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Elective Affinities:A Library

Curated by Jocelyn Spaar and Sarah WatsonFebruary 18–April 9, 2017Opening Reception, Thursday, February 23, 2017, 6:30–8:30pmHunter College Art Galleries205 Hudson Gallery205 Hudson StreetNew York, NY 10013

Entrance on the south side of Canal Street between Hudson and Watts

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one – but no one at all – can tell you what to read and when and how.

–Doris Lessing

For its spring exhibition, the Hunter College Art Galleries will transform the 205 Hudson Gallery into a temporary library made up of works centering on the notion of family and community in a very broad, inclusive sense, whether that pertains to one’s biological or chosen family, artistic or literary lineage, intellectual community, virtual network, or neighborhood. The library will function as a gathering space to host readings, screenings, performances, meetings, and workshops.

Committed to cultivating conversations by a multiplicity of voices to create an open and inclusive space for dialogue and engagement with art, the gallery has invited artists, small presses, libraries, and organizations to collaborate in the creation of this exhibition to interrogate the concept of family across various selections of printed matter.

The library will include selections from Archipelago, ARTBOOK|DAP, Badlands Unlimited, Belladonna, Blonde Art Books, Dancing Foxes, Ediciones Popolet, Melville House, Miniature Garden, New Directions, Primary Information, Purgatory Pie, Roof Books, Seven Stories Press, Semiotext(e), Siglio Press, Small Editions, Song Cave, Stonecutter, Ugly Duckling Presse, Verso, Wendy’s Subway, and Word Up Books.

Throughout the duration of the exhibition, there will be opportunities to learn more about these organizations and to purchase books and other ephemera. In addition to the library and reading room, this exhibition will present several film and video works related to this inclusive interpretation of family including works by Sondra Perry, Barbara Hammer, Shigeko Kubota, Kevin Everson, and Bryan Zanisnik.

Our hope is that the exhibition will evolve and expand through the creativity, intellect, insight, diversity, connectivity, and power of all who occupy the space.

The Right Margin

The Right Margin

Curated by Alt Esc

18 November 2016– 14 January 2017

Opening: 18 November, 6 – 9 pm

Small Editions is pleased to present The Right Margin, a group exhibition curated by Alt Esc, featuring the works of Joshua Caleb Weibley, Katie Pennachio, and Andy Ralph.

“Obviously a drawing of a person is not a real person, but a drawing of a line is a real line.” – Sol Lewitt

“The idea behind digital computers may be explained by saying that these machines are intended to carry out any operations which could be done by a human computer.” – Alan Turing

The rounded right margin is a theory that suggests one way to tell a difference between a machine-made mark versus a man-made mark is humans’ inclination to round their letters towards the right margin as an attempt to compensate for the irregularity of their written words and the spaces between them. We have achieved the technology that can monetize man’s unpredictability for the purpose of replicating personalized objects. There is a constant thirst to continue duplicating and recreating for self-improvement, preservation, and an unreachable ideal. The way we consume and digest information, the way we exude it, and the way we leave our prints, is in constant flux. The question posed is how do we maintain our singularity, our human presence, in a time when a perfect version of ourselves is more sought after? And what happens when we start seeking to replicate the mark that is left upon us by machines? In a time when a digitized ideal is sought after, and authenticity is trumped by a coded paradigm, what does a man-made mark really stand for?

Katie Pennachio’s delicate paintings draw from digital interfaces and the unnatural beauty in our tech-infused culture. The geometric forms of Excel sheets, overlapping windows and graphed lines are recurring structures within her work. She brings these ideas into painting with tactile lines and deliberate color sets. The programs meant to format daily office culture, become digested and re-appropriated into vibrant linear compositions.

Andy Ralph is a technician and mechanic. He removes parts of everyday objects, manipulating and transforming them into his conglomerates and objects, which also abide by his own set of rules. In Yield & Purge, he folds steel posts into the shape of a street sign, and hand drills holes into them to recreate an illusion of a familiar everyday object. Like a telephone switchboard that creates an antagonistic feedback loop, the hand-drilled inputs/outputs reveal the monotony of industrialized processes.

In Joshua Caleb Weibley’s Animal drawings, he meticulously draws the covers of the O’Reilly Media’s books – a series of standard guides for programming and coding language. The O’Reilly covers feature appropriated 19th-century engravings of animals, each one tied to the books’ selection of technical subjects through visual and linguistic jokes. This pairing of the guides to the improvement of technology, with the subtlety of humor only detectable by humans, is an interesting dichotomousdichotomy metaphor for the relationship between man and machines. Weibley’s representation of the O’Reilly title Mastering the Bitcoin is comprised of four drawings in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Since each panel is merely the same image repeated in different inks, they do not cohere into a single image. In this, their reference to print colors playfully gestures towards literalizing the drawings’ analogy of drawing to printing while also daftly comparing private bitcoin mining to counterfeiting one’s own money. Tabs in the bottom of each drawing’s frame allude to printer cartridges, while satirizing the idea of customizability. Weibley elevates this idea by hand-drawing the covers to an exact replica, worthy of the finest machine, but maintaining the human touch in every sense.

