Primary Information Knihy

"A rare, ever-relevant compendium of texts and manifestos from women artists on gender and race issues in cultural institutions. Originally published in 1971, A Documentary HerStory of Women Artists in Revolution documents the efforts of W.A.R., a loose group of women artists, filmmakers, writers and cultural workers organized around advancing the place of women in the art world. Members of W.A.R. included Juliette Gordon, Sara Saporta, Therese Schwartz, Muriel Castanis, Cindy Nemser, Dolores Holmes, Betsy Jones, Silvia Goldsmith, Jan McDevitt, Lucy Lippard, Grace Glueck, Poppy Johnson, Brenda Miller, Faith Ringgold, Emily Genauer, Agnes Denes, Doloris O'Kane and Jacqueline Skiles. Active from 1969 to 1971, W.A.R. was founded as the women's caucus of the Art Workers' Coalition (AWC). AWC mobilized around anti-war protest and anti-racist action, also campaigning for artists' rights and wages, the decentralization of museums across NYC boroughs, more diverse exhibition programming and the restructuring of management within cultural institutions. This facsimile publication of A Documentary HerStory of Women Artists in Revolution gathers manifestos, statements and declarations by W.A.R. members; articles and reports about gendered and racialized discrimination in the arts; pro-abortion flyers and protest ephemera; and grant applications and reports detailing the founding of the Women's Interart Center in spring 1970, W.A.R.'s brick-and-mortar studio, workshop and exhibition space. It also reproduces documentation of key actions including the 1970 Art Strike Against Racism, Sexism, Repression and War, and correspondence with officials at the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art, among others. This publication takes as its source the second edition of the publication, which was published in 1973. The edition was chosen because it features a preface and addendum with retrospective reflections on the history and activities of W.A.R."-- Provided by publisher

Originally published by Something Else Press, 1971.

"Forty-six years after its publication, Primary Information brings Yvonne Rainer's classic book back into print in an exact facsimile. In 1974, Yvonne Rainer published Work 1961-73, an illustrated catalog of her performance works up to that point. In these years, as the art world turned toward minimalism, Rainer and her Judson Dance Theater colleagues were engaged in a parallel, and equally radical, redefinition of dance. Stripping dance of its pomp and self-serious virtuosity, they created what dancer and choreographer Pat Catterson has called 'the people's dance.' Or, as Rainer put it, instead of the 'overblown plot' of traditional dance, she explored the obvious alternative: 'stand, walk, run, eat, carry bricks, show movies, or move and be moved by some thing other than oneself.' Work 1961-73 chronicles the years when Rainer found herself and her work at the heart of a revolution in dance, performance and art. Written in Rainer's wonderful frank, funny and perceptive prose, and illustrated with photographs, handwritten scores, sketches, press articles and ephemera, Work 1961-73 is a period document and an instruction manual, an archive and a manifesto. A sought-after, rare classic, Work 1961-73 is brought back into print in a true facsimile edition by Primary Information; the only change is the small addition of new notes at the back of the book"--Artbook.com

"Writings 1973-1983 on Works 1969-1979 is an essential document of a decade of formative work by Michael Asher. Originally published in 1983, the book presents 33 works through the artist's writings, photographic documentation, architectural floor plans, exhibition announcements, and other ephemera. Asher did not create traditional art objects; instead, he chose to alter the existing institutional apparatus through which art is presented, creating work dependent on the architectural, social, or economic systems that undergird how art is produced and experienced. For example, in 1974, he removed the partition wall dividing the office and gallery space of the Claire Copley Gallery in Los Angeles. In another work from 1978, Asher had a bronze replica of a nineteenth-century sculpture of George Washington moved from the exterior of the Art Institute of Chicago to a room in the museum that housed eighteenth-century art, changing its location, but also its function from a public monument to an indoor sculpture, as it was originally intended. Due to its site specificity and immateriality, Asher's work ceased to exist after an exhibition, which makes this highly sought-after book the definitive mode through which one can gain insight into the work he made during this period. As the artist states in the introduction: "This book as a finished product will have a material permanence that contradicts the actual impermanence of the art-work, yet paradoxically functions as a testimony to that impermanence of my production." Initiated by Kasper König, Writings 1973-1983 on Works 1969-1979 was originally co-published by the Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and was largely shaped by Asher's close collaboration with art historian Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, who succeeded König as editor of the press." --Publisher's website, accessed 20220307

