so come over to Booth 28 til Sunday at 4 p.m. And, did we mention it's free? Find all the details right here.
• Speaking of fairs, this weekend is also the NY Art Book Fair at PS1 in Long Island City, filling every nook, cranny and surface with the art of the book and books of art. Find publishers Aperture, Little Brown Mushroom Books, Lines and Shapes, and many others with books, zines, special edition posters, tote bags and lots more on the floors of the fair.
• You may have noticed the Add to Amazon Wish List button on our edition pages; it's a one-click way to let all your friends and family know which prints you love. Now, that click also makes you automatically eligible to win 100,000 in Amazon's Wish & Win Sweepstakes.
• Shawn Records' series Owner of This World has been made into book of the same title by the remarkable Portland, OR-based Publication Studio. Pick up your own copy of this beautiful book and make sure to get the 20x200 edition from the series while you're at it.
• 20x200 gets lots of love from Gotham Gal who writes, "Not only has Jen created a growing business she has created a community of artists and collectors. If you haven't been on her site, check it out. Guarantee you are going to be hearing more and more about 20x200."
• Amanda Mooney of Levi's Shape What's to Come blog interviewed Jen, calling her "a new kind of power player in the art world." Read more here and stay tuned for Part II of the interview.
• As usual, Kate Bingaman-Burt is a busy bee, and recently she did two interviews with Poketo and PUBLIC SCHOOL. Get the full scoop right here.
• Most of us would be wary to live our lives based on the advice of stranger, but artist Marc Horowitz is devoting his entire month of November to putting these decisions—big and small—into the hands of many. Creative Time presents The Advice of Strangers, an ongoing piece you can observe and participate in by voting on Marc's actions online.
• Taking inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges and Michel Foucault, curator Susan Thompson has put together the show The Chinese Encylopedia, which opens tomorrow, Saturday November 6th, from 4-6:30 p.m. with work by Mike Estabrook, Paho Mann, Chad Hagen, and Jennifer Dalton at Cuchifritos inside the Essex Street Market. Find details about the show here.
• We announced our five 2010 Hot Shots last Friday at a party at the Blurb Books Pop-Up/NYC, and couldn't be more thrilled about our many collaborations to come. Congratulations to Laura Bell, Michael Bodiam, Amy Stevens, Zhijie Sui and Chikara Umihara. These five outstanding photographers will each be awarded a $500 honorarium, participate in a group show at Jen Bekman Gallery in 2011, receive a $1,000 credit to make a book at Blurb, and have the opportunity to release an edition on 20x200. Read the full details and learn more about each of the new Hot Shots on the HHS! blog.

• Fotoweek DC kicks off tomorrow (November 6-13) with portfolio reviews, a Slideluck Potshow, exhibitions, viewings and projections all over town. Make sure to check out the full schedule of events, including 100 Portraits - 100 Photographers, curated by the Indie Photobook Library's Larissa Leclair and Flak Photo's Andy Adams, which will be projected at NightGallery @ the Corcoran tonight from 6:00 - 11:00 p.m. See the full schedule of events for the next week of the festival on their website.
• Calling all photographers! Jen Bekman + Jeffrey Teuton are jurying this year's fellowship competition at the Houston Center for Photography and the deadline's just been extended to next Friday, 11/12! Don't dally and get those submissions in!

New Editions

Car Free, by Tatsuro Kiuchi	Culprit by Roger Ballen

Black Flag, 2009 by William Crump

When we talk about the economy, we tend to talk about the housing crisis, the unemployment rate and retail stores closing left and right. But, how are artists faring—and creating—in this new economy? These are the questions The Arts at Trinity Wall Street and Phenomena Project ask in their forthcoming exhibition, All Insignificant Things Must Disappear, opening at the Trinity Museum inside the Trinity Church at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street downtown this Friday, November 12th.

The exhibition features work by thirteen artists, including 20x200's William Crump, and is curated by Darren Jones.

The Phenomena Project writes of the exhibition:

The global economy while rarely stable has undergone a recent seismic shift. This almost unprecedented crisis has opened up a range of social and cultural consequences that we are still struggling to comprehend.

All Insignificant Things Must Disappear is an attempt to uncover new ways of thinking about what has become an encompassing event. Thirteen dynamic international artists present their work within this context. Jo Wilmot’s lush, degrading environments melt off the canvas to expose the artifice beneath; Ryan Roa examines the functionality of consumer products, raising them to new levels of desirability, while Sandra Eula Lee’s innovative footwear intrigues by suggesting how we can keep track of any future steps we may take. Elsewhere in this exhibition Jo Yarrington asks us to put our hands together as she engages with the architecture of Trinity Museum through light and image, Slavs and Tatars take a reflective approach and Joseph Farbrook invites you inside his head.

Artists, so often acting as barometers for society’s evolution have a role to play in navigating this latest challenge. By offering alternative ways of seeing the volatility of recent times, All Insignificant Things Must Disappear aims to foster discussion and consideration for the road ahead.

All Insignificant Things Must Disappear
Opening reception: Friday, November 12, 2010, 6-8 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: November 13th - December 31st 2010
Gallery hours: Mon-Fri. 9:00-11:45; 12:45-5:00 - Sat. 9:00-3:45 - Sun. 12:45-3:45
Trinity Museum (inside Trinity Church) Broadway at Wall Street

Poster designed by Emily Yoble

On top of interviews and curatorial endeavors, Kate Bingaman-Burt has got yet another thing to get excited about! She will be making a journey to her old alma mater, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, this week: Along with 9 other super-successful graduates in a whole range of professional fields, Kate has been chosen as a 2010 Alumni Master. She will be giving a lecture for this event on November 10th at 4:00 p.m. in Richards Hall 15 at UNL.

When she's not eating pizza and catching up with old friends, she'll be "spreading the word of craftism", talking to students, offering portfolio crits, and attending various Alumni Week functions. If you're in Lincoln (and especially if you're a student at UNL!) make sure you stop by and see what sage advice Kate has to give.

prettymaps (paris) by Aaron Straup Cope

Good day collectors! It's Sara with our fourth edition from Aaron Straup Cope and Stamen Design: prettymaps (paris). PARIS! And I couldn't be more excited--not only because this print is gorgeous but also because in a few short days, Jen and I will be flying across the Atlantic and wandering the very streets drawn here for Paris Photo, visiting with friends from near and far, and of course, looking at lots and lots of photography.

Traveling that far to see and celebrate art and friends, easily, is not entirely unlike prettymaps--they're both remarkable vestiges of the way we live now. The gravity of the former is usually downplayed; we're generally casual about the ability to cross thousands of miles of open sea in a matter of hours. That is--unless you're Simon Winchester. Winchester, it seems, knows the Atlantic like Aaron Straup Cope and Stamen know maps. (This sounds like a stretch, I know, but please bear with me!)

Last week I heard him waxing about the Atlantic on NPR, distinguishing it from all the other seas in a gravelly voice: It is a gray and heaving sea, not infrequently storm-bound, ponderous with swells, a sea that in the mind's eye is thick with trawlers lurching... its waters moving with an air of settled purpose, simultaneously displaying incalculable power and inspiring by this display perpetual admiration, respect, caution, and fear.

For certain, (I hope!) our voyage from New York to Paris will not be the intimate experience with the sea that Winchester shares; it will simply be "the hop across the pond" that describes Transatlantic travel today. Most of us will never have the sort of visceral knowledge that Winchester has. The Atlantic's actual power, its depth and breadth, are reduced to metaphor, and remain unknowable.

Likewise, the beauty of prettymaps (paris) and its sister prints, (sfba), (la) and (nyc), coyly shadows the importance and immensity of the information they're highlighting. I have admittedly struggled to describe exactly what they are and how they are made. But, in a way, they too, like the Atlantic, are unfathomable to a lot of us. While we may be familiar with the sources of the information they're generated from--Flickr and OSM--are responsible for creating much of it, and can see how it's all done, the sheer volume of this information is something mind-bending.

If you go to the prettymaps site and type in your address, it may take a while for the image to load. Knowing that the web usually works that fast, you can begin to think about just how much information prettymaps is compiling. SO MUCH. While it'll work for you in Safari and Firefox, it's really designed to function in browsers that aren't even out there for us to use yet. We're living in the future but Aaron and Stamen are way ahead of us.

Don't let the poppy fields of color and neon streets in prettymaps (paris) fool you. They belie a vast source of information and knowledge that we're just beginning to see the depths of, let alone realize the power of and uses for. But, we can thank Aaron and Stamen for putting it out there for us--it's the beginning of a whole new way of knowing the world around us (and its many seas).

