20x200's Map of the 2011 New York Art Fairs by Wendy MacNaughton

Ready, Set...

Art is in the air... can you feel it? The official kick-off for the Armory Show 2011 Art Fair* weekend is just two days away, and at 20x200 HQ the excitement is palpable!

It's easy to get overwhelmed in this sea of art, but we're here to help. Get prepped with our opinionated guide to the NYC Art Fairs if you haven't already, follow us on Twitter @20x200 for the scoop and where to find us, and be on the lookout for the 20x200 team as you're pounding the pavement.

We'll be out-and-about handing out our ever-popular Art Fair Survival Kits tucked into our amazingly good-looking (if we do say so ourselves) Live With Art tote bags. They're even better than last year! Pick one up, tote it around, and show everyone you're down with 20x200 and art in general. You just might even win some art (see below)!

What's inside? Lots and lots of goodies!

+ Altoids: Freshen up before saying 'hi' to your favorite artist or chatting up that cute gallery guy/girl.
+ Orabrush: Ditto—you can't make a first impression a second time.
+ illy issimo: Drink up and re-caffeinate on the fly.
+ Popchips: Eat up and refuel whilst gallery hopping.
+ West Elm tape measure & level: Measure up with pocket-size art hanging essentials.
+ West Elm discount card: Stock up from one of our fave frame sources.
+ BAMart Auction Invite: Culture up at one of our fave institutions.
+ Art Fag City + Hyperallergic Event Guides: Read up and be in the know on what's happening.
+ 20x200's Map of the 2011 New York Art Fairs (above): A work of art right in your bag! This year's map is drawn by the inimitable Wendy MacNaughton.
+ 20x200 Magic Fortune Teller: Thrill your friends with amazing feats of art market prognostication!

BE IN IT TO WIN IT
Also back by popular demand is the 20x200 Tote See-And-Be-Seen Contest!
Here's how to win:
+ Take a picture of someone (yourself, a friend, an attractive arty stranger) carrying a Live With Art tote at the art fairs and post it on Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.
+ Include @20x200 in your tweet or tag 20x200 on Facebook or Flickr.

RUNNERS UP: Our favorite photo from each day (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) will win a $20 20x200 gift certificate.
GRAND PRIZE: Our favorite photo from the weekend will win a $200 gift certificate from 20x200.

Contest ends Sunday, March 6 at midnight (EST). Only three photo entries per person will be accepted. Retweeting doesn't count. Please play fair!

WHERE TO FIND US
Seek us out and take a tote around the fairs or find us at our booth at PULSE. We'll be showing new work from artists you know and love, Christian Chaize, Carrie Marill and Gregory Krum, as well as by one new-to-JBG artist, Michelle Muldrow.

PULSE NEW YORK
125 W 18th Street, New York, NY
Booth #b-4
Thursday, March 3: 1 p.m.–8 p.m.
Friday, March 4 + Saturday, March 5: noon–8 p.m.
Sunday, March 6: noon–5 p.m.

Our emissaries will be here, there, everywhere, so be sure to follow us on Twitter @20x200 starting right now to keep track of other tote distribution locations!

*Unfamiliar with this annual event? Every spring nearly a dozen art fairs, including the Armory Show 2011, present thousands of galleries exhibiting their artists. It's a must-see/must-do for any art aficionado or collector. Events run March 3 through March 6 this year.

Did you get your hands on a 20x200 Art Fair Survival Kit yet? Let us know! We'd love to see you out and about around this weekend's Armory Fair with your Live With Art tote—send us pics! We'll be giving away one $20 gift certificate per day today, Friday and Saturday, and one $200 gift certificate at the end of the fairs to the folks who Tweet, Flickr or Facebook the best photos of someone carrying a tote.

Here are the details:

BE IN IT TO WIN IT
Back by popular demand is the 20x200 Tote See-And-Be-Seen Contest!
Here's how to win:
+ Take a picture of someone (yourself, a friend, an attractive arty stranger) carrying a Live With Art tote at the art fairs and post it on Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.
+ Include @20x200 in your tweet or tag 20x200 on Facebook or Flickr.

RUNNERS UP: Our favorite photo from each day (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) will win a $20 20x200 gift certificate.
GRAND PRIZE: Our favorite photo from the weekend will win a $200 gift certificate from 20x200.

Contest ends Sunday, March 6 at midnight (EST). Only three photo entries per person will be accepted. Retweeting doesn't count. Please play fair! Check out last year's highlights for inspiration below.