A facsimile of Graham's ultra-rare artist's book documenting early performance works Originally published in 1978 and produced here in facsimile form, Theatreis an artist's book documenting seven early performance works by Dan Graham (born 1942) taking place from 1969 to 1977, with notes, transcripts and photo documentation for each performance. These performances catch the artist at a unique moment, as he shifts away from his early media works and towards his hallmark video and written work around underground music and youth culture. The works in Theatrefocus primarily on the psychological and social space between individuals and the roles they serve inside the arena of performance, subverting them by creating conditions by which a performer or audience simultaneously functions as both (creating a type of feedback loop through social transgression). Like most of Graham's work, these performances also serve as a critique of cultural norms, with many of the performances utilizing quotidian, social acts that are amplified over time.

The working notes of the influential video artist behind Technology/ Wonder Woman This facsimile edition of Note(s): Work(ing) Process(es) Concerns (That Take On / Deal With) was completed in 1977 as a single handmade copy by the multimedia artist Dara Birnbaum (born 1946). It includes notes for works such as Attack Piece, Mirroring and Turning Around Suppositions , where Birnbaum interrogates the role of mass media in contemporary society and its means of production through sketches, transcripts, photographs and diagrams for installations and videos that take as their subject film clichés, gender roles, patriotism, emotional states and psychology, among others.Note(s) documents her contributions to the burgeoning Conceptual art movement and underscores her significant but under-recognized influence upon the emergence of feminist art, video art and the Pictures Generation.

A collaborative artist’s book of musical scores based on Norwegian knitting patterns For Identity Pitches , artists Cory Arcangel (born 1978) and Stine Janvin (born 1985) have composed conceptual music scores based on the knitting patterns for traditional Norwegian sweaters known as Lusekofte. Utilizing three of the most popular designs (Setesdal, Fana and the eight-petal rose of Selbu) of this ubiquitous garment, Janvin creates scores for both solo and ensemble performers by mapping the knitting patterns onto the harmonic and subharmonic series and integrating the tuning principles of traditional Norwegian instruments. These scores are further manipulated by Arcangel using a custom “deep-fried” coding script to create a series of image glitches.A foreword and an interview between the two artists, both based in Stavanger, Norway, provide context for the work, delving into the history of Norwegian folk music tunings and the Lusekofte sweater and their intersection with the cultural identity of the country over the last millennium.

Shame Space is an artist book that explores the possibilities of narrative and identity. The book collects a selection of journal writings by Syms from 2015-2017 in which she attempts to capture her shadow self alongside a selection of image stills from the recent video project Ugly Plymouths (2020). The diaristic commentary in Shame Space is gathered into fifteen chapters that stage narrative as a process of being in the making.

This volume of writings by New York conceptualist Darren Bader (born 1978) features texts for 77 artworks. Writing is at the core of Bader's work: he offers deceptively simple propositions for artworks to be carried out by gallerists, museums and collectors who then exhibit the works. Each time a work is sold, Bader produces a text that explains the parameters of the artwork. The propositions can be extremely precise or abstract; however, these guides are not made available to the public. Bader has also written propositions for impossible artworks, such as a proposal for installing a baby-changing table under Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. This book foregrounds Bader's writing and provides a key to his humorous and sometimes enigmatic works

A Bullet for Buñuel: Fragments of a Failed Bullet documents Rick Myers' attempt to complete a project begun by the late filmmaker Luis Buñuel: to create a bullet possessing such a weak charge that it would simply bounce off the filmmaker's shirt when fired at him. Consulting with the estate and sources ranging from online forums for bullet makers to a ballistics lab associated with the United States Secret Service, Myers sought to make the bullet and fire it at a shirt that had been worn by Buñuel. While trying to bring this absurdist endeavor to completion, the artist was met with a colorful cast of characters and failures at almost every turn. A Bullet for Buñuel has taken many forms - a video work, a multiple, and a performative lecture - all of which are represented in this publication. Myers' writing, research, correspondence, and photographs are also included in the book, which synthesizes years of work into a singular meditation on the poetics of failure.--Printed Matter website