144 Empty Parking Lots by Jenny Odell

125 Swimming Pools by Jenny Odell

Wednesday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna here with the second and third editions from San Francisco-based artist Jenny Odell, whose beautifully rendered obsessiveness Jen introduced to you a few weeks back. Jenny is a collector of larger than life objects, and in these newest editions, she has combed Google Satellite View to bring you 125 Swimming Pools and 144 Empty Parking Lots, each a rumination on these odd-yet-commonplace forms we live with and around.

As with yesterday's edition, prettymaps (paris) from Aaron Straup Cope, each of these works is produced from an immense amount of data, channeled into tools—Google Satellite View and OSM—respectively, that allow us to see the world as we never have before. For most of us, the information is fun to look at but overwhelming to take in. It is in the hands of these artists that infinite landscapes and data-points are deconstructed into beautiful forms.

That Jenny chose swimming pools and parking lots, two of the most commonplace memes in photography, as facets of her collections, evokes both a chuckle and complete awe out of me. As the lead on JBP's photography competition, Hey, Hot Shot!, I watch submissions come in throughout the year, keeping a constant eye out for photography memes. In 2009, we saw numerous entries capturing the economy and the recession; 2010 was a big year for cellphone photo submissions. The memes are often driven by the times, but there is also a handful of topics that percolate every season. Among these are taxidermy, nudes, gas stations at night and Jenny's subjects-of-choice: swimming pools and parking lots.

I point this out because these oft-tackled subjects are exactly the matter that's hardest to capture well. Among the successes are Alec MacLean's Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, Carlo Van de Roer's baths and the here and there images that have come to be iconic versions of these subjects. Jenny, too, presents us with a new way of seeing familiar objects, creating intricate, puzzle-like collages that challenge us to look closely at both the pieces and the whole. When we zoom in on the pools' blue waters, we see the reflections of palm trees, fences, apartment complexes and telephone wires. When pulled back, we see a patchwork quilt made of pieces whose edges don't quite match, seemingly floating in space, waiting to be rearranged.

As Jen described in her previous newsletter: 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 process—that of scouring, collecting, shaping, compiling and carefully organizing each of the individual pools and parking lots into a single image—is what makes the output and the crafting of collections so very human and so very satisfying.

With that, I leave you to look forward to future arrangements from another artful gatherer—Lisa Congdon—whose ultimate collection of collections will soon be right here on 20x200 as prints for you to collect yourself!

Today's episode of The Nate Berkus Show features five design must-haves under $50—including affordable art from 20x200! Michelle Adams from Lonnymag.com and Nate (who spent many years giving design advice on The Oprah Winfrey Show), discuss the hottest trends, and recommend Christian Chaize's Praia Piquinia 06/08/09 14h01 as the prime example for incorporating art into your home. Although the 24"x20" framed print from the segment is part of a more expensive edition of fifty, prints from the $50 edition of 500 are also still available.

Check out the blog post over at Lonny for a full recap of the segment.

3. Praia Piquinia 06/08/09 14h01 by Christian Chaize

We're super excited to see one of our editions on TV (and yes, our DVR's are set so that we can watch it again later)! Check out a clip of the segment, browse our selection of prints, including three other prints from Christian's Praia Piquinia series.

Are you an Internet savvy art lover with an addiction to blogs and a penchant for grammar? Jen Bekman Projects is looking for a part-time blogger to help produce and edit content for our myriad web presences.

You should: read way too many blogs (especially of the photography, art and tech ilk), and perhaps you even have one—or a few—of your own. You’re expert at navigating your way around Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Flickr and are familiar with WordPress and Movable Type (or are very willing to learn). Basic HTML skills are also a plus! You are reliable, motivated and always make a deadline.

If this sounds like the perfect fit for you, send your resume and cover letter to jobs@jenbekmanprojects.com with the subject line: “Blogger, Last Name, First Name.” Include your cover letter in the body of the email and attach your resume. Boilerplate cover letters will get the heave-ho, so be original! Let us know what blogs you read daily and include examples of past blog posts and writing. And, let us know why you think you’d be a good match for a position at Jen Bekman Projects.

Resumes without cover letters will NOT be considered. This position is located in NYC. While you are not required to be in the office for all the hours you are blogging, candidates must be available to come in for regular check-ins. No recruiters please.

The fashion and design blog newfreshnice featured a totally fresh and nice write-up about 20x200 earlier this week.

The writers over at newfreshnice (in Amsterdam!) are right on the mark when they say:

The time that cool and unique art could only be found in exclusive high brow exhibition spaces is over. Online galleries such as 20x200 are helping artists to crossover, and us to easily buy affordable art. Say goodbye to those white walls, cause with prices starting as low as 20 USD there’s nothing’s stopping you to cover them all.

Although the featured edition, Koolman by Kevin Cyr, is already completely sold out, we still have three other of Kevin's portrait-like editions available on the site.

Thanks for the mention, newfreshnice!

Broken Sets (eBay) AD6D264E-3D49-42D8-9775-27293A37C401, 2008 by Penelope Umbrico

Earlier this year we wrote about Penelope Umbrico's astonishing show titled As Is at New York's LMAKprojects. Using imagery gleaned from the internet, Penelope's work for the exhibition represents a fascinating exploration of the nature of consumption and technology, and the inevitability and implications of obsolescence. A little refresher on the show from its press release:

Broken Sets (eBay) are images of the screens cropped from pictures of broken LCD TVs Umbrico found on eBay.com, where they are sold for parts. The sellers turn on the TVs while photographing them so that potential buyers can see that the electronics behind the screens work. Umbrico became interested in the incidental abstract beauty of the screens because they are derived from the breakdown and failure of their own promising technology...

Zenith Replacement Parts are photographs, also taken from eBay, of dusty cardboard boxes containing Zenith replacement parts. What intrigued Umbrico about these images was the seller's belief in the photograph - that a picture of the box storing the part would lend more veracity to the objects inside, than to simply list the parts numbers.

...Umbrico forces us to recognize our desire to see and understand, itself a kind of consumption, as something deep and essential, and equally impenetrable. We are all too willing to jettison common sense in order to indulge.

Black Box, 2010 by Sarah McKenzie

Happy second-week-of-November! It's Friday again, which means we've lined up our favorite art links and stories that we've come across this week. Here's what's we've got:

20x200 News

• How often do you see an art exhibition in a church? The Arts at Trinity Wall Street and Phenomena Project have put together All Insignificant Things Must Disappear, opening with a reception for the artists (including William Crump), tonight, November 12th, 6-8 p.m. Head here for details.
• Kate Bingaman-Burt gave a talk earlier this week at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln along with 9 other super-successful graduates from the school. Miss it? Well, Kate has also launched a fabulous lecture series, Show & Tell, that's running all fall at Portland State University. See the full schedule of speakers here.
• 20x200 + Christian Chaize's Praia Piquinia 06/08/09 14h01 were the stars of The Nate Berkus Show this week, being named one of five design must-haves under $50. See the full clip from the show right here.
• Amsterdam-based newfreshnice gave 20x200 a shout-out from across the pond, letting their readers know that "the time that cool and unique art could only be found in exclusive high brow exhibition spaces is over." We agree!
• Over on the HHS! blog, we featured Q&A's with each of our five 2010 Hot Shots this week. Get the full scoop on: Zhijie Sui, Michael Bodiam, Laura Bell, Amy Stevens and Chikara Umihara.
• Photographer Kurt Tong is very busy these days with his work up (or going up soon) in several London-based exhibitions. He also has an artist talk tomorrow at Blurb Books' London Pop-Up and a forthcoming book. Get the full scoop on Kurt's ongoing and upcoming events.

• Lenscratch takes a look at the portfolio of Joseph O. Holmes, who was recently named a Top 50 Finalist by Critical Mass.
• Jessica Snow's Multiple Plot Points is on view at Jen Bekman Gallery for just a few more weeks! Make sure to stop by before December 5th to get a glimpse at these gorgeous works. For those of you far from Soho, start by taking a peek at these installation views.

• Coming up next week: Sarah McKenzie's Concrete/Abstract opens up at Denver's Rule Gallery on November 19th.

• We honored our country's veterans this week, celebrating Veteran's Day. Artist Lauren DiCioccio has been working on dear soldier, an ongoing collaborative project of hand-embroidered letters made by men and women at the Shamrock senior center to anonymous soldiers in Afghanistan.
• Penelope Umbrico's summer show, As Is receives some well-deserved attention in the November issue of Art in America.