WHERE TO FIND US
Seek us out and take a tote around the fairs or find us at our booth at PULSE. We'll be showing new work from artists you know and love, Christian Chaize, Carrie Marill and Gregory Krum, as well as by one new-to-JBG artist, Michelle Muldrow.

PULSE NEW YORK
125 W 18th Street, New York, NY
Booth #b-4
Thursday, March 3: 1 p.m.–8 p.m.
Friday, March 4 + Saturday, March 5: noon–8 p.m.
Sunday, March 6: noon–5 p.m.

Our emissaries will be here, there, everywhere, so be sure to follow us on Twitter @20x200 starting right now to keep track of other tote distribution locations.

Art Fair Survival Kits are everywhere!

Many, many thanks are in order to everyone who came out to see us at the Jen Bekman Gallery booth at PULSE and a special thanks to our happy tote bag recipients—it was lovely to say hello. We hope you had as much fun with our Art Fair Survival Kits as we did making and giving them away. It was amazing to see so very many tote bags on people's arms and shoulders!

A GIGANTIC thank you to everyone who played along and tweeted, blogged, and twitpic'd over the weekend! And now, what you’ve all been waiting for, the winners of our See-and-Be-Seen Contest.

Katarina Wong won a $20 gift certificate for this well-shot twitpic:

Pat Padua also won a $20 gift certificate for this Live With Art tote bag, pictured here with a charming Zombie Kitty by Veronica Ebert:

Alizay Steinberg won a $20 gift certificate for this tote, posing with some delicious looking cheesecake from Junior's:

And the grand prize $200 gift certificate winner is... Christina Rinaldi for her fantastic picture (look at those stripes, we love them!):

A HUGE thanks to all of the Art Fair Survival Kit contributors: Art Fag City, Hyperallergic, West Elm, BAM Art, Altoids, Orabrush, Illy and Popchips.

Finally, thank you, thank you, thank you to Wendy MacNaughton for her lovely hand drawn map of Art Fairs in New York, Casey Gollan for putting together the key to that map, and Kelli Anderson for designing the super-fun fortune teller.

Overheard on the Titanic by Austin Kleon

Bright and brisk Tuesday greetings, collectors near and far. It's the day before the eve of my departure for the nerd-spring-break Nirvana that is SXSW; visualizing myself nibbling on a breakfast burrito at Jo's after a night sipping cocktails in the courtyard of the San Jose is providing strong incentive to plow through the seemingly insurmountable pile of stuff I need to get through before I'm Austin-bound. And speaking of Austin, there's also our Austin, who I last saw (and will see again!) in Austin. Our Austin, he of the Kleons of Austin, is the prolifically poetic edition-maker with whom we've had the good fortune to collaborate with to produce several well-worded works. Today's clever addition, Overheard On The Titanic, brings us to my favorite number's worth of editions, which is five.

I introduced Austin's The Travelogue shortly after returning from my Austin-with-Austin travels and what I wrote back then is still the best description I can think of to describe why I find Austin's work so enchanting:

His selection-by-omission practice is the semi-illogical next step in a process that I go through constantly, one which I've pursued, involuntarily at times, for as long as I can remember being able to read. Nearly all my reading is a swim against an undercurrent of my unending search for a motto, a rallying cry or a mantra. Whether it's a poignant refrain of a pop song, a quote from a dead person or a few lines swiped from an admired poet, my constant search for a few good words is... constant. But, my ceaseless scanning of a page for a string of resonant words is thoroughly trumped by Austin's talent for stringing them together. He doesn't find poetry, he makes it—and he doesn't just make it, he publishes it. Which is to say that this creative-writing-major-with-a-concentration-in-poetry college dropout makes me both green with envy and glowing with pride.

Today, Austin can add acclaimed author to the list of his accomplishments of which I'm envious. When I last saw our hero, it was while sipping sweet tea, eating barbeque and debating poetry. Two (signed!) copies of his fresh-off-the-presses book sat on the picnic bench beside me. Austin had shrewdly arranged for the SXSW bookstore to stock a boxful of them, well in advance of their availability in bookstores. Back then, he was really thrilled about its impending release, but also anxious about its reception. I beseeched him to please be sure that the black cloud of uncertainty he had brewing didn't keep him from basking in the glow of his major accomplishment. A book! Of his very own! Released by a major publisher. Pretty cool stuff, you know? Today, Newspaper Blackout is a real out-in-the-world thing, with rave reviews and everything, its poems described in The New Yorker as being "like a cross between magnetic refrigerator poetry and enigmatic ransom notes, funny and Zen-like, collages of found art".

