Cal Anderson Park sits a stone’s throw from the new Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. The heart of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the park is always bustling in the summer with kids playing in the fountain and people reading, napping and walking dogs. It’s the perfect venue for the freshly installed MadArt In the Park exhibit. Sponsored by the Seattle Parks Department and 4Culture, Cal Anderson is hosting six local visual artists commissioned to create site specific installations:
Victoria Adams has earned critical acclaim and developed a passionate following for her beautiful, Northwest-inspired landscape paintings. Celebrate the recent opening of her one-person exhibition on July 15 at 5:30 pm at the Tacoma Art Museum. Events for the evening include a lecture, gallery walk, and signing of the Marquand-produced book by the artist.
There are a lot of good reasons to submit art to 10 x 10 x 10 x Tieton, Mighty Tieton’s inaugural juried exhibition, before the July 5 deadline. The theme? Small is big. Which is a lot like Tieton, a little town over the Cascades in Washington State that’s home to our letterpress studio and a plethora of other compelling projects and artists.
Ed Marquand, Gail Gibson of Gail Gibson Gallery and Greg Kucera of Greg Kucera Gallery form the jury. All entries will be featured in a color catalogue of the exhibit. For an application and full details, download a PDF of the prospectus here.
Bringing together editors, designers, curators, publishers, and printers, the biennial The National Museum Publishing Seminar is a rare chance for everyone from our small professional world to be in (almost) one room together. It’s always both fun and engaging.
D.A.P. Executive Director Sharon Gallagher and Ed Marquand made a splash at The Standard Hotel in NYC on May 26 during a BookExpo America party. Sharon is wearing an “artist’s book skúta” in honor of a new exhibition in New York State featuring a project by Skúta Helgason:
This Friday night’s SAM Remix at Seattle Art Museum promises to be especially action-packed. A few highlights:
-Artist talk and book signing with Roy McMakin (9 pm) -Rare screenings of Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, shown on MTV in the 1980s (9 pm and 11 pm) -Fascinating tours with members of Seattle’s arts and music communities, Seth Aaron Henderson of Project Runway, and more (every 15 minutes from 8:30 to 11 pm) -Musician Sean Nelson performing live in the galleries -SAMtrax playlist curated by Kevin Cole of KEXP -Factory T-shirt silkscreening
It’s rumored the event will sell out, so if you’re in the Seattle-area be sure to buy tickets on-line here. The entire museum, including the exhibitions, love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death — Andy Warhol Media Works and Kurt, will be open from 8 p.m.-12 a.m June 4. The first 100 people wearing wigs get in free!
Richard Hugo House, the Seattle-based non-profit center for writing, will host panels and workshops on the changing landscape of publishing this weekend. The conference, called “Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century,” is an opportunity for writers to examine how the Web, blogs, and social media can assist in the publishing process.
Presenters include PEN/West Fiction Award winner Stacey Levine, veteran editor Alan Rinzler, and Third Place Books buyer Vladimir Verano. A small press fair is planned, including publishers and literary magazines like Tin House and Counterpoint/Soft Skull.
A full schedule and registration information are available at Hugo House’s Web site.
Co-Presented by the School of Visual Concepts, the documentary Typeface shows in Seattle this evening at Northwest Film Forum at 7 and 9 p.m. Jim Moran, director of The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, will introduce the film.
Seattle’s venerable Elliott Bay Book Company officially opened shop in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood Wednesday. The store, which moved from its beloved Pioneer Square location after 37 years due to financial woes, is reinventing itself in one of Seattle’s most vibrant neighborhoods.
In major cities worldwide during the pre-burst bubble, many independent, street-level retail businesses were priced out of the cool neighborhoods they helped establish. Corporate conglomerates selling luxury goods drove commercial rent into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Many of these shops are simply environmental installations-as-advertising. While Nike, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, and others of their ilk still drive many rental markets, it’s shifted a bit here in NYC, where desirable shopping districts such as Soho and Nolita are full of empty storefronts.