• Jill Singer and Monica Khemserov, co-editors of Sight Unseen, name Joe Holmes’ Engine Lathe Shelves and Gregory Krum’s Chateau Pool, as two of their favorite inspirations.
  

New Editions

prettymaps (paris), by Aaron Straup Cope	144 Empty Parking Lots by Jenny Odell	125 Swimming Pools by Jenny Odell

Untitled #5 by Sean Greene

If you're in the New England area this week, Sean Greene has made his mark on two new group exhibition. First, you can find a number of his new paintings in NONOBJECTIVE at William Baczek Fine Arts in Northampton, MA, which is on view for just a few short weeks until November 27th.

Next, Sean has curated the show Pictured Thoughts at the Student Union Gallery on the campus of UMASS Amherst, opening tonight from 4 - 6 p.m. The exhibition's site features a closer loko at the work of the six artists in the show: Lucy Mink, Matt Phillips, Jen Simms, Kathranne Knight, Cary Smith and Matt Tiernan.

NONOBJECTIVE
William Baczek Fine Arts
36 Main Street, Northampton, MA
On View: through November 27, 2010

Pictured Thoughts
Curated by Sean Greene
On View: November 15th - December 3rd, 2010
Opening reception: Tuesday, November 16, 4-6 p.m.
Student Union Gallery, UMass Amherst

Louis the Third by Jessica Snow

Bonjour collectors! It's Sara this morning; Jen and I arrived in Paris on Sunday, soundly but sleeplessly, and have been wandering around the city in a sort of dream state ever since. Today looks like it may be the first day of sun--until now, gray skies have offset gardens full of topiary, turning leaves and late-blooming flowers, grand stucco and stone facades--sweetly subduing meandering streets.

But fall feels in full swing, and as in New York, there's too much to do and see. November is photography month here--Lens Culture's FotoFest has kicked off the beginning of the week and Paris Photo will round out the latter. All this photo goodness amidst the city of light--it just couldn't be lovelier.

From afar, we have good things to share with you, wherever you may be. If you're in NYC, add this to your never-ending list of things to do: see Jessica Snow's Multiple Plot Points at Jen Bekman Gallery. It's a stunner, full of playful paintings that invite an extended look. The longer you gaze at Jessica's compositions, the greater rewards you'll reap, and this is all the more reason to live with one of her works. Today's edition, Louis the Third, is a case in point. It's a wry and witty take on Morris Louis's Point of Tranquility. Just how Louis created his canvases is a mystery; he destroyed many of his works and kept his process a secret, leaving us to wonder in his wake. Jessica's got a few tricks up her sleeve as well--but she's traded the seeming spontaneity of Morris's overlapping color fields for her own sophisticated and specific color combinations. Look closely and you'll see they're not what you'd expect.

Read on about her work in the show's press release, take a sneak peek at all the paintings on view and see this smart write-up in The L Magazine. Jen'll be back tomorrow with a new edition from another clever artist who adds words together, in lieu of colors. Au revoir for now, friends!

Prospect Park #2 by Joseph O. Holmes in Real Simple

On this eve of winter, we're very pleased to report that Joseph O. Holmes has an image featured in this month's issue of Real Simple (a publication that's had some pretty nice things to say about us in the recent past!)

Joseph's serene and wintry image (and very, very nearly sold out edition!), Prospect Park #2 gets a terrific spread in the "Thoughts" section of the December 2010 issue. It's beautifully paired with an evocative quote from poet Anne Sexton:

I am younger each year at the first snow.
When I see it, suddenly, in the air, all little and white and moving; then I am
in love again and very young and I believe everything.

This image and these words are fitting as the days get shorter, the nights chillier, and we New Yorkers await the first snowstorm of the year, which always seems to hush the city for at least a moment. We're also excited to share that we'll have lots more work for you from this series that you can see in-person. Joe's show The Urban Wilderness opens December 10th at JBG.

From the series No One Here Gets Out Alive, 2009 by William Powhida

For the just-released Issue #23 of Map Magazine, Paddy Johnson (a JBP friend, and the brains behind Art Fag City) has a feature about a series of interviews she conducted with six artists or arts organizations about what it means to survive in New York City. Her subjects include Harlem non-profit gallery Triple Candie, the Executive Director of Rhizome, and artist (and sometimes-revolutionary) William Powhida.

You can read all about William's artistic beginnings in the big city—jobs he had to take to get by, dismal apartments he's lived in, and the sacrifices he made to maintain a studio space. The accompanying article in Map Magazine is an overview of all six of Paddy's interviews—and stands out as an unusually honest, fascinating and insightful look at the challenges (and potential joys!) of making it—or just scraping by—in the NYC art world.

On the subject of successes, we're happy to announce to all you London art-goers that William will have work in a bold new group show called Dirty Kunst at Seventeen Gallery, alongside the likes of Jota Castro and Lisa Yuskavage, (to name just a couple). This exhibition will open this Thursday November 18th.

From the gallery's press release:

Dirty Kunst is a show with Tourette's. An exhibition of artists committed to what George Orwell called significant 'mental rebellions,' it lives and breathes according to the idea that there is no such thing as dirty art, just dirty minds. A rough version of the hippie mandate to 'speak truth to power,' the spirit behind this batch of 'dirty kunst' is one that seeks out extreme responses. Cruelty, venality, lubriciousness, perversity, black humour, misanthropy - all of these count as genuine paths to artistic expression and - why not - a certain twisted redemption.

The show is certain to generate some buzz - make sure to stop by and have a look if you're in or around London!

The Details:
Dirty Kunst
On View: Thursday November 18th - Thursday December 23rd, 2010
at Seventeen Gallery
17 Kingsland Road, London, E2 8AA

What does the place where you do your work say about you? According to Kate Donnelly, quite a bit. For some time now, she has been conducting a collaborative project (and accompanying blog) titled From Your Desks, where she asks creative types to turn their eyes inward, and (honestly and accurately - no preemptive tidying allowed!) document their own work spaces in photographs and in writing - studios, home offices and the like. Donnelly writes of the desk's significance:

A Desk is where we work. Symbolic. Psychical. Present. A second home. A Desk is a platform. A hearth. Roots are planted. It’s where hours upon hours pass.

Personally, I want to be (and have always been) inspired by my work space. I’m surrounded by “my stuff” which helps me think and conjure new ideas. I covet solitude; it gives me more time to think. I’m one of those organized clutter types (yes, I remember where it went). I keep torn pages for inspiration on my cork boards and Polaroids of friends which reminds me, I should retell that story. I’m always rearranging, taking things down; keep it choppy and not get too comfortable. Still, I crave familiarity from my workspace.

This past July, we were allowed a glimpse of Mickey Smith's meticulously, enviably tidy home office and of the space Craig Damrauer uses to create his hilarious New Math prints. Now, Carrie Marill has her (slightly busier, but definitely still orderly) workspace featured on From Your Desks, and its cheerful, brightly colored paints and works-in-progress, bathed in warm sunlight seem very much in keeping with what we know and love of her work. Carrie writes of her space:

This is a new studio for me, which is why it looks pretty sparse (although i really like it this way). My husband and I are sharing a studio in downtown Phoenix.

The old house has excellent light, realized I hadn’t painted to natural light in 8 years, so sitting down to paint is like seeing colors all over again.

Kate also talks to Carrie about her attraction to painting birds, how she captures the gaze of animals, her National Geographic fetish and her love for enamelware. See more photographs (including ones of Carrie's dog and kittens!), and read more about her inspirations and her process here. Then browse some of Donnelly's other featured desks, and see if you can't find more connections between an artist's work and the places where they create.

Lazuil Bunting by Carrie Marill

Modern Art by Craig Damrauer

Good morning collectors! It's Sara. As I write, it's almost mid-day in Paris but feels like the wee hours of the morning in New York--I'm fending off serious (nearly delirious) jet lag so while there are lots of good things to say about today's edition and its maker, I will keep this note to you short and sweet.

No stranger to economy of words, Craig Damrauer swiftly puts a sock in the oft-exclaimed-when-looking-at-modern-art: "I could do that!" or even, "My kid could do that!" His Modern Art speaks for itself. Next time you hear someone knock a Jackson Pollock (perhaps whilst soaking in the super-fab Ab-Ex show up at MoMA), take Craig's cue: brevity is the soul of wit. (Though if not in the exclusive company of good friends, it may be best to keep your thoughts to yourself.)