Quality Meats by Colleen Plumb

Warmest of Wednesday greetings, collector friends. We're having quite a day around here, as usual, with too much to do and not enough people to do it. Which brings me to our first item of business: Did you know that we are hiring? We are. One of the plum positions we're seeking to fill is that of Photography Competition Manager, which is to say: someone to run Hey, Hot Shot!. And speaking of plum(b)s and HHS!, today's most important matter is to introduce you to our fourth edition by 2008 Hot Shot and Jen Bekman Gallery artist, Chicago-native Colleen Plumb.

Quality Meats is a let's-get-real counterpoint to Colleen's most common subjects, the animals with which we coexist. Let the record show that I, for once, have opted to not feature a creature. Sure, it's a text edition of sorts but still! I am not utterly enslaved to my weakness for our furry friends.

Colleen's work is all about the bizarre range of interactions we have with animals. We've all encountered extreme cases of both adoration and neglect. We strive for their conservation and also consume them. I myself struggle with how it is that I can eat bacon when I know it comes from what my beloved Wilbur was made of, and that the Wilburs of the world are likely more intelligent and evolved than my beloved Ollie Otter. I'd never in a million years dream of dining upon the Otter, and yet! I know that my distaste for such a concept is more cultural than culinary.

Honestly, it's all so confusing and upsetting that I often don't have the stomach for thinking it through. Ms. Plumb, in possession of a certain Midwestern practicality, is a different story. Her exploration has been both enduring and unflinching, resulting in a compelling body of work whose evolution I've had the good fortune to witness over the course of the past several years. Two major milestones in said evolution are happening in tandem: first is the publication of her first monograph Animals Are Outside Today by our friends at Radius Books and the second is her NYC solo exhibition debut, which we are exceedingly proud to be presenting at Jen Bekman Gallery. We'll be celebrating the opening of her exhibition next Friday, March 18th, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Both of these milestones are major, and the result of Colleen's considerable efforts, expense and yes, perseverance. They really underplay that perseverance part in art school, but let me tell you: it matters. The expense part, so unseemly to converse about and also underplayed, is considerable. Which brings me to the part of 20x200 that I couldn't be prouder of: patronage. Buying art from our artists makes monographs and exhibitions possible. So, get a print and come to next Friday's opening to witness the magic that your patronage makes possible.

1,376 Cylindrical Industrial Buildings by Jenny Odell

Hi y'all. Jen's about to be Austin-bound, so it's Sara filling in. We'll take a virtual trip alongside her by satellite, Google satellite to be specific, courtesy of San Francisco-based artist, Jenny Odell.

As we fly over the grand swath of United States sprawling between New York and Texas, we'll spot several cylindrical industrial buildings, probably too many to count. But, as she did in her other ever-popular prints—195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships, 144 Empty Parking Lots and 125 Swimming Pools—Jenny's arranged and tallied images she's scavenged while virtually zooming over the earth. This time she's culled towers, tanks and silos, neatly organizing them to form the image you see above (not to be confused with what you might see below, if we were, actually, airborne): 1,376 Cylindrical Industrial Buildings.

On seeing Jenny's prints in real life: they're stunning. And, depending on their scale, they change. Viewing a smaller print next to a larger one is a bit like scrolling in and out on a Google map—as you get closer, the images get bigger, and the pixels and bits of information making up the picture start to fall apart. The towers and silos (or ships or swimming pools) shimmer and blur, becoming more and more like the mirages they are: ephemera from a specific and brief but indeterminable period of time—copied and pasted (permanently recorded) by Jenny before being updated (and changed) by satellite, again, and again.

When talking about* her very-related-to-virtual-travel, Travel By Approximation and satellite series, Jenny notes that there's something satisfying and reassuring about fixing pieces of information in place, creating a stable world within one that's constantly changing. And, thanks to her, we're all along for the ride.

* Jenny's clip starts 13 minutes into the video.

Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo by Emily Shur

Hello collectors! It's Sara writing. We're interrupting our previously-scheduled editions to bring you two back-to-back opportunities to support the relief efforts in Japan. Emily Shur emailed over the weekend asking if we could pull together a benefit edition, to which we replied, of course.

All net proceeds from the sales of Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo will go to support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

LA-based Emily's been traveling and photographing through Japan since 2004, building a personal body of work that is, as she describes it, a "celebration of introspection." Like much of her work, many of the images look as if they could have been taken anywhere in the world. Without the title, Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo, might be mistaken for the groomed gardens found around Southern California, near Emily's own home.

