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On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of do it, Hans Ulrich Obrist has collaborated with Independent Curators International (ICI) on its newest iteration, do it: the compendium (ICI and DAP, May 2013). The new publication will present the history of this landmark project and give new potential to its future.

Adrian Piper asks audiences to hum a tune in order to enter a room. Ben Kinmont wants us to “invite a stranger into [our] home for breakfast.” Alexandre Singh teaches us how to turn wine into soda. Yoko Ono encourages us to keep wishing. And Mircea Cantor demands we “burn this book. ASAP,” but John Armleder says to do “None of the above.”

Along with a selection of instructions by 250 artists, 84 of which are newly published for the 20th anniversary, do it: the compendium will also include essays contextualizing do it; a new interview with Obrist; and documentation from past iterations, including exhibition images, texts, and interviews.

Obrist, Hans Ulrich, do it: the compendium, Independent Curators International (ICI), New York and Distributed Art Publishers, May 2013, 448 pages. ISBN: 978-1-938922-01-5. $35.00.

Foreword and acknowledgement by Kate Fowle and Frances Wu Giarratano; Introduction by Hans Ulrich Obrist; Essays by Bruce Altshuler, Hu Fang, Virginia Perez-Ratton, and Elizabeth Presa.

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The catalogue to one of ICI’s most successful exhibitions, High Times Hard Times, New York Painting 1967–1975 tracks the developments of the New York arts community through the social and political shifts that took place in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. A series of artists’ statements and essays by contributors, including Dawoud Bey, David Reed, and Marcia Tucker, examine the influence of feminism and civil rights on artistic practice and the impact that the rise of performance and video, conceptual art and the nascent alternative spaces in the city had on painters at the time.

Published in 2006, High Times Hard Times chronicles a New York spirit that resonates strongly on today’s world:

“Everybody in that time was thinking about change anyway. We were thinking about changing the social structure, thinking about changing the legal system. We tried to change, through protest and various other things, the way in which our government did business… (it was) fairly evident for me to say ‘well, I’d like to change the format of painting.’”
–Alan Shields, interview with Jill Brienza, 1999

High Times Hard Times sheds light on the work of painters who have since been “rediscovered,” including Jack Whitten who was featured in the February 2012 issue of Artforum (and whose Pink Psyche Queen (1973) appeared on the cover.) Other artists profiled include Lynda Bengalis, Mel Bochner, Roy Colmer, Mary Corse, David Diao, Guy Goodwin, Harmony Hammond, Mary Heilmann, Cesar Paternosto, Howardina Pindell, Dorothea Rockburne, Carolee Schneemann, Alan Shields, Joan Snyder, Franz Erhard Walther and Peter Young.

Recommended by Renaud Proch, Deputy Director.

High Times Hard Times, New York Painting 1967–1975 was curated by Katy Siegel with David Reed, and organized by Independent Curators International. The exhibition toured across the US and to Mexico and Europe from 2006 to 2008.

2006. Edited by Katy Siegel. 176 pages, 50 color and 41 black-and-white illustrations, 9.5 x 6.5 in., softcover. Co-published by ICI and D.A.P. ISBN 1-933045-39-6
SOLD OUT

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Rirkrit Tiravanija
untitled (don’t stop do it), 2012
2 mirror polished stainless steel stencils, cardboard box,
3 sheets of orange felt
Box: 14 x 20 x 1.25 inches / Stencil: 13 x 19 x 1/32 inches
Edition of 5 plus 2 AP
SOLD OUT

For more information, contact Bridget Finn at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 212.254.8200 x124.

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Stephen Kaltenbach
Untitled, 2012
Stainless steal, secret contents
12 x 4 x 4 inches
edition of 20 + 5APs
$8,500

For more information, contact Bridget Finn at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 212.254.8200 x124.

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Marina Abramović
Untitled, 2012
do it catalogue (1997 edition), embroidered apron, wooden box
Wooden box: 15 x 15 inches
edition of 20 + 5APs
$5,000

For more information, contact Bridget Finn at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 212.254.8200 x124.

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In 1990, fifteen years after the Vietnam War, Lucy Lippard collaborated with the Whatcom Museum and ICI to curate A Different War: Vietnam in Art, a show the Seattle Times called “the most powerful art exhibition in recent memory.” The exhibition and accompanying catalogue was the first critical examination of the impact of the Vietnam War on American artists at the dawn of the protest era in the U.S.

The cover has to be one of the worst I’ve ever seen, but don’t let that put you off. I couldn’t believe it the first time I opened the publication. Lippard has basically written a book (thinly disguised as a catalogue) with over 100 pages of incredible narrative on a little-known moment in recent art history, offering a fresh perspective on how critical engagement with social and political issues take visual form.

Recommended by Kate Fowle, Executive Director.

Excerpt
…Art in 1967 was safely ensconced in its own world, primarily concerned with its own physical properties. The scene was dominated by Pop and Minimal art, with kinetic and abstract art highly visible as well. Process and Conceptual art were just beginning to surface. Even realist art rarely touched on social issues, and when it did, it was rarely shown or written about. The older New York artist harbored taboos against social content inherited from the days of Stalinism and McCarthyism, and the younger artists were unaware that art could be politically effective. They had been trained to understand that all political art was corny and old-fashioned—barely art in the highest sense—and few had the political sophistication to combat these dominant views.