About the Curator

Alt Esc is a Brooklyn-based, artist-run curatorial team and publication started by Alison Sirico and Irina V Makarova in May 2016. Sparked by the realization that disparity exists between the institutionalized art world and the new wave of rising artists, Alt Esc was founded to vocalize the leading ideas and trends in young contemporary studio practice. We are interested in individuals and collectives who are players in the art world’s subcultural framework and those who are community oriented. Equal parts publication and event production team, we seek to communicate dialogues that manifest into praxis. Through publication and curating exhibitions, we strive to connect rising artists with new opportunities, while honoring and sharing their current achievements with a broader audience. Using the studio visit as a model for a narrative, we hope to communicate, foster and archive today’s young cultural landscape.

About the Artists

Katie Pennachio (b. 1988) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from Rutgers University in 2015 and her BFA from New York University in 2010. Her work has been exhibited at Fernwey Gallery in Chicago, IL; Gowanus Loft in Brooklyn, NY; Fitness Center for the Arts & Tactics in Brooklyn, NY; and the Ho_se in Brooklyn, NY. She was recently a fellowship recipient at Vermont Studio Center.

Joshua Caleb Weibley was born the year O’Reilly Media published their first “Animal” book. He is an artist, sometime writer and occasional curator living in Brooklyn, NY. Recent exhibitions include “Drawings” at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery (New York), “Cruft” at TRANSFER Gallery (Brooklyn) and “Colophon” at Veronica (Seattle). Weibley's “Animal” drawings series has been covered by The Creators Project and by Makezine, which is somewhat appropriate as Makezine shares a founder with O’Reilly Media.

Andy Ralph (b. 1982) is a New York-based artist whose practice could be summed up as a series of calculated—yet remarkably broad—risks. There is, however, one unifying identifiable approach in his work: Ralph engages with the imaginary potentials that reside in utilitarian objects. He transforms objects, or object-structures, into humorous, critical, and provocative configurations that provide a depth of both aesthetic-visual texture and conceptual rigor.


About Small Editions

Small Editions was founded in 2012 by two artists—one with a passion for bookbinding and the other nose deep in contemporary art, theory, and design—wanting to create books that challenge current associations of what a book is. Today Small Editions continues to do that through the production of exquisite books, publishing with artists, and through exhibiting artworks that challenge us to continue thinking about books with fresh eyes.

(Image: Joshua Weibley_"Magenta (Arctic Strawberry)", 2016, Ink on paper in artist's Solid Surface frame, 9.75 x 12.25 in)

Alt Esc is Small Editions’ Fall 2016 Curatorial Resident

Alt Esc is a Brooklyn-based, artist-run curatorial team and publication started by Alison Sirico and Irina V Makarova in May 2016. Sparked by the realization that disparity exists between the institutionalized art world and the new wave of rising artists, Alt Esc was founded to vocalize the leading ideas and trends in young contemporary studio practice. We are interested in individuals and collectives who are players in the art world’s subcultural framework and those who are community oriented. Equal parts publication and event production team, we seek to communicate dialogues that manifest into praxis. Through publication and curating exhibitions, we strive to connect rising artists with new opportunities, while honoring and sharing their current achievements with a broader audience. Using the studio visit as a model for a narrative, we hope to communicate, foster and archive today’s young cultural landscape.

Alison Sirico is an artist and curator working in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a B.F.A. from NYU. She was an organizing member and original founder of the new Silent Barn. She was founder of Big Law Country Club Gallery, an artist run gallery, located within the Silent Barn. The gallery offered emerging installation artists, working in a variety of mediums, a platform to showcase their work in a high-traffic, non-commercial environment. She contributed to “Death by Art,” Death by Audio’s eviction art show, and organized ‘Thaw” with Ruffeo Hearts Lil Snotty in a three-story, abandoned furniture factory. She was a resident and co-founder of the Ho_se, nominated for Paper Magazine’s 9th Annual Nightlife Awards, “Best DIY Space.” Her curatorial projects have been featured in The Museum of Art and Design’s, The Fun: The Social Practice of Nightlife in NYC by Jane Yuzna. She was involved in similar minded projects Babycastles and Showpaper Gallery. She is currently a curator at the new Secret Project Robot. She is interested in art in alternative spaces, DIY communities, and art’s relationship to nightlife and music.