Round 20x200 HQ, we're big fans of equations that add up to more than the sum of their parts--(limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone--not to mention words themselves, so rest assured this won't be the last (nor is it the first!) you've heard from Mr. New Math here.

With that, I'll take leave till next week when we'll be back with our regular mix of fine art and photography arriving just before you all take off for the long holiday weekend. À bientôt!

Hi collectors! If you've been collecting prints from 20x200 for awhile and have made some new purchases recently, there's a small chance that you've been prompted to create a 20x200 account. And if you haven't been yet, you will be, soon. What's this all about!?!

Well, as you know, we're always trying to make collecting art as satisfying as possible. You've also sent us a lot of requests and suggestions for making 20x200 better and we've listened. Creating these accounts is the first step in launching the art collecting experience that we've all been dreaming of—and it's really just the beginning. Over the next few months, we'll be rolling out all kinds of exciting benefits and features for account holders. I can't tell you more right now but you know how much we love surprises around here (and you know our surprises are always good!). So, when you're prompted to, it's a good idea to take a couple seconds and create a 20x200 account. You'll be happy that you did.

For those of you who've jumped on in and created an account (bravo to you!), please drop us a line at support at 20x200 dot com if you have any questions or suggestions.

For the rest of you, here are some answers to the questions that just might be percolating in your heads:

Why can't I just keep using Google Checkout?
Google Checkout served us well, but there are a lot of things we'd like to offer you that we just couldn't do; more on that below.

As we receive feedback from you and continue to enhance and update our new system, Google Checkout will be an option for a couple more months—but not forever—the sooner you create your 20x200 account, the better. If you've saved information with Google, creating your 20x200 account will require a little legwork—we appreciate your efforts in advance!

What do I get when I create a 20x200 account?
The first new thing you'll be able to do with your 20x200 account is to see all of your prints in one place; consider it your personal inventory. This will start with your newest purchases. If you'd like to see all of your prints, send us an email and we can link up your account to transfer that info. Make sure to create your account with the same email address you've always used at 20x200.

Of course, you'll also be able to do a lot of the same things you could with Google Checkout: use a gift certificate or promotional code, save multiple shipping and billing addresses, save billing information and checkout quickly. If you've ever wanted a fast-selling print, you know it can be panic-inducing to see that timer ticking down on your cart. The more info you have saved, the faster you'll be able to checkout, and the more likely you'll be to get the print you want before it sells out. Holiday shopping is stressful enough already, let us make at least one thing easier for you!

There are so many more useful and fun features for account holders in the works. As we roll them out, we'll keep you posted here and in the newsletter.

Do I have to create an account to shop?
No, you don’t have to create a 20x200 account, but having one is the best way to enjoy collecting art on 20x200. And it's only going to get better.

Is the information used to create my account secure?
Yes, absolutely! Your privacy and the security of your account are super important to us. We will not share or sell your personal information, ever. You also have the option to save as much or as little information as you'd like.

This information should get you started, but seriously, if you have questions, concerns or suggestions, just ask! We love hearing from you. Say hi at support at 20x200 dot com.

Frame your prints! It's simple and affordable. Jen Bekman shows you how.

The hardest part is already done: you've selected your favorite 20x200 editions, placed your order, and now those prints are on their way to your mailbox. Now, time to get that print up on your wall.

Matting and framing can seem daunting at first, but believe us: it can be easy and affordable. In this video, Jen Bekman guides you through a few simple steps on how to mat and frame your artwork, offering simple rules to follow and tips on how to choose the right size, material and color frame, where to get it, and what type of mat to ask for.

So, get those prints out of their packages and up on your walls; we want you to live with art, after all!

Dead Deer by Robin Schwartz

We recently released two long-awaited editions by photographer Amy Stein. Capturing Halloween portraits of the trickiest treaters of Harlem, Amy’s work exposes us to strange, beautiful scenes in the not-quite-everyday world. We’re proud to announce the opening of her first curatorial project, titled Things Fall Apart, this Friday, November 19th at pool gallery in Berlin. The exhibition features the work of an amazing all-star cast of female photographers, including Hot Shot Juliana Beasley!

pool gallery has previously exhibited works from Amy's Domesticated and Halloween in Harlem series, in the 2008 exhibition, New American Fables.

pool gallery writes of the THINGS FALL APART:

THINGS FALL APART, curated by American photographer and pool gallery artist Amy Stein, presents us with a wise, yet rather distressing, understanding. It is a coming to terms with our collective sentence, the hand we, humans, were dealt; it is the realization that, at the end of the proverbial day, the chaos prevails.

Stein has selected the works of seven American female photographers; works that approach this grand conflict from a humanistic and personal standpoint. These artists dissect the human desire to construct our systems of order, and accentuate the inevitable disillusionment when those very systems collapse. The works are more than a record of decay – they are, rather, an examination of loss, as the transition from the ephemeral to the immutable reveals a cruel affirmation of our temporal existence.

Congratulations to both Amy and the photographers she selected for the exhibition!

Things Fall Apart
Opening reception: Friday, November 19
Exhibition dates: November 20-January 15, 2011
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11-6
pool gallery, Tucholskystraße 38, Berlin, Germany

Just in time for the holidays, ReadyMade magazine has just released a “Deck the Walls” issue, filled with tons of projects and ideas for brightening those often blank white spaces in your home. ReadyMade has featured 20x200 artists on their blog before, and in keeping with the theme of the issue they’ve included Don Hamerman’s Rawlings print in their gift guide! As avid 20x200 readers may already know, Rawlings is part of a series that Don did on baseballs he found in a field near his home, all fascinatingly disintegrated in their own way. While the $20 edition of Rawlings is sold out, the $50 edition featured in the guide is still available.

Rawlings by Don Hamerman

And, if you’re not already a subscriber to ReadyMade, be sure to check out this winter issue!

With a little more than a week to go before the retail holiday season kicks off on Black Friday (but who's counting), it's time to reference those handy Holiday Gift Guides like the one on Refinery29. They wisely suggest browsing 20x200's selection of affordable prints to find gifts for even the most finicky of your friends, and we (obviously) couldn't agree more!

Aside from the candy-coated featured edition, Sugarcoat by Michelle Hinebrook, we have gift suggestions for everyone from your geek brother to your biggest frienemy.

Feeling overwhelmed? Indecisive? That's what 20x200 Gift Certificates are for!

Thanks to Refinery29 for the shout + good luck with your holiday shopping, collectors!

Nonsensical Infographic No. 1, Nonsensical Infographic No. 2 and Nonsensical Infographic No. 4 by Chad Hagen

Happy almost-Thanskgiving! We can hardly believe it, but Turkey Day (and the holiday season) are right around the corner. But for now: it's Friday again, which means we've lined up our favorite art links and stories that we've come across this week. Here's what's we've got:

20x200 News

• If you've collected works from 20x200 recently, you may have noticed that you're being prompted to create a 20x200 account. What's this all about??! We're trying to make your art collecting experience as easy and satisfying as we can. Head here for details and email support at 20x200 dot com if you have any questions or suggestions.
• You've selected your favorite 20x200 prints, placed your order, and now those prints have arrived in your mailbox. Next up: getting those on your wall! In this video, Jen Bekman shows you how to frame your prints, starting from how to choose the right size and color frame, to the nitty-gritty of getting a mat cut. Now, watch this video and start living with your art!

• Sean Greene has his hand in two exhibits, currently up in the Pioneer Valley. Several of his new paintings are in NONOBJECTIVE at William Baczek Fine Arts through November 27th and he has also curated an exhibit, Pictured Thoughts, at UMass Amherst, on view till December 3rd. More details here!
• Prospect Park #2, one of the first snowy scenes we brought you by Joseph O. Holmes of Frederick Olmstead's beloved-Brooklyn green-space, is featured in the December issue of Real Simple. Works from this series will be at JBG in December, too, in Joe's upcoming solo exhibition, The Urban Wilderness.
• Speaking of Joseph Holmes, his Workspace series was also featured on Unplggd this week. They write: "Helping tidy, organize and decorate small workspaces and homes offices is our bread butter here at Unplggd. But that doesn't mean we don't appreciate the beauty occasionally inherent in cluttered, disorganized and densely packed work spaces, as revealed by the stunning photography of Joseph O. Holmes."