There were, of course, exceptions. Californian artist Wally Hedrick was among the first to respond seriously to the Vietnam War in his art. A Korean vet, he became aware of the troubles simmering in Vietnam under the French (supported by the U.S.) while he was a student at California School of Fine Arts (later renamed the San Francisco Art Institute).…Another artist active in the early ‘60s protesting the war produced black paintings. Ad Reinhardt—the “Black Monk” and self-appointed watchdog or conscience of the art world—would never attach any referential title to his obdurately no-objective abstractions. His art-as-art-and-nothing-else position had, however, never excluded political action. “Painting cannot be the only activity of a mature artist,” he said. “Do you think that when a painter expresses an opinion on political beliefs he makes even more of a fool of himself than when a politician expresses an opinion on art?” he asked rhetorically in 1946, and answered himself with a resounding “NO!”…

Excerpted from Lucy R. Lippard, A Different War: Vietnam in Art (The Real Comet Press, 1990).

Extracts from Lippard’s essay are available free as a downloadable pdf to members of ICI’s Curator’s Network.

For information on the Curator’s Network, visit here.

STAFF PICK. 1990. Lucy R. Lippard. 131 Pages. 11 x 8.4 inches. Softcover. Published by The Real Comet Press. ISBN 0941104435.
Retail: $18.95

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Thinking Contemporary Curating is the first book to offer an in-depth analysis of the volatile territory of international curatorial practice and the thinking—or insight—that underpins it. In five essays, renowned art historian and critic Terry Smith describes how today curators take on roles far beyond exhibition making, to include reimagining museums; writing the history of curating; creating discursive platforms and undertaking social or political activism, as well as rethinking spectatorship.

The catalyst for the publication was “The Now Museum” conference that ICI produced in collaboration with the CUNY Graduate Center and the New Museum in New York in 2011. In panel discussions and lectures over 30 leading artists, art historians, curators, and museum directors, such as art historian Claire Bishop, Okwui Enwezor (Director, Haus der Kunst), Massimiliano Gioni (Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions, New Museum), Lu Jie (Director, Long March), Maria Lind (Director, Tensta Konsthall) and Terry Smith discussed the diversification of the notion of the “museum of contemporary art,” providing intergenerational perspectives on recent developments across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This spurred a year-long journey for Smith, responding to ideas, events, and encounters in the artworld in the process of questioning what “curating” is today, which forms the heart of this publication.

“Through his act of global metacurating, Terry Smith places different and sometimes contradictory curatorial practices and attitudes into a panorama that fascinates and intellectually engages the reader. It is a must-read for everybody who wants to understand the inner logic of contemporary art processes.”
–Boris Groys, Global Distinguished Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, New York University

Thinking Contemporary Curating is the first in a new series entitled Perspectives in Curating developed by ICI to provide sustained analysis on topics that are pressing for curators now.

Thinking Contemporary Curating was made possible, in part, by grants from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Additional support for this publication was received from the ICI International Forum Patrons Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, Haro and Bilge Cumbusyan, Carol and Arthur Goldberg, Belinda Kielland, Patricia and Charles Selden, Younghee Kim-Wait, Georgia Welles, and Elizabeth Erdreich White.

2012. By Terry Smith. Introduction by Kate Fowle. Text by Terry Smith. 272 pages, 54 B&W illustrations, softcover. ISBN: 978-0-916365-86-8
Retail: $19.95

Artforum’s “Best of 2012” chosen by Sofiá Hernández Chong Cuy

Read more reviews here.

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We live in a time of confessions, both voluntary and forced – a time when more and more of our personal information and behavior is recorded, archived, and shared. This is not only due to government surveillance, but increasingly because our ways of communicating (via camera phones, e-mail, etc.) make it difficult for us to control who has access to information about us.

The New Normal features works made between 2001 and 2008 that draw on private information – ranging from home videos to financial data – for their raw material and subject matter. These works, and the catalogue essays, shed light on the new circumstances created by our highly technological society, in which private information has never been less private.

A collaboration between ICI and Artists Space, The New Normal examines the boundaries between public and private spheres, and confronts our idea of privacy in an increasingly broadcast, media-saturated society. Artists including Sophie Calle, Kota Ezawa, Jill Magid, and Trevor Paglen, among others, investigate the subtleties of private information and behavior. Given the amount of information that we publish daily on social media sites, this timely and compelling exhibition urges us to consider the ubiquitous platforms for online sharing: where this personal information is going and what we truly wish to disclose to others.

—Recommended by Kimberly Kitada, Curatorial Intensive Associate

STAFF PICK 2008. Essays by Michael Connor, Marisa Olson, and Clay Shirky. 72 pages, 33 color illustrations, 7 x 10 in., softcover. Co-published by ICI and Artists Space. ISBN 978-0-916365-79-0.
Retail: $24.00
SALE: $10.00

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Admit it: you’ve sometimes wanted to laugh at contemporary art. The leveling power of humor in Situation Comedy is used to break down the barriers of taste and to question authority at every turn. The comedic approaches employed by the artists in this exhibition range from existential wit to ridiculous slapstick, often serving as a foil for more substantive questions about current events, the human condition, and the art world itself.

With humor turning up with increasing frequency in galleries and museums, Situation Comedy does not fail to employ parody, satire, slapstick, and practical jokes to question conventional art aesthetics and taste. A presentation of more than 60 works - a selection of video and sound installations, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs - artists include Tom Friedman, Christian Jankowski, William Pope.L, Erika Rothenberg, David Shrigley, Erwin Wurm, and ICI’s 2011 Leo Awardee, John Waters. The book also includes an excerpt from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by one of my favorite authors, David Sedaris. So go ahead. Laugh at contemporary art. We won’t judge.