Irina V Makarova is a Kazakhstan-born and Brooklyn-based fine art journalist and curator. She holds a B.F.A. from NYU. She has organized exhibitions with Big Law Country Club at Silent Barn and Live with Animals. She has exhibited at the Ho_Se, as well as TEMP Gallery and Tatwerk Berlin during the Berlin Performance Festival. She has contributed to ArtAsiaPacific Magazine, Garage, Bullett Media, Electronic Beats, Dazed Digital, Wonderland, Metal Mag and more.

Alt Esc will be presenting its first exhibition The Right Margin at Small Editions next month. An opening reception will be held on November 18 from 7-10pm

Announcing “Black & White Studies”by Janelle Poe and Sheryl Oppenheim

Soft cover, 36 pages, 3 color risograph printed zine, 5.5x7.5 inches

$10

http://smalleditions.bigcartel.com/product/say-their-names-by-sheryl-oppenheim-and-janelle-poe

Editions/Artists Books Fair

Small Editions will be presenting a selection of artists books and the work of Lauren Clay at this year’s Editions/Artists Books Fair. More information about E/AB can be found here:

http://eabfair.org/

11/4-11/6 at 269 11th Avenue, New York

Small Editions Summer Show extended through September 19th.

http://smalleditions.nyc/summershow.html

Small Editions is moderating a discussion panel this Friday @momaps1 6-7pm in the classroom with Tatana Kellner of Womens Studio Workshop and Juliana Cerqueira Leite onThe Book, the Woman and the Body Politic.

The Book, the Woman and the Body Politic with Tatana Kellner and Juliana Cerqueira Leite, moderated by Corina Reynolds

The human body and its socio-political framework have been important themes in women’s artists books: both formally and conceptually. Artists Tatana Kellner and Juliana Cerqueira Leite explore an expanded perspective of women’s artists book publishing. Brazilian sculptor Juliana Cerqueira Leite will talk about the representation of female anatomy within her new artists book A Potential Space. Tatana Kellner, as both established book artist and founding member of Women’s Studio Workshop will provide insights into the socio-political content of her work and her role in supporting other female artists in this field. Corina Reynolds, founder of SmallEditions will moderate the discussion and Q and A.

Some great photos of Small Editions at the Bushwick Art Book and Zine Fair #babzfair2016 (via BABZ FAIR 2016 - Bushwick Art Book & Zine Fair)

Taylor Lindsay from Vice.com writes about her visit to #BABSfair2016 and mentions Andria Morales’ zine“As You Change” and Small Editions’ collaborative greeting card project with Blonde Art Books“Words With Love”

Excited for this year’s BABZ Fair! See you there!

Cooper Holoweski: Nostalgia and Obsolescence

Small Editions is pleased to present the work of Cooper Holoweski. For Nostalgia and Obsolescence, Holoweski has created a new series of prints, developed in residence at the Lower East Side Print Shop, based on Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s suite of etchings, Antiquities of Rome, documenting the ruins of ancient Rome through landscapes, still life and diagrams. This series, called Recent Antiquities, combines traditional intaglio printmaking with digital 3-D modeling and inkjet printing to render the obsolete aesthetics of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Reaching further into the recent past, Holoweski presents a series of paintings, Effigies of mid-century American modernist furniture. The stacked towers of chairs and tables create dreamlike “portraits” from the golden age of American Capitalism. Skillfully using acrylic paint in combination with computer-generated transfers, Holoweski renders views of the middle-class mythology of upward mobility in various states of collapse. As in most of Holoweski’s work, these pieces touch on ideas of death, rebirth, and relevance. Within them, Holoweski poses the question “is progress leading us towards redemption or something else darker?”

***

Cooper Holoweski (b. 1981, Detroit, Michigan) holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and has had residencies at Taller 99 in Santiago, Chile, Gallery Titanik in Turku, Finland, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Recent exhibitions include: Divisions, Skowhegan 22nd Street, New York (2016); Renaissance, Lille3000 Triennial, Lille, France (2015); Noeticus, Sister, Brooklyn, New York (2015); The Viewing Room, GCA Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2015);Near Dark, Present Company, Brooklyn, New York (2015); Katabasis, BRIC House, Silent Barn, PhilaMOCA, MOCAD (2013-2014); Let Our Love Guide You From This World to the Next, SPACE Gallery, Portland, Maine (2014); Things Were Perfect, Storefront, Brooklyn, New York (2011).

For more information or exhibition images, please contact Corina Reynolds at [emailprotected]

Gallery Hours: 12 PM – 5 PM, Tuesday through Friday

Directions: Take the F or G to Carroll Street

Save the Date

Nostalgia & Obsolescence by Cooper Holoweski opens 7-9pm at Small Editions Friday May 20, 2016.

Detail of“Fragments of a Broken CD” 2016 by Cooper Holoweski.

“Dead Air, Pink Noise” by Martha Mysko, 2016.

Opening Tonight: Kari Cholnoky + Martha Mysko at Small Editions 7-9pm, friday March 25, 2016

60 Sackett Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231