• Paddy Johnson of Art Fag city talked to William Powhida as one of a series of interviews she did about surviving in NYC as an artist or art-organization. Read her full interview, or if you're in London, catch Powhida's show, Dirty Kunst at Seventeen Gallery, on view till December 23rd.
• Wondering what the workspaces of your favorite artists look like? Kate Donnelly's collaborative project, From the desk of... investigates. Recently, she got a peek at the desk of Carrie Marill. Take a look inside her studio and get the full scoop right here.
• Photographer Amy Stein's newest project isn't photography -- but curation! Amy's pulled together a stellar group of seven women photographers for Things Fall Apart, opening tonight at pool gallery in Berlin. Congrats, Amy!
• CNN's Money magazine pulled together a list of their favorite gifts for the domestically inclined, pointing to Raul Gutierrez's Red Truck on the Back Road to Manigango as the perfect pick this holiday season.
• The team at Refinery29 also selected Michelle Hinebrook's candy-coated edition, Sugarcoat as one of "50 Great Holiday Gifts Under $100." Thanks, Refinery29!
• Jessica Snow's Multiple Plot Points is on view at Jen Bekman Gallery for just a few more weeks! Make sure to stop by before December 5th to get a glimpse at these gorgeous works. For those of you far from Soho, start by taking a peek at these installation views.

• Sarah McKenzie's Concrete/Abstract opens up at Denver's Rule Gallery tonight, November 19th.

• ReadyMade is decking-their-walls with projects and ideas for those blank walls in your house and picks Don Hamerman's Rawlings to adorn your space.
• Jessica Eaton tests the own limits of our visual perception once more in her fourth solo exhibition STRATA, now open at Red Bull 381 Projects in Toronto. Head here for exhibition details and for information about her forthcoming artist talk on December 9th.
• Headed down to Miami the first week of December? Jen Bekman Gallery is too! We'll be at PULSE Art Fair in Booth B-403 exhibiting work from Christian Chaize, Beth Dow, Derek Henderson, Kent Rogowski and several others. Find more details, including fair hours and directions to the venue right here.
• Colleen Plumb, whose work will be at the aforementioned booth at PULSE Miami, also has work at Dina Mitrani gallery through Christmas Day from her series, Animals Are Outside Today. While in Miami, we hope you'll head to see her work in both spots.
• Six fabulously framed 20x200 prints appear in the homes of Erica Cerula and Claire Mazur, the founders of Of A Kind, a tumblr-based web store as featured on From Me To You.

New Editions

Louis the Third, by Jessica Snow	Modern Art by Craig Damrauer

Stephanie Cinelli's 20x200 edition, You Are Important, was recently featured in an interview with comedian Samantha Bee in The New York Times Magazine! In the rather humorous interview, Samantha discusses working at The Daily Show and the challenges of raising children, and reflects on her "Self-Referential Object": Cinelli's You Are Important. Of the photograph she says:

It’s a sad photograph from a series about the first places men go after being separated from their families. That’s my wheelhouse. I like to wallow in others’ misery.

After the interview ran in the New York Times, the Huffington Post also included a piece on Cinelli's 20x200 edition in their newly launched "Divorce" section. Still, Cinelli herself provides the most valuable insight into the meaning behind her series:

The idea behind this series was to document the changes in the home of a family as the process of a divorce was occurring. In this instance, the mother was the one to leave the home while the father and sons remained. Due in part to the fractured family unit, as well as the absence of the matriarch, a quiet emptiness became evident as time went on. The subtle changes in the home were the things that spoke the loudest about the difficulty of this emotional transition.

Given the variety of collectors who have found a way to incorporate You Are Important into their homes, it's no wonder that this edition is very nearly sold out!

In their cleverly titled piece, "20/200 Vision,"in the Winter 2011 issue, our friends over at Dwell highlight exactly what sets 20x200 apart from other online art-peddlers, writing: "For those looking to upgrade from Scarface posters and coffeehouse portraits of Neil Young, 20x200 offers works by contemporary artists in an array of sizes starting as low as $20."

The article discusses Jen's motivation in founding 20x200:

In an effort to skirt the rocky shoals of gallery shopping and to create a new class of collectors who might otherwise balk at pricey, pretentious purchases, the former Netscape employee founded the website 20x200.com in 2007 to sell prints of the contemporary art she loves.

We're psyched to be featured in this piece -- thanks, Dwell!

I'm just about to leave town for a few days, so my refrigerator is looking pretty sparse. There's milk (that I ought to finish up before I go), a half a dozen eggs (from the farmers' market), the usual array of condiments and sauces that fortunately take a while to go bad, a can of Pilsner-Urquell beer, two bottles of champagne, a few avocados, parmesan cheese and a tupperware full of vegetable soup I made last night and will bring to the office for lunch this week.

If Mark Menjivar were at my place, what would he think? Menjivar photographs the interiors of people's refrigerators, laying the grounds for the viewer to interpret who the person is based on what--and how--they eat. NPR's Picture Show blog reports on the project with a slideshow of 10 refrigerators ranging from that of a former amusement park owner in Texas to the freezer full of buck meat belonging to a carpenter/photographer. The author, Claire O'Neill writes: "So would this foodie's Freudian analysis make me wilted curacao stew?"

Short Order Cook | Marathon, TX | 2-Person Household | She can bench press over 300 lbs.

Fortunately, as Mark photographs, he doesn't appear to be judging and is most interested in capturing the vast array of expressions that what you eat, or simply store for too long, is a reflection of something deeper. Is this just a Rorschach test made out of milk cartons and kale? Maybe, but we're still interested in reading into it.

We also have two prints from this series available on 20x200: Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily. and Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables. and you can see more from this series on Mark's website.

Vogue March 2010:pg 230 (List of Contributors) by Lauren DiCioccio

Vogue May 2010:pg 70 (List of Contributors) by Lauren DiCioccio

Surprise Monday greetings collectors! It's Sara—Jen and I are home from Paris. We've hit the ground running to kick off the gift-giving season, sneaking in a new release today and another tomorrow, just before you hit the road for Thanksgiving. Then, we'll be back on Friday with a snowy pair of prints from one of our favorite photographers. As is our holiday tradition here at 20x200, we'll be offering back-to-back releases over the next few weeks. We've got editions lined up from our best and brightest, so keep an eye on your inbox for amazing art and photography for just about everyone on your list. To kick off this season of giving, we've got a little something for you too:

The code Holiday10 is good for print purchases of $50 or more, now though the December 17th, which marks our ship-in-time-for-Christmas deadline. If you've been eyeing an 11"x14" print—which already offers the most bang for your buck—now's the time to pick one up for just $40.

Now, on to the shiny, new additions to our curated selection of editions: Vogue March 2010:pg 230 (List of Contributors) and Vogue May 2010:pg 70 (List of Contributors) by Lauren DiCioccio. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why we love Lauren's work so much, and in particular, the color codification dot drawings that these prints are a part of. That this pair resembles Rorschach inkblots seems especially appropriate: efforts to define what makes them great may just be a task best left to the subtle subconscious. Give in to their glowing beckon and their source will reveal itself to you: Lauren's created her own renditions of Vogue's List of Contributors from two of this year's issues by assigning each member of the alphabet its own hue, then carefully copying every letter with a tiny brush. These prints ring true to her process, produced for you on a mylar to match the originals these prints were created from.

When she introduced the first pair of prints from Ms. DiCioccio, Jen noted the gradual decline of glossy magazines. And while they may indeed eventually exit our reading lives, slowly replaced by pixels, Lauren's works bid anything but a sad adieu. Huddled together, her dots create a chorus of affection for the printed page. Crafting decadent, tactile versions of the ephemera that haunts our everyday is Lauren's specialty. She's made embroidered versions of plastic water bottles and shopping bags and is currently at work on a project that sends hand-sewn letters to soldiers overseas.

Proceeds from every print purchase directly benefit our artists; you're supporting worthy endeavors like Lauren's every time you give the gift of art. So use Holiday10 to start your shopping today and and look for us to knock it out of the park tomorrow with a couple of editions from one of our MVPs.

Drawings From July 2009, 2009 by Kate Bingaman-Burt

We’ve been closely following the work of Kate Bingaman-Burt over here at 20x200…and there is a lot to keep track of! Between her co-curatorial endeavors at Portland’s Museum of Contemporary Craft, serving as a 2010 Alumni Master at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her ongoing lecture series at Portland State University, she’s also recently done a fantastic interview with Debbie Millman at Design Observer.

Listening to Kate discuss her Obsessive Consumption project yields some fascinating insights on the role everyday consumption plays in shaping human interaction. Although she reveals herself as an artist who didn’t initially like to draw and an English major who doesn’t like to write, Kate talks about how the process of making these drawings helped her tap into the shared lexicon of consumers- how these little rituals create a common language that can serve as ways for people to create a connection.