—Recommended by Mandy Sa, Communications Manager

STAFF PICK 2005. Essay by Dominic Molon and Michael Rooks, with a text by David Sedaris. 72 pages, 32 color illustrations, 8 x 10 in., softcover. ISBN 0-916365-72-7.
Retail: $22.95
SALE: $10.00

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Meret Oppenheim: Beyond the Teacup gives an overview of five decades of production of the famous Swiss artist whose dark and witty work serves as a counterpart of surrealist male dominance. Oppenheim caught the art world’s attention in 1936 when she produced the iconic piece “Breakfast in Fur” – a spoon and teacup covered in fur - a piece that is now considered a key work of the surrealist period. However, her rapid involvement in the movement as a muse –in many ways due to the multiple times she posed for Man Ray, appearing in nude studies as well as in theatrical pictures– signals a number of tensions in the way her involvement with the Surrealists was actually perceived.

“While not a Surrealist artist in her own right, Oppenheim herself was colonized as a Surrealist object: her body a territory to peruse; her art works, spoils to expropriate” writes Nancy Spector in her insightful essay included in the book. Spector explores the way these images have overshadowed Oppenheim’s work, by creating a perception of her –both at the time, and later on– first as muse and only afterward as an artist.

The book includes over 100 color plates illustrating a wide range of Oppenheim’s work (painting, sculpture, collage, objects, and poems), giving an encompassing summary of the artist’s production.

STAFF PICK.1996. Texts by Jacqueline Burckhardt and Bice Curiger, Josef Helfenstein, Thomas McEvilley, and Nancy Spector. 175 pages. Hardcover and softcover editions. ISBN 091636545X (hbk.) 0916365468 (pbk.)
Retail: $29.99

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The essay by Stuart Horodner captured my attention in the first paragraph with anecdotes and jokes that shed light on the simple act of walking. It amuses me how the curator chooses to give such detail to an action - New Yorkers particularly - performed mindlessly every day. Walk Ways forces us to slow down and examine the ways in which a diverse group of artists explore the theme of walking as an action and a metaphor in their work. Whether the artist makes his mark with footprints of acetone in Styrofoam like one of my favourite artists Rudolf Stingel, or the uses L.E.D. displays to manipulate the viewers’ own senses to conjure the striding bodies of others as seen in with Jim Campbell’s Ambiguous Icon, Walk Ways considers walking as a purposeful activity that unites physical action, mental freedom, and creativity.

— Marika Kielland, Development Manager, ICI

Artists include: Francis Alÿs, Eleanor Antin, Janine Antoni and Paul Ramirez-Jonas, Mowry Baden, Jim Campbell, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Hamish Fulton, Sharon Harper, Martin Kersels, Tom Marioni, Matthew McCaslin, Curtis Mitchell, François Morelli, Douglas Ross, Nancy Spero, Rudolf Stingel, and Richard Wentworth.

2002. Texts by Stuart Horodner. 56 pages, hardcover. ISBN: 9780916365653
Retail: $18.99
SALE: $12.00

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The Beyond Preconceptions: The Sixties Experiment offers incredible, new insight into art during that decade—a groundbreaking and formative one for contemporary art. The essays by Lawrence Rinder, Paulo Herkenhoff, Jana Ševčíková and Jiří Ševčík, among others, provide unique, global perspectives on the sixties, focusing on South America and Eastern Europe in addition to more well-known works that emerged from America and Western Europe.

— Recommended by Alexandra Kleiman, Library Coordinator

Artists featured: Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Lygia Clark, Hanne Darboven, Betty Goodwin, Victor Grippo, Eva Hesse, Ilya Kabakov, On Kawara, Jirí Kolár, Edward Krasinski, John Latham, Sol Lewitt, Anna Maria Maiolino, Karel Malich, Mangelos, Piero Manzoni, Cildo Meireles, Bruce Nauman, Hélio Oiticica, and Lawrence Weiner.

RECOMMENDED. 2000. Essays by Milena Kalinovska, Jirí Sevcík and Jana Sevcíková, Paulo Herkenhoff, Michael Newman, and Lawrence R. Rinder. 135 pages, hardcover. ISBN 9780916365585
Retail: $29.99
SALE: $15.00

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1993 has become an important year to the expanding research and writing on exhibition histories. It was a year that marked an international shift in curatorial practices from the object-oriented, discreet and largely self-contained exhibition to the socially-engaged, evolutionary project in public space. Culture in Action, Sonsbeek 93, and Project Unite were three seminal curatorial projects that gave the term “collaboration” increased recognition and salience in the art world. What were the precedents for this collaborative, sometimes collective, actions? Team Spirit, curated by Susan Sollins and Nina Sundell in 1991, attempted to encapsulate this early nineties energy, albeit non-comprehensively, in an exhibition that looked at collaboratives and collectives from the 1960s onwards. Sollins and Sundell chose to focus on artists whose “collaborations are sustained by the existence of a collective persona that has been operational over a prolonged period of time, in which the individuals as pairs or groups have had no sustainable career outside the collective context.” Projects included IRWIN, General Idea, Tim Rollins + K.O.S., and Art & Language, in addition to more object-oriented artists duos such as Bernd & Hilla Becher, Fischli and Weiss, and Doug and Mike Starn.