The nature of this work highlights why disasters like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are so unsettling, engrossing and disturbing. What happened there could have happened anywhere. All things that are steady, constant and beholden, yours, mine and ours, can be swept away. While it's nearly impossible to understand that kind of loss until you are faced with it—to the extent that, in writing this, I'm aware that it sounds borderline, if not entirely, trite—we all know, it's true. Because words like this are terribly insufficient, it's all the more reason to do something. Plus, we're doubling up the feel-good factor: you'll be benevolent and get some great art.

After Emily emailed, I dropped a note to Joe Holmes—who just returned from Tokyo—asking if he'd donate an image too. Good-natured and generous as he is, he immediately agreed. Tomorrow we'll share one of his new works from Japan with you. All net proceeds from Joe's new edition will also support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. Emily and Joe's kindness has been bolstered by our printer, Eric Recktenwald, who has donated his time for the production of these prints which makes your money go even farther to support the relief effort.

While all of us are working just as fast as we can to put these editions together, these prints will not ship within five days of your order as we normally promise. Please be patient and know that good things come to those who wait. Till tomorrow!

All of the proceeds from the sale of this print benefit Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

Last weekend the Wall Street Journal's Off Duty section featured 20x200 artist Bryan Schutmaat's latest edition, Arrow in their "Asset Allocation: A Major Motorcycle or a Mean Biker Look" spread.

Arrow fits right in with all the items one might need to perfect a sleek and smart, leather-wearing biker look. The 30x24 edition for $1,000 featured in the article is still available, as are editions of 8x10s for $20, 14x11s for $50 and 20x16s for $200.

Not a biker but still looking for a print that fits your stylish digs? Browse our collector guides.

Shinjuku, 6:43 by Joseph O. Holmes

All net proceeds from the sales of Shinjuku, 6:43 will go to support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

The introduction of our second edition to benefit the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund is one that I feel compelled to relay with little embellishment. Today's edition—Shinjuku, 6:43—is by the well-traveled and much-beloved Joseph O. Holmes.

As with yesterday's edition from Emily Shur, Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo, all net proceeds from this photograph will be routed directly to organizations involved with the ongoing relief efforts in Japan. The challenges faced there are ever more formidable as the impact of the Tohoku Earthquake continues to unfold amid scores of aftershocks. As of this writing, things have only grown more dire at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Rescuers are racing against time to find and extricate survivors from the wreckage left by the quake and the tsunami it triggered. Nearly half a million displaced people are living in shelters. All of this is to say that the beauty of this photograph is only enhanced by the virtue of its purpose, and in choosing to buy it, you're contributing in some small way to address the crisis that Japan is currently facing.

To learn more about how the Japan Society is routing donations, have a look at their recently published FAQ. Also, please keep in mind that we're not able to ship Emily and Joe's editions as quickly as we normally do. Everyone involved—the artists, the 20x200 team and our printer, Eric Recktenwald— wanted to start contributing to the relief effort straight away, so rushing the editions' announcement out seemed appropriate. Still and all, the photographs you receive will get the same level of care and attention that all of our prints do, which means we'll need a bit of extra time to send them on their way.

All of the proceeds from the sale of this print benefit Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) by Youngna Park

We have some exciting news for you deal-hunting collectors out there: this morning, we kicked off our first-ever March Madness event.

A sweet selection of 16 images from our archives, one 11x14 print per day for the next 16 days, will be available for $30, for a very limited period of time—just six hours.

These prints are $50 otherwise so—we don't mean to point out the obvious here—that's a seriously good deal. We'll announce which print each day on our Facebook page and Twitter only, so get connected with us there if you're not already! You have to act fast: the deal will only be available from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. When that 6-hour window closes, the print goes back up to $50, and a new print will be announced the next day—every day until March 31st.

We'll be pulling some of your favorite prints out the 20x200 archives. Many of them are already sold out at their other sizes, so this is a great opportunity to collect a fantastic print before it's gone for good. Our inaugural March Madness edition is the one you see up top: Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) by Youngna Park. You'll be able to snap up this gem in the 11"x14" size for $30 from now until 5 p.m. ET and we certainly hope you do. Let the March Madness begin!

Black Box by Sarah McKenzie

Hi all! It's Sara, welcoming today's sunshine. Amid skies spewing gray sleet, yesterday's highlight was our March Madness steal—every single 11"x14" print by Mike Monteiro was available for just $30. If you missed out, don't let it happen again, find us on Twitter* or Facebook for the scoop and save $20 on one print every day through the end of the month.