As someone who “feels good about making something new every day”, Kate is big on being a producer of usefulness in the world. It’s great how her work for Obsessive Consumption neatly closes the creation-consumption circle. All this, plus growing up in a family of weavers and drawing for Target! Take a moment to check out this awesome conversation with Kate.

Ford Heavy Wreck by Don Hamerman

Dump Truck 1989 by Don Hamerman

Tuesday-before-turkey greetings, collector friends. If your inbox is anything like mine, it's filled-to-the-brim with all manner of holiday sale-related announcements. We are not immune to such things here at 20x200, hoping as we do that you'll give the gift of art to your lucky friends and family. Fan that I am of living with art, I'm confident a photograph or print by one of our artists is among the very best things to give or receive. As a collector once said on Twitter, "art lasts a lot longer than chocolate & flowers."

Everything else aside, there are few things you can buy for as little as $20 or $50 that directly benefit the person who created them. We have lots more than a line-up of amazing editions; you can expect lots of surprises along the lines of yesterday's offer for $10 off an order of $50 or more (see details to win a $50 Gift Certificate today, below!). Sure, we want to make our editions that much more enticing, but we also want to say thanks to all of you for supporting our awesome artists and for believing in what we do.

One of the things that I love about today's prints—aside from the fact that they are made by the ever-endearing and always-so-nice-to-see-him—Don Hamerman—is that images like these are a great way to get 'em started young. I can imagine Ford Heavy Wreck and Dump Truck 1989 adorning the walls of the littlest of collectors, like say A Cup of Jo's little Toby, and delight at the thought of a wee little one cooing and gurgling at the bright bold colors from the comfort of his* crib. It's also easy to imagine the photos situated on the walls of a won't-ever-grow-up captain of industry sort and/or adding a punch of color to an appealing array of prints hung salon style.

Ford Heavy Wreck and Dump Truck 1989 are in some excellent company here on 20x200. Long-time collectors are likely familiar with Don's Found Baseballs series, another set of editions suitable for fellas* that are young or young-at-heart. We've also got lots of kid-friendly prints, making it easy for the doting aunties (and uncles!) out there who are on board with this whole you're-never-too-young-to-start-appreciating art idea.

For all of you playfully-inclined grown-ups, today's 20x200 fun and games don't stop with the art. We've got a Facebook scavenger hunt for all the fans starting this afternoon. Haven't proclaimed your like for us? It's not too late! Give us the ole thumbs up, then play along for the chance to win a $50 20x200 Gift Certificate. Starting at 3:00 p.m. ET today, we'll be posting a series of five clues. Dive into the archives to find the artist and the edition we're talking about—the first person to post the correct artist and name of the edition will win the big prize.

Enjoy the hunt and have a wonderful Thanksgiving—I'll see you all back here with a snowstorm on Black Friday!

* Having been a tomboy with a crewcut myself, I also realize that there are likely more than a few little girls inclined to be enamored with trucks, baseballs and the like. Still, with gift giving in mind, it's a safe bet that toy trucks are likely to go over better with boys, just as little girls (even those that are the progeny of the most forward-thinking feminists I know!) are oft attracted to pretty princesses and playing dress-up.

Before the holiday retail season comes the holiday gift-guide season, with myriad suggestions for almost any type of giftee on your list, from wanderers to homebodies. For everyone else, Refinery29 has put together a well-edited selection of gifts ANYONE will love—one of which just happens to be Craig Damrauer's recent Modern Art edition. We love that Refinery29 is featuring another 20x200 artist, and we certainly agree that Craig’s witty work would please pretty much anyone we know.

Be sure to check out the full guide, which includes a great range of thoughtful gifts- from great art books to bacon-chocolate chip pancake mix. And if you want to give the gift of art but just can’t decide, 20x200 Gift Certificates are always available to come to your rescue!

Craig's print has sold out in the $20 size, but it's still available for $50, $200 and $1000.

Jorge Colombo's sketches (created entirely on his iPhone or iPad) have a dreamy, murky, painterly quality that belies their essentially tech-y nature. It’s fitting, then, that since appearing on 20x200 he’s contributed work to a variety of NYC publications, including regular contributions to the New Yorker. Kind of like the city itself, Colombo’s work manages to be simultaneously old-fashioned and cutting-edge; futuristic images that still feel romantic and somewhat ephemeral.

Untitled by Jorge Colombo for The New York Times

Today in the New York Times Opinion pages, his work pays perfect complement to Tom Scocca and Choire Sicha’s homage to the imperfect perfection of New York’s Penn Station. Although impressive when it was first constructed, the massive bus-subway-Long Island Railroad depot has come to be regarded as one of the city’s less exalted transportation options. As the New York Times writes:

The city beneath our city is a delightfully ill-lighted, incomprehensibly organized, low-ceilinged, viewless labyrinth. Harried people surge through its concourses and tunnels in perpendicular lines, mean salmon in puffy coats going always upstream. Soldiers with combat weapons lurk outside the city’s most unhygienic group lavatories. There is nowhere to sit. The “talking kiosk” that serves the visually impaired has been heckling Long Island Rail Road customers with chirping for so long that we have begun to associate birdsong with the most terrible things.

Penn Station is now slated to undergo a huge expansion/renovation project, which city planners hope will make it more modern and user-friendly—more in line with how present-day New York sees itself. Nonetheless, it’s the view of the authors that the beauty of the station lies in its unglamorous, chaotic utilitarianism. After all, as the authors point out, “Why should you be forced through a grand entrance and into a mob of thousands of people on the floor of a great hall, if all you desire is the 7:49 to Flushing?”

The contradictions of New York, which Jorge Colombo expresses so beautifully in his work, are part of what make the city so fascinating, whether you’re a lifelong resident or just passing through Penn Station. Take a moment to read the full Op-Ed here, and check out 20x200 for some great art inspired by cities, including more editions from Jorge Colombo.

As winter's chill creeps over New York City, we're warmed by seeing that this month, one of Jen Bekman Gallery artist Christian Chaize's photographs, Praia Piquinia 23/08/07 14h59, which first appeared at the gallery during Chaize solo exhibition, Praia Piquinia, is featured in a lovely Elle Decor spread that profiles the New York City home of Kiane von Mueffling. At 88"x68", anyone lucky enough to sit at the von Mueffling's dining table might imagine themselves—at least for a second—that much closer to the sun and sand. The other images from Chaize's Praia Piquinia series are also available in this size directly through Jen Bekman Gallery.

Chaize's Praia Piquinia series is has also been popping up in holiday gift guides and features left and right. The series, which Chaize created by photographing--over and over--the same strip of beach on Portugal's coastline from the same vertical angle, offers a palette of cool ocean colors and a serene image of bathers, unaware of the camera's presence, basking in the sun. Recently Chaize's 20x200 edition, Praia Piquina 06/08/09 14h01, made Nate Berkus's list of 50 gift ideas under $50.

Food and art are a natural pair; in their best forms, both stimulate the senses, tickle the tongue and whet the palette. Over the years, food has found its way into the 20x200 archives, by way of signage, cookbooks and a photographic explorations of people's refrigerators. Take a look at some of our favorite food-related editions on this Thanksgiving—perhaps today is the day to satisfy both your visual, and your gustatory palettes!

Frozen by Katie Baum

Hot Dog and I by Fernanda Cohen

Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables. by Mark Menjivar

Cake by Clare Grill

Jones Boulevard Location #1 by Kevin Miyazaki

Ideal Bookshelf 6, GW by Jane Mount

Salty by Michelle Vaughan

Have a happy, hungry and healthy Thanksgiving from all of us at 20x200!

Yadhira Carrillo, Nora in Amarte es mi Pecado by Stefan Ruiz

Photographer and former Hey, Hot Shot! panelist Stefan Ruiz has a new show up in Brooklyn! The Factory of Dreams, which opened this past Friday at F.L.O.A.T. Gallery is a wildly entertaining peek inside a major television studio—one among the many that comprise an enigmatic powerhouse: The Latin American Soap Opera. Ruiz's series presents us with portraits of stars of Latin American television (often in character!), the sets they work on, and shows the crew in action as they create television magic. Each of the portraits also offers insight into facets of Latin American culture—the characters, and the actors that play them act as representations of types of people in society. Both exaggeratedly sexy and humorous, Stefan steps into sets, then retreats from them, asking you at times to believe these people are laymen, then reminding you that they are constructions of people created from a script.