— Chelsea Haines, Public Programs Manager

1990. With texts by Susan Sollins, Nina Castelli Sundell, Irit Rogoff, and James Hillman. 84 pages. 9 x 11.5 in., softcover. ISBN 0916365301.
Retail: $19.99
SALE: $12.00

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The Storyteller focuses on artists who use the story form in contemporary art as a means of comprehending and conveying political and social events. Significantly, unlike their postmodern predecessors, the artists in The Storyteller neither take the idea of documentary truth as an object of their critique nor do they abandon fact for fabulation. Rather, they enable individuals (whether themselves, their subjects or their audience) to construct the story of their unique participation in historical processes, thereby presenting these events in a new and unexpected light.

Responding to the rapid, often violent transformations of the 21st century, contemporary artists have displayed a growing desire to activate art’s documentary capacity, its ability to bear witness to events in the world. All of the works in The Storyteller revolve around situations that are either in the process of unfolding or that continue to impact the lives of the artists or protagonists. However, in each case, these events are re-imagined and thereby re-experienced through the artist’s personal encounter or the character’s narration.

105 x 165 mm and 120 pages generate the only object I have for this exhibition I’ve never seen. How to deal with aesthetics and ideas when they’re abstracted and buried in the past?

My position at ICI entails facilitating international exhibitions in venues I rarely visit. But beyond the .jpg’s, magazine articles, and other forms of mass media investigating contemporary art, one reason I love my job is that I’m in constant conversation with curators, artists and publics, all the time and all over the world. I hear personal stories of how art engages these individuals on very personal levels, and on particular days, how said art transforms varying perspectives about social and political issues.

Comparatively, the essays and images in this portable book (aptly designed to sit square in your back pocket) expand the notion of individual perception, subjectivity and truth. I did not see the Storyteller, so my fractured understanding of the exhibition is grounded in this catalogue which features artists from all the world, trying to understand and convey social and political events in provocative ways. The fifteen artists in the Storyteller consider art as an ever shifting, identity-forming process through which we can construct and highlight historical events and narratives through photography, video, drawing, and installation. Despite how distant these artworks may seem to me now, they validate the idea that there’s always room for new ideas, new forms of critique, and new histories to be constructed.

— Alaina Claire Feldman, Exhibitions Assistant

2010. Essays by Claire Gilman and Margaret Sundell, T.J. Demos, and Okwui Enwezor. 120 pages, 35 color images. 6.5 x 4.5 in., softcover. Co-published by ICI and JRP Ringier. ISBN 978-3-03764-086-9.
Retail: $15.00
SALE: $10.00

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The term “sustainability” can be defined simply as the ability to meet our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy theirs. Balancing environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic concerns, sustainability has spread from the field of contemporary design into the arena of contemporary art. Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art introduces a new generation of international artists - Allora & Calzadilla, Marjetica Potrč, Michael Rakowitz, Andrea Zittel, and more - who work at the intersection of sustainable design and contemporary art.

Beyond Green explores works and ideas that propose cross-disciplinary agendas and renewed activism. Rather than focusing on the mere consciousness of “green” art, the artists in this exhibition take on the social responsibility to tweak art-making and design strategies in favor of sustainability.

With essays by curator Stephanie Smith, art historian and theorist Victor Margolin, and texts by over 20 artists, Beyond Green constitutes the first foray into a fascinating new area of contemporary art. What results is a bracing volume that will be of interest to aficionados of design and art alike, as well as to environmentalists.

Recommended by Mandy Sa, ICI Communications Manager

2005. Essays by Stephanie Smith and Victor Margolin, plus artists’ statements. 160 pages, 73 color and 5 black-and-white illustrations. 7 x 10 in., softcover. Co-published by the Smart Museum of Art and ICI. ISBN: 0-935573-42-9.
Limited Quantities!
SALE: $20.00

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Jess: To and From the Printed Page continues ICI’s history of highlighting the unexpected, and explores the work of a revered artist active in the San Francisco Bay Area from the 1950s to the 1990s. It focuses on the intricately imaginative collages and drawings that Jess created for books, magazines, and other printed matter and traces a rich web of connections—to communities of poets, small independent publishers, and other artists. Infused throughout with Jess’s unique literary sensibility, this publication offers an illuminating view of a bold and idiosyncratic artist.

The images alone—detailing Jess’s collages, comic strips, and illustrations—are enough to draw you in for hours. One of the few publications dedicated to the under appreciated artist, Jess: To and From the Printed Page includes a text by exhibition curator Ingrid Schaffner, who highlights Jess’s timely works, which clearly resonate today. The book also includes a prologue by distinguished poet and longtime Jess admirer John Ashbery, and an essay by noted poet and literary scholar Lisa Jarnot. The book concludes with a unique glossary of terms used or coined by Jess and his circle, as well as a list of the small presses that produced the books and other printed matter they authored, making this title a must-have for any independent book lover.

As one reviewer writes:

“I came across one small work by Jess while visiting a small museum recently, and was utterly taken by its mysterious quality, both erotic & ominous, achieved through collage of kitschy figures with more subtle, understated images. I’d never seen anything quite like it & immediately wanted to know more about the man & his work. This volume is the perfect introduction to both.”