Deals aside, let's just say the week starts now—who needs a cold and rainy Monday when Tuesday holds the bright and shiny promise of brand-new prints? Today's addition to the 20x200 archives, Black Box, derived from an original work by Sarah McKenzie, doesn't disappoint.

It's been awhile since Jen first introduced you all to Sarah's work, soon after discovering it herself at Minneapolis' Walker Art Center, where Site was included in the traveling exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes. A lot's happened here and in Sarah's career since we released that first edition, including the release of a second pair of prints, the steady Support and studied Lift, in celebration of Sarah's NYC debut solo exhibition at the JBG back in February of 2009. At the end of last year, Sarah had another solo show at Denver's Rule Gallery which earned her this glowing review in the Denver Post.

Sarah will have her second solo show at JBG later this year—museum exhibitions, solo shows and accolades—it seems like all's coming up roses and Sarah's career is simply ascending. And, it is. But, if there's one thing that Sarah's paintings highlight, it's that nothing is what it appears to be at first glance and all this glory hasn't come without a lot of hard work. Her canvases use buildings and construction as metaphors for painting, which in turn could serve as a metaphor for building a career as an artist (or to that end, creating anything that really matters). And, Sarah approaches her paintings in the same way that she approaches her career—with extraordinary skill and dedication. While the end result is an elegantly balanced, serious(ly) playful, and from a distance, seemingly effortless, interpretation of mimimalism and modernism, Black Box encompasses a whole lot more than that—all smoothed over by years of refining her own command of her craft.

As critic Kyle MacMillan notes in that aforementioned review, "While each of [Sarah's] compositions has much to offer as a whole, much of the pleasure of these works comes in getting in close and really taking in McKenzie's skills with a paint brush." I know you have to take my word for it now, but, this pleasure is in the print, too. Hold it near and you'll see: there are layers and layers of paint, multiple approaches and variations in its application, scores of effort, thought, nods to what's been done before we came along, and evidence of lessons learned from others—accompanied, of course, by the urge to leave what's been done in the past and forge on without looking back.** And while being in it, looking closely, smelling the paint (or ink!) and getting your metaphorical fingers dirty affords the opportunity to absorb all this, it's only when you stand back, and I mean a few feet, at least, if not farther, and look at what's been created that it all comes together.

* If you haven't embraced your social media future: bookmark our Twitter page (or just make a mental note of it) and check in at 11:00 a.m. ET to see the March Madness deal every day through the end of the month.

** A smart lady I know often says you don't change anything by doing things the way they've always been done.

We were thrilled to see that Forbes recently named our very own Jen Bekman one of its “Ten Female Entrepreneurs And Mompreneurs to Watch.” In her slideshow gallery of females who have forayed (successfully) into the business realm, Forbes.com blogger Meghan Casserly writes that "Jen Bekman’s 20x200 brings art to the masses." She continues:

The site gives its audience an opportunity to own a work of art (all exclusive to 20x200), making the experience of collecting accessible for the non-millionaires among us... Bekman also believes that the Web is the perfect place to support emerging artists: by giving them the platform and access to the broadest audience possible.

Ms. Bekman is featured alongside the likes of former software executive Joanne Lang of AboutOne and fellow Netscape alum Stephanie Robesky of Grows Up.

Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor by Laura Bell

Gust of Wind by Laura Bell

Greetings, collectors. NYC feels a bit...moorish today, with its wind-whipped rain and bone-chilling dampness, which sets the stage nicely for today's pair of moody beauties by 2010 Hot Shot Laura Bell. In considering Laura's work for 20x200, Sara and I were in wholehearted agreement that just one would never do, so it's with great pleasure that I present to you Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor and Gust of Wind.

The ease with which we're able to share art and photography online is what makes 20x200 go. That people are looking at art and reading about it twice a week is essential to what we do; in many ways that habit is as important to us as the prints you choose to own. Still, there is so much joy to be found in the physical thing itself—experiencing it in the real world and living with it within your serendipitous vision.

I participated in a panel about photography and technology at AIPAD this past weekend, where (much to my chagrin!) one of my colleagues asserted that the photographic print is hurtling towards a near-at-hand extinction, and we are facing an inevitable future of images enjoyed exclusively via LCD display. Now, I might have been the biggest proponent of digital images in that room, but I certainly don't share that vision. The beauty to be found in a physical print is irreplaceable and sure to be enduring. Laura Bell's images—beautiful objects that also imbue the things in them with a lushness and dimension that make those things even more beautiful than they might be in the real world—make me ever more certain of a future that includes the enjoyment of tangible things, their surfaces, subtleties and inevitable imperfections, and what they unlock in our individual imaginations.

Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor makes me think of a A Room With a View. (Quite happily so, as I've always been a major sucker for period dramas.) I imagine some party of fancy ladies and dandified men out for a picnic at the seaside, and looking at the horizon through a gilded telescope. And yet, its resulting image is somehow not at all cheesy, as Sara and I discussed over IM this morning. Its infinite horizon is so amazingly soothing, which doesn't surprise me—ocean lover that I am—but there's something about it being neatly contained within a circle that makes its endlessness more mysterious.

Gust of Wind has a soundtrack of heaving doors and creaking wooden stairs, and of air whose particles of dust are moved about with supernatural breath. Laura's title might blame it on the wind, but in my mind, the candle's flame has been tamped by a ghostly hand. Hopefully such evocations of the imagination don't appear too far-fetched as you view these images on your computer screen, but like the Old Masters paintings that inspired Ms. Bell, these gorgeous objects are best enjoyed in the physical world.

Praia Piquinia 02/08/07 15h16, 2007 by Christian Chaize

Attention! Nota bene! 20x200 will be releasing two, *all-new*, luminous, sunshine-radiating Christian Chaize Praia Piquinia editions this Saturday and Monday, March 26 and 28.

Just earlier this month, popular design blog Apartment Therapy featured prints from the series in its round-up of "Prints to Lift Your Spirits."

If you, too, are in need of an early release from the wintery, gloomy grip of seasonal affective disorder — don't be SAD — look no further than Chaize's ethereal new editions. Be sure to keep an eye out for the newsletter over the weekend announcing their release!

Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 by Christian Chaize

Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 is also available in an 80"x60" ($10,000) size.

PLEASE NOTE: These prints will not ship immediately. Working with an international artist often extends our production time line, and because they're c-prints, the production process is different too. We will keep collectors apprised of the delivery date via email.

Surprise! Bet you didn't expect to see me popping up in your inbox on a Saturday morning, and yet: here I am. If you're hanging out with us on The Twitter, you got early word about today's special newsletter dispatch announcing our new edition by the photographer who's transformed vacationing into high art, Christian Chaize. Our newest edition from Christian captures a perfectly imperfect day at the shores of his favorite (now fabled) Portuguese beach. Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 is the same shoreline seen in our beloved previous editions by Christian, this one veiled with the thinnest layer of fog.

The fog's softening of summer sunshine makes a day at the shore seem much more palatable to my lily white self, while also enhancing the misty water-colored-memory vibe that gets a girl daydreaming about summers past and future. Regular readers know well how much I love the ocean, and have heard my various theories about why my "like" of this body of work has gradually transformed itself into "love, Love, LOVE". Surely some of it is personal, having lived with various prints of the work over the past few years, and also getting to know Christian himself, who is really just awfully swell. And then professionally, the work has been meaningful as well—garnering both 20x200 and the gallery enviable media attention, but more importantly, bringing incredible joy to our collectors.

When I first wrote about Christian's work, I described how I came to understand the Praia Piquinia series as being very different than the work that it's most frequently compared to—Massimo Vitali, frequently, and then sometimes Richard Misrach. With sea, shore and sunbathers in common, it's easy to see the similarities between all three photographers, but if you consider the people, places and perspective (omg, so alliterative!) a major difference emerges. Back then, I talked about how Vitale and Misrach were making work about humanity, and that Christian's is about being human.

Today I'll go a step further, and say that Praia Piquinia is about love—of place, of memory, of being alive. Christian leads his artist statement with a quote by Proust: The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. To remain on this voyage with everything that is familiar is what differentiates love from infatuation. It's a bold statement, but it's one made with confidence. I'll give you the weekend to form your own theories about why I think this is so, and then fill you in on my POV in just 48 hours when I return with a second brand new edition from the series.

Both editions' unusual structure is based on both image and audience: they start at the 14"x11" size because those are the smallest dimensions at which the images' complexities unfold. It's also available at three larger sizes—40"x30", 60"x50" and 80"x60"—first and foremost because they look ahhhmazingly amazing at such proportions, and also because collectors like you have frequently requested these sizes. This is the first time we've ever offered a print that's 80"x60", in part based on the overwhelming response to similarly proportioned print from the series shown in the gallery and subsequently published in an ELLE DECOR feature about one of our collector's homes.