From the exhibition's press release:

Televisa Studios, in the San Angel neighborhood of Mexico City, is called ‘The Factory of Dreams’ and is best-known for its telenovelas (soap operas). These fantasies of love, wealth and betrayal are one of Mexico’s largest exports. They are popular throughout Latin America but also in Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA. No one produces more telenovelas than Mexico’s Televisa studios. The telenovela and its protagonists are a powerful vehicle through which contemporary Latin American culture and its society can be understood and interpreted.

Stefan first photographed Televisa studios in 2003 for COLORS magazine as their creative director. He returned to the studios after the issue published and continued to work on the project over a period of six years. Stefan's behind-the-scenes photographs in The Factory of Dreams reveal this secret world with humor and affection.

If you're in NYC over the next three weeks, make sure you stop by The F.L.O.A.T. Gallery and have a look at Stefan's portraits. If you can't make the exhibition, more images from the series (and some insightful character introductions, gleaned from an interview with Stefan by Chris Boot) are available on his website.

The Details:
The Factory of Dreams
On View: November 19th - December 13th, 2010
at F.L.O.A.T. Gallery
539 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217

The Sledding Hill (Dusk) by Joseph O. Holmes

Happy holiday weekend collectors! On this Black Friday, it's Sara, tucked into the woods of Virginia, warm and cozy with family, still full from yesterday's feast. There is not one part of me that wishes to leave this nest and there are probably a few of you who share this sentiment and also won't be venturing out to brave the deal-seeking masses. For all of you, I have one more thing to add to your list of things to be thankful for: The Sledding Hill (Dusk) by Joseph O. Holmes. Considering that Alec Baldwin dropped a cool $10K for one of Joe's photographs, his 20x200 editions are a better steal than most anything you'll find out of doors today anyway. So, you can stay in and still get your gift-shopping started.

Joe's ever-popular photographs of Brooklyn's Prospect Park are also the subject of his upcoming solo show, The Urban Wilderness, opening at Jen Bekman Gallery on Friday, December 10th. We're so excited to bring this work to all of you, in person and online. Like so many of Joe's photographs, these capture the cinematic version of New York that lives in our hearts, scenes that come and go too quickly for most of us who are wrapped up in our busy, always-on-the-go, working day in and out lives.

Of making the images, he writes: When I walk deep into Brooklyn's Prospect Park on the first snowfall each year, I find myself transported to the winter meadows and hills of my childhood and to the hikes and backpacking trips around the tiny Pennsylvania factory town where I grew up. My town was surrounded by Christmas tree farms, apple orchards, corn fields and forested hills...

At first glance, many of the snowy spaces in The Urban Wilderness might be mistaken for those rural scenes: stark white meadows rimmed by low hills and bare trees. But upon closer inspection, street lamps come into focus, hints of park benches appear and backpackers are revealed to be dog walkers. The wilderness and the urban details are an incongruous mix: the juxtaposition of pristine emptiness with hints of the immense human presence lurking just outside the frame. But a hike through Prospect Park in the winter is the closest thing I can manage these days to those walks through the snowy hills of my childhood.

While Jen's about as city girl as you can get, I was raised in a small town like Joe, nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with wide-open spaces to let your eyes roam, rolling hills for walking, creeks for dipping toes, trees for climbing and lots and lots of snow for skiing and sledding. The Sledding Hill (Dusk) might be taken from when I was small and snowstorms swallowed up backyards and made the whole world soft. It is when it snows and the city is smoothed in a silent white that I feel most at home in New York. Wherever you are, home or far from, hope you're warm and cozy, full and happy. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and we'll see you on Monday!

Untitled by Tracy Brown from the Picture Black Friday project

Good morning, collectors! We at 20x200 hope that last night's Thanksgiving festivities were as joyous, tasty and visually stimulating as possible. As we do each Friday, we've rounded up the week's most notable stories and links. While you recover from this year's tryptophan intake, take a gander at what you may have missed in all the mayhem of the seven days leading up to that turkey dinner:

20x200 News

• As millions across the country stocked their refrigerators and pantries for this year's most gustatory holiday, NPR's Picture Show blog highlighted a selection from Mark Menjivar's poignant series of photographs capturing the interiors of people's fridges. Mark began the project while working on a hunger documentary, calling the photographs "portraits of the rich and the poor". He wrapped up the project last month.
• This week, Refinery29 pulled together a much-needed list of foolproof gifts that just about anybody would love. We're happy to say that Craig Damrauer's edition Modern Art from his New Math project makes the cut! This isn't the first time Refinery29's shown us some love, and we're so thankful for the recognition!
• Speaking of the gift-giving season, if you're not sure of just which print would be perfect for that special person, why not give a 20x200 gift certificate? You can even choose a digital gift certificate, which delivers immediately, if you're in a hurry!
• On this Black Friday--the uniquely American kickoff to holiday shopping--a photography contest called Picture Black Friday, juried by Brian Ulrich and Amy Stein, invites any photographers out there to submit their own shots and documentations of the day's retail madness.
• Also this week, 20x200 and some of our favorite artists were showered with attention from the press! Christian Chaize's gorgeous Praia Piquinia 23/08/07 14h59 was pictured in an Elle Decor spread about the home of NYC home of Kiane von Mueffling, which first appeared at Jen Bekman Gallery in Chaize's solo exhibition, Praia Piquinia.
• Comedian Samantha Bee mentioned Stephanie Cinelli's edition You Are Important in her interview with The New York Times Magazine. The edition also made an appearance in the Huffington Post's Divorce section
• Our friends at Dwell gave 20x200 a nice shout for bringing the joys of art collecting to a larger audience.
• 20x200 superstar Kate Bingaman-Burt also gave a wonderfully elucidating interview with Design Observer's Debbie Millman. Their conversation meanders from the influence of Kate's family's weaving business on her creative process, to her yearning to create dialogue about everyday consumption
• Jorge Colombo's iSketches are continuing to pick up steam, appearing in several of New York's most widely read publications. This week, his greyscale rendering of commuters rushing through the sprawling Penn Station is the illustration alongside a New York Times Opinion piece on the fate of that transportation hub.
• And on Tuesday, an Apple 1 (the first Apple computer and first personal computer with a fully assembled motherboard) was sold at Christie's for $212,267. Why not get your own piece of the action by snapping up a print of Mark Richards's Apple 1 at 20x200. While the $20 size has already sold out, you can still get one for just $50!
• Speaking of big sales, Alec Baldwin also slapped down $10,000 to take home a photograph by our very own Joseph O. Holmes.

• Stefan Ruiz's The Factory of Dreams is now up at Brooklyn's F.L.O.A.T. gallery and takes a look backstage at the characters and sets that comprise the Latin American soap operas of Mexico's Televisa Studios.

• If you're still reeling from the meal last night and yearning for more in the way of edible delight, feast your eyes on this selection of food-related editions from the 20x200 archives!

Dump Truck 1989 by Don Hamerman	Ford Heavy Wreck by Don Hamerman

Vogue March 2010:pg 230... by Lauren DiCioccio	Vogue May 2010:pg 70... by Lauren DiCioccio	The Sledding Hill (Dusk) by Joseph O. Holmes

Monday greetings collectors! I trust you're all pleasantly stuffed and rested after a long and festive holiday weekend. With the turkey all gobbled, the season of giving is officially upon us. As you're well aware, I'm a firm believer that our gorgeously-produced, limited-edition prints are among the very best things that you can give.

Not known for my subtlety, I'll take every opportunity to bring that point on home in the coming weeks with some incredibly tempting offers and delightful new editions from your favorite 20x200 artists. That means we'll be showing up in your inbox more often than you're accustomed to, always with good news and glad tidings.

Antsy to make some serious headway on that list of yours? Then TODAY is definitely the day to seize. Spend $200 or more on art and photography for all the luckiest people on your list and get 20% off when you enter code CM200x before 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

That means any combination of 8"x10" and 11"x14" prints adding up to $200 are now $160. Our larger prints are even bigger bargains:

16"x20" prints, normally $200: now $160
20"x24" prints, normally $500: now $400
24"x30" prints, normally $1000: now $800
30"x40" prints, normally $2000: now $1600
40"x50" prints, normally $5000: now $4000

There are lots of ways to browse our inventory--and we've got scads of great prints to choose from. You can find work by your favorite artist or peruse our various (not to mention widely varied!) categories. Looking to present the perfect present and need some inspiration? Check out our handy-dandy Gift Guide or take a gander at some of our staff picks. Or, had your eye on a print for yourself, perchance? There's no time like the present to get it before it's gone.