Recommended by Fran Wu Giarratano, ICI Exhibitions Manager

2007. Prologue by John Ashbery, essays by Ingrid Schaffner, and Lisa Jarnot, glossary by Thomas Evans and Brandon Stosuy. 112 pages, 55 color; 35 black-and-white illustrations. 8.5 x 10.5 in., softcover. ISBN: 0-916365-75-1.
Retail: $29.95

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1985. Independent Curators International. Softcover. Published by ICI.
Retail: $15.00

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“Living in cities, we need a new way to think about how we move and what we notice… This strange, exciting book offers just that—a new way to notice public space. It is the brainchild of Nato Thompson: the results of his fascinations with urban planning post-Katrina, abandoned or unnoticed urban landscapes and public art.”
—Susan Salter Reynold, Los Angeles Times

2008. Essays by Nato Thompson, Jeffrey Kastner and Trevor Paglen, with contributions from Matthew Coolidge, Iain Kerr, Lize Mogel and Damon Rich. 168 pages, 91 color and 5 black-and-white illustrations. 8.5 x 11 in., softcover. Co-published by ICI and Melville House. ISBN 978-0-09-163658-6.
Out of Print

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In 1992, the tandem team of Russian-born American conceptualist artists, Komar & Melamid began developing the exhibition known as Monumental Propaganda in partnership with ICI. First exhibited in 1993 at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow, this famed exhibition was created in response to the destruction of historic Socialist Realist monuments in Russia. Widely popular, the show included more than 200 artists who created site-specific proposals for the preservation of these monuments of Russia’s political history. Prolific press coverage of this project prevented the destruction of the monuments in Russia while also highlighting the very real possibilities for “post-totalitarian”, pubic art to exist in Moscow. The exhibition catalogue for this historically rich project showcases many of the shows key works realized by a number of artists who are being actively discussed today, such as: Carl Andre, Arman, Ericson & Ziegler, Joseph Kosuth, IRWIN, Komar & Melamid, and Mark Tansey.

— Recommended by Bridget Finn, Special Programs Manager

STAFF PICK. 1995. Komar & Melamid, Dore Ashton, Remo Guidieri, Andrei Bitov. 96 Pages. 11.3 x 8.3 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365425.
Retail: $20.00

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Jacob Kassay
Untitled 1-12, 2011
Silkscreen on archival newsprint
24 5/16 x 27 inches, each
Edition of 5
$35,000 suite of 12; framed
SOLD OUT


For more information, contact Bridget Finn at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Jacob Kassay’s limited edition for ICI reviewed by Sarah Andress for Art in Print, Issue No. 5.

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Martha Wilson Sourcebook: 40 Years of Reconsidering Performance, Feminism, Alternative Spaces is a collection of primary research materials consisting of rare archival documents and excerpts of landmark publications that influenced Wilson and her approach to activism and art.

Martha Wilson Sourcebook is the first in a new ICI publication series that offers a fresh perspective on social, political, and cultural issues impacting and inspiring artists’ practices, comprised of materials that the artist selects from their own archive and annotates with personal commentaries. Wilson’s selection encapsulates the contestations around feminism, performance art and alternative spaces, accentuating the ways that identity and positioning are not just self-defined or projected, but also negotiated within one’s environment and through one’s critical reception. This unique selection of materials documents Wilson’s actions and work and reveals her interest in fellow artists such as Vito Acconci, Carolee Schneemann, Nancy Spero and Lynda Benglis and includes in its entirety Lucy Lippard’s exhibition catalogue for c. 7,500, the groundbreaking 1973 exhibition of women Conceptual artists, which first declared the significance of Wilson’s work.

MARTHA WILSON SOURCEBOOK WINS THE SPECIFIC OBJECT 2011 PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR

2011. Foreword by Kate Fowle. Introduction by Moira Roth. Text by Martha Wilson. 272 pages. 8.5 x 11 in., softcover. ISBN: 978-0-916365-85-1
Retail: $25.00

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People’s Biennial proposes an alternative to the standard contemporary art biennial, which mostly focuses on art from a few select cities (New York, Los Angeles, occasionally Chicago, Miami or San Francisco). It questions the often exclusionary and insular process of selecting art that has at times turned the spaces where art is exhibited into privileged havens seemingly detached from the realities of everyday life.

People’s Biennial 2010: A Guide to America’s Most Amazing Artists chronicles the curatorial process of curators Harrell Fletcher’s and JEns Hoffmann’s research for the exhibition. The publication includes a conversation between the curators, journalistic entries from the participating venues’ staff, statements from each of the selected artists; and extensive photographic documentation of the exhibition organization process, community-based events, selected artwork, and the resulting exhibition.

2011. Essays by Jens Hoffmann, Harrell Fletcher, Kristan Kennedy, Mary Maxon, Steven Matijcio, Cassandra Coblentz, and Matthew Seamus Callinan. 136 pages. 9.5 x 6.3 in., hardcover. ISBN: 978-0-916365-83-7
Retail: $35.00

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Get yours today!
Limited Edition Leather Tote Bag
John Baldessari and Monica Botkier
Edition of 300
$300 + shipping

Choose Your Bags

Signed Collector’s Edition $500.00 Limited Edition $300.00

ICI’s newest limited edition was featured in November’s New York Times Style section!

and Elle Magazine!

To mark 35 years of ICI’s artist collaborations, John Baldessari and New York designer Monica Botkier teamed up with ICI to create a limited edition, kid-leather tote bag, with all proceeds going towards ICI’s exhibitions, public events, and educational programs. A must-have for art collectors and fashion lovers alike, the bag blends a stunning Baldessari print featuring a metallic gold dot, with Botkier’s signature detailing.