Left: Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo, 2006 by Emily Shur; Right: Shinjuku, 6:43, 2007 by Joseph O. Holmes

The week before last, 20x200 interrupted its regular line-up to introduce the two new editions, Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo by Emily Shur and Shinjuku, 6:43, by Joseph O. Holmes. All net proceeds of these editions have gone to support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. As of Tuesday, March 22, Shur, Holmes, 20x200 and our collectors have raised over $12,000 for the earthquake's victims.

Special thanks to our printer, Eric Recktenwald who donated his time to the cause and to all the other artists and supporters who wanted to get involved. And thanks, as well, to everyone who has helped us to get the word out, including The Diplomat and The Huffington Post.

Praia Piquinia 11/08/10 12h15 by Christian Chaize

Praia Piquinia 11/08/10 12h15 is also available in an 80"x60" ($10,000) size.

PLEASE NOTE: These prints will not ship immediately. Working with an international artist often extends our production timeline, and because they're c-prints, the production process is different too. We will keep collectors apprised of the delivery date via email.

Disconcertingly brisk Monday greetings, collectors. Our hunger for spring after a long, cold and incredibly snowy winter makes this morning's sub-freezing temps that much harder to take. David Steward walked into the office this morning and said "I'm so glad we are releasing another gorgeous beach photo today! It's the perfect antidote to today's weather." It's a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree, so it's a real pleasure to introduce our sixth edition by Christian Chaize, the brightly-hued and decidedly summery Praia Piquinia 11/08/10 12h15.

When introducing Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20, I posited that, all gorgeousness aside, it's love that's at the heart of Christian's entire Praia Piquinia series. I've had ample time and opportunity to live with and consider this work, and also see how collectors of varying levels of experience and appetite have responded to it. I've come to the conclusion that the series's natural beauty has led many, myself among them, to underestimate both its essence and impact.

It's clear that this beach is easy on the eyes. But Christian's choice to persistently return to it, again and again, throughout the years, is more than what it seems at first glance. Seeking something new and engaging in what is intimately familiar deepens your relationship with it.* For most people, it's hard not to become bored when looking at the same thing again and again, even if it's beautiful. There's a certain kind of bravery in doing just that. So while there's something tender in his enduring interest and discovery, I also see a sort of courage, and love. I have been thinking a lot about this idea: that the key to love and being loved is courage. Courage is to be brave of heart.

It's the ability to remain devoted, to not become bored, that separates love from infatuation. There's so much distraction to be found in the new, the different and the exciting, all energy going outward toward understanding what's unfamiliar—it is what drives infatuation. The opposite of this is the hard thing, the thing that requires courage—the wish and the will to seek something thrilling in the familiar, and to find it.

* And also, I'd wager, with yourself—looking at the same thing over and over turns it into something of a mirror.

Queens by Jorge Colombo

Greene and Spring by Jorge Colombo

Tuesday greetings, collectors. Today's new editions from 20x200 favorite Jorge Colombo capture and romanticize the miracle of flight from above and below, and fittingly so. I type to you from San Francisco, having just arrived last night and feeling not quite recovered from a plane ride myself. Jorge's images were at the forefront of my mind during ascent and descent.

I imagined a friend or two waving adieu to me from Soho, the corner of Greene and Spring to be precise, as my plane made its way across a pink-ening sky. I also paid special attention to the earth-from-above view, pressing my nose against the window and watching buildings fade into dioramic tableaux which in turn melded into neatly defined grids before being obscured by cloud cover, all the while thinking of the debut of Jorge's Queens edition.

While I was airborne, Jorge was paying a visit to 20x200 HQ, where he told Sara that he was particularly pleased these are the first two images that we selected for editions from his forthcoming book, a pair whose presentation was informed by his (considerable) efforts to perfectly sequence said tome. We're pretty darn pleased ourselves—proud to be co-presenting the forthcoming title with our friends at Chronicle Books and cooking up all kinds of fun in conjunction with its arrival online and in the real world.

Greene and Spring is also the first of Jorge's editions to have previously been published on the cover of The New Yorker. From phone to magazine to fine art edition—and soon to be bound up in the pages of a bona fide (and awfully good-looking) book—Greene and Spring and Queens travel well.

Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05 by Michael Light

Good day, collectors! It's Sara—I am so pleased to introduce you to the first of two editions from photographer Michael Light: Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05.

This project began last July when friend, fellow photography lover and HHS! panelist Darius Himes, co-founder of Radius Books, sent over a fat file of .jpgs from projects he was working on. Radius has made gorgeous books with a few artists we have created editions with—including Colleen Plumb, whose solo show is up at the JBG through April 24th, and Michael Lundgren. One of the two editions we released with Lundgren benefits Radius, which, as a non-profit, "works to encourage, promote, and publish books of artistic and cultural value for a wide audience." As their mission naturally aligns with ours, it's always a pleasure to work together (plus, they're just good people).