Recently in New York City, a record 483 galleries and artist projects participated in 11 concurrent art fairs—the Armory show being the biggest. Dealers at this fair reported increased sales from last year and were confident the art market had rebounded.
However, the talk of the week was the “Independent,” a brand new art fair co-founded by New York gallerist Elizabeth Dee and the London-based Darren Flook held at the former Dia Center for the Arts building in Chelsea.
Billed as “... part consortium, part collective”, it gathered about 40 international galleries, nonprofit spaces and publications together under one roof. Each exhibitor had an unbound area to show its works, rather than the standard walk-in cubicle trade-show style architecture of most art fairs.
The exhibition consists of 40 mourners from the tomb of John the Fearless, and three figures and one fragment of the architectural arcade from the tomb of Philip the Bold. Because the statuettes have been freed from the architectural framework that usually contains them, the figures will be seen in the round by the public for the first time ever.
Marquand Books’ Seattle office is a stone’s throw from Vancouver, so it’s hard to resist the excitement surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympics, especially since we’ve just finished producing the exhibition catalogue Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man for the Vancouver Art Gallery. The anticipated exhibit, in association with the Royal Collection, features drawings loaned by Queen Elizabeth II for the Winter Games.
Our friends over at Chronicle Books have the perfect reads to help you imagine you’re in the center of Olympics action if, like us, you’re watching from home. Chronicle is offering a trio of Canada-centric titles, including the ever-compelling So you Want to be Canadian and City Walks Vancouver: 50 Adventures on Foot, available here.
“New Year/Fresh Eyes,” opens at Artxchange Gallery. Nine artists from around the world are featured, and the selected works encompass a range of media.
Gallery 4 Culture opens the new year with “White Lines (don’t do it),” a solo show of photographic works by Jesse DeLira. This series of black-and-white photographs “documents sweeping, graceful lines of chalk glyphs laid onto soulful urban surfaces.”
Suspended abstract works on paper and in ceramic by Nicholas Nyland are feature at SOIL.
Sara Tabbert woodcuts are on display at Collum Gallery. This new work incorporates the beauty of natural forms of wood, water, ice, and stone into a series based on a trip along the Great Northern Railway.
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas is tracing the history of private art collection in Texas from the oil boom to today with a new exhibition showcasing the work of more than 40 collectors. The broad, impressive exhibition of ancient to modern European work features several major artists including Monet, Picasso, and Mondrian.
This Saturday, November 14 the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, WA celebrates the grand opening of its Lightcatcher building with the exhibition Out of Bounds: Art from the Collection of Driek and Michael Zirinsky:
Tomorrow evening is Seattle’s First Thursday art walk in Pioneer Square. Some highlights:
Large-scale paintings and works on paper by Mary Ann Peters at the James Harris Gallery.
Maylee Noah and Spike Mafford’s photographs of the Day of the Dead celebration and everyday life in Oaxaca at Gallery 110.
And New Voices, a group show featuring Pratt scholarship students at the Pratt Gallery in Tashiro Kaplan Studios.
We’re already missing the witty and obsessive Venn diagrams that were on display from Jessica Hagy’s Indexed blog at the Design Commission Gallery. If you missed the show, you can always buy her book from Powell’s.
In the video below, Dr. Gary Radke offers interesting facts and background on Michelangelo in anticipation of SAM’s new exhibit Michaelangelo Public and Private, opening tomorrow. Radke is Deans Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University and curatorial adviser for the exhibit:
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore presents Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece. Marquand produced the catalog for the exhibit, arranged around four main figures: hero-god Herakles; traveler Odysseus; fiery warrior Achilles; and stunning Helen.
The show features a strong educational component and promises to be compelling for individuals and families. Before you go, be sure to try the Which Mythological Figure are You? quiz.
Opens October 11, free to the public. Click here for information on Heroes programs and special events.
Savannah’s Telfair Museum of Art, in association with the Singer Laren Museum, present Dutch Utopia: American Artists in Holland, 1880-1914. Marquand produced the accompanying catalog of the exhibition, centered around the work of more than 40 American painters. The exhibit focuses on the artist’s pastoral vision of Holland throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the country was becoming more dense, urban, and industrial.