A few notes about the sale before you start your spree:

- This offer may not be combined with any other discounts or promotional codes.
- A handful of editions are already too good of a deal and not eligible for this discount, including prints by Roger Ballen, Ed Baynard, David Byrne, Todd Hido, Mike + Doug Starn, William Wegman and LAWRENCE WEINER.
- The 20% discount applies to print price only.
- The sale ends at midnight (11:59 p.m. today, Monday, November 29).

Ready. Set. GO!

Agoraphobia by Austin Kleon

Sometimes we say more by saying less. It's communication by subtraction, and artist and writer Austin Kleon is a master. Agoraphobia epitomizes his mastery, and today, we take a closer look at the story behind this print.

If you run with the social media crowd you may have already heard of Austin Kleon. He's the kind of artist who lures you into his work through Tumblr and Twitter, and then talks about things like diner recommendations just often enough to help you remember he's real.

And then there's his Newspaper Blackout Poems (all four of his editions are part of this series)—works created by redacting words with halfway reckless but carefully considered marks in black permanent marker. His editions resurrect old stories by changing their meaning. In Agoraphobia, Kleon takes the story of a young violinist from The New York Times and creates the an ode to the overwhelming possibilities that surround us. The word "agoraphobia" refers to the great anxiety of facing open spaces (also often thought of as a fear of leaving home and a fear of crowds). The first clause/phrase of Austin's poem reads, "Space is a big place," alluding to this not-so-funny phobia. Whether Austin first writes the poems or names them then digs out the words from the spread in front of him is a mystery, but either way, he deftly crafts a layered narratives with the wise choice of a few well-chosen words.

There are only 14 of his 10"x8" and 15 of his 20"x16" prints remaining, so be sure to pick up Agoraphobia or one of Austin's other editions before they're all gone.

And as for the violinist that was once profiled in The New York Times, you can assume that the person's music is reverberating all throughout the world, hidden behind the veil brought about by agoraphobia.

Now that the holiday shopping season is fully upon us, gift guides galore are recommending 20x200 prints as ideal presents for a plethora of people on your list. In their comprehensive online guide, GQ advises their mostly male readers to impress the women in their lives by giving the gift of art. We absolutely agree that art is always a thoughtful gift, and certainly one that shouldn't be limited to women only!

The Tatsuro Kiuchi print shown here is still available online in $20, $50, and $200 editions. For more great gift ideas, be sure to browse our suggestions—and if you still can't decide, 20x200 Gift Certificates are always available!

Over time we're often fooled into thinking that our private spaces effectively hold our secrets. Our living rooms, our refrigerators and our bookshelves are like repositories for the details of our lives that were meant only for ourselves, and maybe for the occasional carefully vetted visitor.

For the most part our society respects this idea of privacy, but like curious thieves in the night, some artists prefer to tell stories by entering the spaces we call home and illuminating the objects we keep.

Photographer Todd Selby, known for his project The Selby [is in your place], and 20x200 artists Jane Mount and Mark Menjivar, are among this group of personality revealing artists. If given permission, they will zoom in on the things you keep stashed away and use their works to reveal the precise, finite details of our lives.

In some ways this approach leaves glaring gaps in the stories of who we are, but for the most part it also reveals the things we often omit from introductions and autobiographical portrayals of ourselves. Selby attacks this intimate approach in his ongoing project by photographing the famous—of the fashion, art and cultural worlds—in their homes. Though their clothes and their expressions always reveal a bit about them, it's his signature shots of their peculiar knickknacks, artwork, and collectibles from around the world that are truly revelatory—it's what they have that nobody else does.

Jamie Isaia - photographer; and Anthony Malat - clothing designer in their Brooklyn home by Todd Selby

Mark Menjivar takes a slightly different approach to his work, omitting the subject entirely and instead focusing only on an open picture of their fridge. As you can imagine, participants who have let him photograph their fridges has liked the experience to "posing naked" or as Claire O'Neill of NPR's Picture Show called it last week, a "foodie's Freudian analysis."

Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables. by Mark Menjivar

The ever curious Jane Mount takes a similar approach without a camera. Like someone who might draw your most played list on iTunes, she tells the stories of our lives through the titles we keep on our bookshelves.

The image below reveals swissmiss' (aka Tina Roth Eisenberg's) favorite children's books. (Hint!: In the next few hours we'll be releasing a new edition from Jane and we can hardly wait for you to see it. Stay tuned to see whose story she will tell next.)

Ideal Bookshelf 5 by Jane Mount

In each of these variations of portraiture, it's the particular combination of objects—whether it organic milk and blue cheese, your copy of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer next to Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs & Ham or your home's special collection of rare African figurines—that makes them both yours and meaningful. So, seeing those characterized in gouache, pen, ink or as a photograph, memorializes and further solidifies that they are more than transient things in your life.

Ideal Bookshelf 101: Robert Verdi by Jane Mount

Tuesday greetings, collector friends! Introducing today's fashionable edition--Ideal Bookshelf 101: Robert Verdi, by 20x200 friend and favorite Jane Mount--puts me in the unenviable position of writing about two of my favorite people. This being Jane's eighth edition with us, I've already spilled plenty of virtual ink attesting to her fine qualities (not to mention her oh-so-fine, fine art) but I've only mentioned my dear Mr. Verdi on a few occasions, and then mostly because he happens to be 20x200's #1 fan. (A lot of you might consider yourselves well-equipped to fight him for that title, but trust me, he's got a bigger mouth than you do, bless his heart.) I'm also gonna let you in on a little secret: beneath that oft-catty exterior lies an utter pussycat.

Robert and I first met about a year ago. I was extremely puzzled when Jeffrey relayed a message from Robert left at the gallery. "That Robert Verdi?", I wondered, gazing at an Flash-animated page that had him dancing across it. (Wearing an all-white tuxedo. And a fedora. Of course.) I couldn't imagine what someone like RV would want with someone like me. Also, I was busy, so I confess: I didn't call back right away. This enraged him, naturally, but also, he kinda loved it. When we finally did get on the phone together, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was totally in love with 20x200, and incredibly articulate about explaining exactly why. We met shortly after that for a meal that was like a great first date: I fussed for hours beforehand about what to wear, and once we sat down together, we talked for hours. Fast-forward to now, hundreds of phone calls (and texts, and emails and Skype conference calls) later: the last meal we shared was Thanksgiving dinner, in the company of his sister, his brother-in-law and his four utterly charming and adorable nieces.

As BFFs go, I have to admit that having a celebrity stylist as mine has been pretty sweet! Left to my own devices, I'm likely to opt for jeans and clogs most of the time. (Cowboy boots if I'm feeling fancy.) RV will have none of that, and let me tell you--the man's got an eye! Most people know him for his flamboyant style. He's got a penchant for bright colors and bold patterns, so it might be easy to assume that he'd advise others to dress in his image. Not so! Part of what makes him such a pussycat is his intuition and his empathy: He has a knack for understanding who a person really is (for better or for worse) and figuring out how to communicate their essence with sartorial flair. Sure, he tries to get me into ridiculously high heels pretty much all the time, but let's face it, most ensembles look better with the added oomph of a pair of YSL sandals.

My day-to-day garb might verge towards the humdrum, but the fashion world isn't totally alien to me. I've been known to rock an Hermes scarf with my jeans and t-shirt and I've looked forward to the September issues for as long as I can remember. In fact, a lot of the books on Robert's shelf--The Cultivated Life, Yves Saint Laurent and The Hermès Scarf among them--are on my own shelves as well. Many of the others are tomes to covet--rare birds like Robert that they are, they're nearly impossible to find and très cher to acquire. Lucky for you, Jane's depiction of RV's ideal bookshelf is the perfectly-priced gift for the finicky fashionista on your list.

It's gift guide extravaganza! While the holidays are a time to come up with the perfect presents for friends and family, we can all use a little gift-picking guidance. We're proud to say that the editors at DailyCandy have selected Youngna Park's gorgeous prints as examples of a "picture perfect" present, especially for the "girly" type.

The work shown, Winter Flags (East Village, New York), is sold out in the $20 size, but available for $50, $200 or $1000. Prints of the other edition featured, Balloons (Midtown Manhattan) (below), are still available in editions ranging from $20-$1000. For more great art for yourself or the ones you love (including additional editions from Youngna Park), be sure to browse 20x200. Check out the full DailyCandy Guide For Girls, which also features an excellent home doughnut-maker and a neat type-based 2011 calendar.

Balloons (Midtown Manhattan) by Youngna Park