Thank you to ICI Trustee Jill Brienza for initiating and spearheading this collaboration.

100% of the proceeds from sales will support ICI’s diverse exhibitions, free events, and educational programs centered on international curatorial practice.

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Twenty-nine artists have been asked to design a paper sculpture to be cut out and assembled using very basic materials. Each project was displayed in stacks within an exhibit design by artist Allan Wexler. Visitors were encouraged to “complete the artworks” by cutting out and assembling the sculptures of their choice. The visitors’ creations remained in the gallery after they leave, resulting in an exhibition that grew and changed throughout its duration. Subsequent visitors had the opportunity to see multiple versions of the same piece, each made unique by the hand of its fabricator.

Artists in the exhibition include: Janine Antoni, The Art Guys, David Brody, Luca Buvoli, Francis Cape and Liza Phillips, Minerva Cuevas, Seong Chun, E.V. Day, Nicole Eisenman, Spencer Finch, Charles Goldman, Rachel Harrison, Stephen Hendee, Patrick Killoran, Glenn Ligon, Cildo Meireles, Helen Mirra, Aric Obrosey, Ester Partegàs, Paul Ramirez Jonas, Akiko
Sakaizumi, David Shrigley, Eve Sussman, Sarah Sze, Fred Tomaselli, Pablo Vargas Lugo, Chris Ware, Olav Westphalen, and Allan Wexler.

2003. Introduction by Mary Ceruti, Matt Freedman and Sina Najafi; essay by Frances Richard. 160 pages, 81 color illustrations. 9.75 x 13.25 in., softcover. Co-published by the Sculpture Center, Cabinet Magazine, and ICI. ISBN 0-916365-69-7.
SOLD OUT

Contact Mandy Sa at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for purchasing information.

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Chess, 2008
18-color etching and screenprint with flocking
23.5 x 29.75 inches image;  29.25 x 35.25 inches sheet
5 etching plates and 2 screens
Edition of 35 with 5 artist’s proofs

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Advantage Inn, from the series NIAGARA, 2005
C-Print
8 x 10 inches image, 11 x 14 inches size
Edition of 35 with 5 artist’s proofs

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Mixed Signals demonstrates that the male athlete is a far more ambiguous, polyvalent figure in our collective cultural imagination than ever before. Using elements of wit, sarcasm, and controversy, these artists challenge cultural assumptions that gender is ever natural or innate. Instead, they emphasize the many ways masculinity is always performed, coded, and socially constructed, perhaps even more so in the spectacular, media-saturated field of sports.

2009. Essays by Christopher Bedford and Julia Bryan-Wilson, and an excerpt from an essay by Judith Butler. 72 pages, 58 color illustrations. 8 3/8 x 10 1/2 in., softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 978-0-916365-81-3.
Retail: $22.95

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In recent years, contemporary artists have often aimed their cameras at their own families, framing a subject that is undeniably charged. In compelling and diverse images by 16 artists selected by curator Ralph Rugoff, we are invited to contemplate the strong emotional and psychological ties that connect these artists to their relatives and partners, as well as the powerful social and economic forces that shape the family. With a text by Rugoff and a short story by author Lynne Tillman, Shoot the Family is a fully illustrated catalogue published to accompany the traveling exhibition.

2006. Essay by Ralph Rugoff and short story by Lynne Tillman. 63 pages, 10.5 x 7.5 in., hardcover. ISBN: 9780916365738.
Retail: $19.95

Artists include Yasser Aggour, Darren Almond, Janine Antoni, Richard Billingham, Miguel Calderón, Mitch Epstein, Hai Bo, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ari Marcopoulos, Malerie Marder, Jonathan Monk, Anneè Olofsson, Adrian Paci, Chris Verene, Gillian Wearing, and Zhang Huan.

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Published to accompany the traveling exhibition Phantasmagoria: Specters of Absence, this book features works by twelve contemporary artists from various parts of the world who reflect upon the fleeting nature of earthly existence – on disappearance and loss, ghosts and shadows. In these works, mysterious images flicker across fog and smoke, or silhouettes dance on walls. Ranging from the festive to the ironic, they show a facination with perceptual ambiguities and the macabre, often with visual trickery inspired by the 18th – and 19th-century stage spectacle known as the “phantasmagoria.”

2007. Essay by José Roca, short story by Bruce Sterling, and artists’ statements.  72 pages, 37 color and 4 black-and-white illustrations. 8.75 x 9.75 in., hardcover. ISBN: 0-916365-76-x.
Retail: $24.95

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What Sound Does a Color Make? Explores time-based work by artists who manipulate sound with image, and image with sound, in videos and immersive sensory environments. This exhibition provokes a renewed awareness of human cognition and perception through a selection of compelling works by an international group of artists, while connecting recent developments in digital audio-visual art to its predigital 1970s roots.

Explore human cognition and perception in the works of Scott Arford, Jim Campbell, D-Fuse, Granular-Synthesis, Gary Hill, Thom Kubli, Nam June Paik and Jud Yalkut, Scanner, Fred Szymanski, Atau Tanaka, Steina and Woody Vasulka, and Stephen Vitiello.

2005. Essay by Kathleen Forde; interviews with Steina Vasulka and Naut Humon. 54 pages. ISBN: 9780916365714.
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The idea of traveling to outer space excites the mind. At a time of great terrestrial conflict, it has inspired contemporary artists to engage in fascinating speculation, dark nostalgia, and optimistic flights of fancy about living above and beyond the earth. The works of art on this theme presented in Space is the Place – and the essays in this catalogue to the show – address the historical successes and failures of space exploration, and its future potential.