After opening in Savannah the show moves to the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands.
The exhibit opens Saturday, Oct 3 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Call 912.238.1200 for reservations.
Banned Books Week began in 1982, a year that saw a sudden increase in the number of books targeted for attempted or successful bans across the United States. Sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, American Library Association, and Center for the Book in the Library of Congress among others, it’s now held annually during the last week of September:
It’s the height of summer in Seattle so every gallery from downtown to Pioneer Square will be abuzz with people during tonight’s First Thursday art walk. A sure hit is Dale Chihuly’s new reflective show opening at the Traver Gallery:
The fluid forms, intricate designs and unexpected textures of Dale Chihuly’s new Baskets and Cylinders invite continuing contemplation, while his new drawings are marked with striking, expressive lines executed in a range of rich metallic paints. These luscious, opulent hues and the subtle, exacting use of color connect the drawings to the works in glass, creating a thread of contemporary sophistication that runs throughout this earthy body of work.
Marquand produced Chronicle’s The Art of Dale Chihuly to accompany the recent exhibition at the de Young in San Francisco. That show covered a retrospective of the artist’s recent work. Tonight’s opening is sure to offer insight into where Chihuly is headed with new work.
Through September 20. Opening reception 8/7 from 5-8 p.m. Traver Gallery, 110 Union Street at First Ave. Seattle
It seems like practically every Seattle neighborhood is hosting an Art Walk this summer. This is a glorious time of year to get off your couch and explore the city’s thriving art scene. Here’s a just a sampling:
The Blanton Museum of Art in Austin is showcasing the work of Latin American artist Francisco Matto. It’s the first comprehensive exhibition of Matto’s work in the U.S., highlighting his place in the rise of modernist abstract art in Latin America.
In 1909, Seattle hosted the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, a world’s fair that helped to establish the city as a new cultural and industrial hub. The fair had a wide range of exhibits, featuring a hearty nod to the Pacific Northwest’s connection to the Alaskan gold rush with an Eskimo village and a scale model of a coal mine. Other notable exhibits included a reenactment of a Civil War naval battle and the largest log cabin ever built.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the A-Y-P, Seattle is hosting many different centennial events throughout the year; one special treat is the Museum of History & Industry’s exhibit of the photographs of Frank H. Nowell, the official photographer of the A-Y-P. Nowell captured on film the construction of the fair, the various exhibits, and the events and celebrations held on the University of Washington’s campus throughout the summer of 1909.
Marquand recently produced Picturing the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, a catalog of Nowell’s photographs of the fair, distributed by the University of Washington Press. Nowell’s images are also collected in an comprehensive database viewable through the University of Washington’s Digital Libraries, where you can browse through the other images that we sadly didn’t have space to include in the book, like this oddly charming bear made out of raisins. Luckily the slightly redundant giant lemon made out of lemons made the cut.
Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Koreaopens at LACMA on Sunday. The exhibit features a wide variety of modern art from twelve artists, including video and multimedia, an installation using boxes and bubble wrap, and a piece made up of hundreds of neon plastic bowls and bins.
This weekend is your last chance to experience The Book Borrowers, showing now at the Bellevue Arts Museum. It’s an innovative exhibition featuring books transformed into sculpture by 31 artists, including Washington State contributors James Allen, Alan Corkery Hahn, Casey Curran, and Jane Lackey.
Marquand has produced a special limited-edition book to complement the exhibit. The hardcover version is cloth-bound with an embossed title, and both hard and soft-cover versions were digitally printed, then bound by local artisan Chikabird with a string-tie closure.
Featuring full-color, accordion foldout pages for each artist included in the show, the book is a great way to keep a piece of the exhibition in your personal library. The books are on display at the exhibit but will also be available through the Marquand website in the near future, so stay tuned here to find out how to get your own copy.
The last day for The Book Borrowers is this Sunday, June 14, 12-5 p.m. at the Bellevue Arts Museum.