Among the images Darius sent were several from Michael Light's LA DAY/LA NIGHT. The photos, as they loaded and opened on my monitor, were and are—at the risk of sounding inane—utterly breathtaking (really, literally, physically, that is the word for them—breathtaking). We knew we had to bring them to you! Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05 and its sister print, which we'll share tomorrow, present a marriage of two things—flying and the West—that have spawned mythologies ranging from the personal, to the distinctly American, to the universal. The work is smart and extraordinarily beautiful.

A pilot himself with a lifelong love of flight, Light hired a helicopter pilot to lift and roam with him above Los Angeles so he could hover over a rare sort of 4x5 camera—a Linhof Aero Technika—which uses roll film, allowing Light to shoot continuously without constantly reloading single sheets. Over the course of the project, he shot 900-some photos of the lights, the buildings, the streets, the trees and river below. On the ground—in the darkroom and on the computer—Light combined traditional film processing techniques with post-production work. Turning his negatives into digital files, Light smoothed out the film grain, moderating its interference with the haze and particles of light that you see glowing around the horizon.

From there, the images are printed, editioned (as here), and some, sequenced into the book. Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05 graces the cover of the LA NIGHT half of Light's publication—an object to behold. When open, it lies nearly flat, presenting 16"x20" images full bleed, so that the city of Los Angeles, by day and by night, from above, unfolds in your lap. The pages are brilliantly bound in a "Z"—as you turn it over, you swiftly and seamlessly (as if in fight) change directions—and suddenly face an alternate horizon.

As much as I love books, and this one in particular, I have a habit of buying them as if, that along with the actual bound object, I am also acquiring the time to read them—which, unfortunately, is just not true. This is where the importance of prints, or for that matter, anything that you hang on your walls and adorn your home with, comes into play. Prints, in a way, are the opposite of books, in that you do not need the time to sit down with them. They are like The Giving Tree (not the book but the actual tree)—you can take and take and take from them, without actually having to give much in return. While I think it's true that the more time you spend really looking at and thinking about art, the more you will receive from it, the things you see in your periphery daily shape the way you think about and perceive the word around you, whether or not you realize or take the time to acknowledge it.

There's lots for this project of Light's to give, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

* The 24"x30" prints in this edition are signed on verso by the artist.

Golden State Freeway/San Fernando Pass; from Los Angeles 02.12.04 by Michael Light

Hello, collectors—it's Sara. I'm picking up where I left off yesterday—departing from the whats and hows for the whys and what fors. All of which is well trod in an interview in the book that today's and yesterday's editions come from—LA DAY/LA NIGHT—between the maker, Michael Light, and the legendary Lawrence Weschler.** It is in the thick of this interview that the two get to talking about airlight—the visible particles of scattered light that flood Golden State Freeway/San Fernando Pass; from Los Angeles 02.12.04.

A product of emissions, airlight is one of those things that shapes the way we see the world as it exists today—as often as it obscures a view straight ahead, it also appears, magically, in our periphery. I knew airlight long before I knew its name. On family trips in Dad's four-seat Cessna—hop-scotching to destinations as far flung as Martha's Vineyard (where we camped in the airfield)—the sun and clouds that filled the plane (airlight) were the only things I could see. I was small, much too small then, to peer up and over the windows and see and know what was below.

In yesterday's photograph Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05, it is that shroud just below the horizon. There, the surrounding lights of the city begin to look, a little, like stars. What distinguishes the world as we humans have created it from the earth as it existed before us (and most likely will continue to persist as when we are gone), is less and less clear. The things that seem most unnatural—namely, neon and incandescent lights—become plasma bound by gravity. (While gravity itself, remains suspended.) Looking at Golden State—with its semis and cars, braille rolling over a faux-river—the air and the light, and our presence in it, are inescapable. As we've built, revolutionized and industrialized, sending fluff up in the air, we have become so much a part of the earth and its atmosphere.

When we were flying way back when, this was much too much to see and know.

* The 24"x30" prints in this edition are signed on verso by the artist.
** Lucky for all of you who haven't bought the book (yet), most of that interview can be found on The Believer, too. Weschler is also the author of Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees—possibly one of the best. books. ever. on art and being an artist—about the life of LA-based artist Robert Irwin. Highly recommended reading.