Artists featured: Laurie Anderson, Colette Gaiter, Lia Halloran, Ronald Jones, Nina Katchadourian, Oleg Kulik, Julian LaVerdiere, Aleksandra Mir, MIR Project, Damián Ortega, Marko Peljhan, Steve Roden, Jason Rogenes, Adam Ross, Katy Schimert, Jane & Louise Wilson

2006. Essays by Alex Baker and Toby Kamps; additional text by Svetlana Boym. 80 pages, 33 color and 7 black-and-white illustrations, 12 x 9 in., softcover. Co-published by ICI and CAC, Cincinnati. ISBN: 0-916365-74-3.
Retail: $22.95

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Edited with an introduction by Judith Olch Richards. Inside the Studio shares for the first time the invaluable archive of recordings made during ICI’s studio visits with artists including Janine Antoni, Mel Bochner, Louise Bourgeois, Leon Golub, Robert Mapplethorpe, Vik Muniz, Laurie Simmons, Richard Tuttle, Fred Wilson, and Andrea Zittel. It provides an exceptional record of these artists’ thinking about their working processes, conceptual issues, the current scene and artists whose work they themselves admire.

2004. Introduction by Judith Olch Richards. 296 pages, 104 color and 37 black-and-white illustrations, 6.5 x 9.5 in., softcover. ISBN 0-916365-70-0.
Regular Price: $29.95
Online Sale: $5.00

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Who is to say what is normal and what is a disorder, especially when it comes to the human mind? The contemporary artists whose works are presented in Slightly Unbalanced venture into this slippery and suggestive territory, exposing psychological afflictions, mental quirks, and odd character traits. Viewers’ responses will range from discomfort to empathy, even laughter, as many facets of the human condition come into sharp focus.

2008. Essays by Susan Hapgood and Susan M. Andersen, and artist’s statements. 72 pages, 42 color and 3 black-and-white illustrations, 6 x 9 in., softcover. ISBN 0-916365-78-3.
Retail: $19.95

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1999. Introduction by B. H. Friedman. Essay by Robert Hobbs. 224 pages, softcover, 93 color and 33 black-and-white illustrations, 9 x 12 in., softcover. ISBN 0-916365-55-7.
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Over 40 years ago, Andy Warhol promoted the concept that artists are celebrities, just as worthy of portrayal as other cultural icons. Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists begins where Warhol left off. Presenting visually striking and conceptually diverse works in a range of mediums, Likeness is the first exhibition and catalogue to propose a recent history of artists’ representations of other artists—of friends, peers, and idols. While any portrait is both a document and a personal record of the relationship between the artist and his or her subject, blurring distinctions between public and private, portraits of artists further enrich the situation; they commemorate and concretize the intimate social dramas of the art world and the economies of exchange. Selected here are over 50 paintings, drawings, photographs, and works in other media, created by a loose network of artists primarily active in New York, Los Angeles, London, and Berlin during the past three decades.

2004. Texts by Matthew Higgs, Kevin Killian, and David Robbins. 71 pages, softcover. ISBN: 9780972508032.
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2001. With texts by Ingrid Schaffner, Fred Wilson, and Werner Muensterberger. 72 pages. ISBN: 9780916365592 .
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2004. Introduction by John Baldessari and Meg Cranston; essay by Thomas McEvilley, artists’ statements. 128 pages, 105 color illustrations, 8.5 x 11 in., softcover. ISBN: 0-916365-68-9.
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Employing artificial materials to create simulations of nature, the 18 artists featured in UnNaturally explore the ways in which the boundaries between nature and culture are sometimes blurred. Works by Tim Hawkinson, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Roxy Paine, Marc Quinn and Francis Whitehead play on our nostalgia for an idealized pre-industrial past in which man and nature coexisted harmoniously in an unspoiled landscape—the same nostalgia that has given rise to constructed environments in malls, zoos and other themed “entertainment destinations” where nature is tamed and packaged for consumer use. Through an art of studied verisimilitude, impressive craftsmanship and occasional deadpan use of irony, the artists presented here suggest that the natural world can be reproduced with man-made materials just like any other mass-produced commercial product.

2003. Essays by Mary-Kay Lombino and Philip K. Dick. Softcover. Published by ICI. Out of print.
Retail: $21.95

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Japanese animation, or anime, which has attained cult status among young people globally during the past several decades, is increasingly breaking into the mainstream. My Reality: Contemporary Art and the Culture of Japanese Animation, investigates the influence of this form of pop culture on today’s art in Japan, other Asian countries, and the West.

2001. Essays by Jeff Fleming, Susan Lubowsky Talbott, and Takashi Murakami. 80 pages, 46 color illustrations, 9 x 12 in., softcover. Co-published by the Des Moines Art Center and ICI. ISBN: 1-879003-33-3.
Retail: $19.95
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2001. Tsong-zung Chang. 56 Pages. 9.8 x 6.9 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 091636562X.
Retail: $14.95

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2000. Essays by Carlos Basualdo and Ellen Tepfer. Edited by Judith Richards. 84 Pages. 8.3 x 8.3 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365573.
Retail: $19.95

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Heavily illustrated, Irish Art Now presents a rounded perspective on Irish art and artists working in the 1990s. The media covered include video, photography and installations as well as orthodox painting and sculpture.

1999. Essays by Declan McGonagle and Fintan O’Toole. 96 Pages. 10.9 x 9.1 inches. Softcover. Published by Merrell. ISBN 1858940893.
Retail: $22.95

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1997. Nina Felshin. 78 Pages. 10 x 10 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365484.
Retail: $19.95

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1997. Susan Stewart. Edited by Ralph Rugoff. 84 Pages. 7.2 x 5.6 inches. Hardcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365506.
Retail: $19.95

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1995. Essays by Leslie Tonkonow and Alan Trachtenberg. 80 Pages. 10.9 x 8.9 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365441.
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As abstract art was reaching its century long landmark, Mark Rosenthal took on the extreme task of looking back on the birth and evolution of one of the most defining movements in art history in Critiques on Pure Abstraction.

Rosenthal’s essay is an attempt to create a biography of abstraction, or as he describes it, “a totem of modernity.” He begins with its youth, seen in the works of Chagall and Delaunay, through its adolescence as exemplified by Rauschenberg, Albers and Rothko, and into the present. He stresses it is ever changing and ever being critiqued. It is not only a history of abstraction but of the critiques that followed; from outsiders, from artists who believed the movement needed to return to its purest roots and those who postulated the need for further exploration.
The text is comprehensive and compelling, and the images selected create a visual history of abstraction. The chosen works map the history of abstraction in an informative way to the casual art enthusiast, the schooled art historian and those who continue to explore what abstraction has been and can become.

This exhibition includes a sampling of artists. Some practice pure abstraction but seek to reform it so as to be responsive to contemporary issues; some mock the style as if it were antiquated and senile; others investigate its basic nature. These artists’ works offer a dialogue with abstraction as well as a criticism, and both contexts are important to an understanding of them.
Throughout, Rosenthal remains concerned that abstraction has been “under attack since the decade of its birth…an attack on its semblance of liberation”

Critiques on Pure Abstraction is informative and gathers a unique overview of the genre. It is refreshing to read about the skeptics and critiques of abstraction throughout the past century when so often those factors that helped to define the movement are hidden or forgotten.

—Rachel Posner, ICI Intern

1995. Essays by Mark Rosenthal, Richard Artschwager, Bruce Nauman. 72 Pages. 9.8 x 9.7 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365433.
Retail: $20.00

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1993. Nina Felshin. 72 Pages. 10.6 x 9 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365395.
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1992. Essays by Robert Atkins and Tom Sokolowski. 72 Pages. 11.7 x 7 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365344.
Retail: $20.00

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Heart (with Pearls), 1990-91
Etching, six colors
39 x 42 inches
Edition of 75

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Pipe Detail: Coal Mine, 1990-91
Duotone offset lithograph
30 3/8 x 22 7/8 inches
Edition of 75

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Voodoo, 1990-91
Lithograph
39 1/4 x 30 3/4 inches
Edition of 75

Join the Museum of Modern Art in owning this special edition from an artist who has been the sweetheart of the New York art world for decades. Look closely as this piece and you’ll see the scarlet kingsnake is collaged.

“For me, printmaking is a major endeavor and I conceive of ideas directly for and in this medium. My print ideas often require several different kinds of printing techniques and several different kinds of paper, collaged together. Often the papers have been custom made for the print. My prints are not reproductions of paintings or drawings. They are autonomous objects. They are frequently very labor-intensive, both for me and the printers.”

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Wittgenstein, Untitled, 1990-91
Silkscreen on glass with maple frame
10 x 20 inches
Edition of 75

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Untitled, 1991
Lithograph
20 x 24 inches
Edition of 75

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Untitled, Ft. Myers, 1979/91
Silver gelatin print
11 x 14 inches
Edition of 75

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Black Beauty The Liberty, 1990-91
Chine colle lithograph with linocut
22 x 18 inches
Edition of 75

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Walking Petit Four, 1990-91
Lithograph, four colors
40 x 30 inches
Edition of 75

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Pat Steir, Thursday, 1991. Etching in colors on woven paper. Image: 11 7/8 x 10 1/8 inches; Sheet: 19 1/8 x 15 1/4 inches. Edition of 75, 25 APs, $750 (unframed)

Steir has said that she makes her work with the attitude of a gymnast: “first the meditation then the leap.” Honored by the Drawing Center in 2009 and hot on the heals of her solo Whitney show in 2011, Steir continues to be the topic of conversation after her amazing mural project in the Lower East side earlier this year. Check out the time lapse video of her making the work here.

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1991. Autonomedia Collective. 48 Pages. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365336.
Retail: $24.95

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1990. Elizabeth Ferrer. 64 Pages. 10.8 x 9 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365298.
Retail: $17.00

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1988. Tricia Collins. 62 Pages. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365271.
Retail: $12.00

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1987. Thomas W. Sokolowski. 40 Pages. 14 x 11 inches. Hardcover. Published by Indian Publishing. ISBN 0916365247.
Retail: $24.95

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1987. Peter Frank. 48 Pages. 10 x 7 inches. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365239.
Retail: $15.00

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1986. Tiffany Bell. 64 Pages. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365190.
Retail: $19.95

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1984. Essays by Andy Grundberg and William Olander. 48 Pages. Softcover. Published by ICI. ISBN 0916365123.
Retail: $18.00

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1982. Essays by Sarah McFadden and Carter Ratcliff. Curated by Michael A. Quigley. 60 Pages. Softcover. Published by ICI. Out of Print.
Retail: $12.95