It’s a beautiful, warm evening in Seattle, perfect for the First Thursday Seattle Art Walk featuring galleries throughout downtown and Pioneer Square. Most every show that PUNCH premieres on First Thursday is a winner, a great example being last month’s Grätüitöüs Umläüt, a group show on heavy metal curated by Jacob and Justin Gibbins. Tonight should be no exception when Renee Adams and Amber Stucke present In-Between:
Obtaining inspiration from science, anatomy and the manmade world, the works of Renee Adams and Amber Stucke depict an alternate universe, existing somewhere between reality and fiction. The two-person exhibition, In-Between, establishes an uncanny dialogue between Stucke’s painted biological entities and Adams’ sculpted hybrid species.
It opens tonight, reception from 5-8 p.m. PUNCH Gallery. 119 Prefontaine Place South, Pioneer Square
This Thursday May 28 at 8 p.m. photographer Stan Gaz and guests will discuss work featured in Sites of Impact: Meteorite Craters from Around the World at Marymount Manhattan College on E. 71st St. The book is published by Princeton Architectural Press and features beautiful photographs of the earth’s craters captured during Gaz’s six years of traveling the planet.
Trimpin: The Sound of Invention follows artist/inventor/engineer/composer Trimpin as he shuns the hype and hyperbole of the commercial art world, while his freewheeling sculptures and outrageous musical experiments are cherished by museums all over the world.
Filmed over two years, this cinema verité documentary feature follows the artist/inventor as he devises a perpetual motion machine, builds a 20-meter tower of automatic electric guitars, and collaborates with the Kronos Quartet on an outrageous world premiere. The film will delight anyone interested in the mysteries, pitfalls, and sheer joy of creative experiment.
The documentary screens at the Seattle International Film Festival on Friday, May 22, 7 pm at SIFF Theatre; Saturday, May 23, 1:30 pm at SIFF Theatre; and Monday, June 1, 4:30 pm at the Kirkland Arts Center. More info and tickets here.
To give you a taste of this eccentic creator, here are some of the everyday objects Trimpin has used to make music. The “dip-tip chickens” make our minds boggle!
whistles duck calls toy guitars gramophones hair bands Tupperware toy monkeys wooden shoes dip-tip chickens bunsen burners beer glasses typewriters office lamps juice dispensers cathode ray tubes electrical fan blades slide projectors vacuum cleaner pottery wheels aircraft cable turkey basters steel chains saw blades a 10,000-volt neon transformer
Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman has produced dozens of videos over the past forty years, including the five featured in the Marquand-produced catalog Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space. The exhibit has already traveled to the Blaffer Gallery, MIT List Visual Arts Center, and the Miami Art Museum. It opens tonight at the Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis, on view until August 2.
Here is a portion of her first short film from 1968, Saute ma ville.
(The exhibit) can be viewed as a fascinating exploration either of the process of self-invention or of the artist as self-promoter. Either way, it should arouse sharp reactions. It includes portraits by Man Ray, Francis Picabia and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as self-portraits by Duchamp. There is also a portrait by Andy Warhol, another artist who knew how to mold his public image.
If you go, be sure to check out the accompanying catalog Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture, produced by Marquand Books, also found on-line through MIT Press.
March 27-August 2, Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Call (202) 633-8300 for more information.
If you’re in the Omaha-area, don’t miss Sentimental Journey: The Art of Alfred Jacob Miller, on view at the Joslyn Art Museum. While you’re there be sure to pick up the exhibition catalog, produced by Marquand:
“This book will set a new scholarly standard for monographs on western art,” said Bill Truettner, Senior Curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and one of the leading scholars in America on western American art. “[It] will bring to the study of western-art patronage a refinement few others in the field have even approached.”
The exhibit remains at the Joslyn–its final destination–until May 10.
Many thanks to all who submitted books for consideration in this year’s Stiftung Buchkunst design competition. We were impressed by the many high-quality entries, and we’re proud to be able to pass on a very strong group of books to the international competition. The finalists will be juried in February, followed by an exhibition during the 2009 Leipzig Book Fair and the “Book Art International” exhibit during the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair.
We’re already looking forward to next year’s Stiftung Buchkunst competition. Check back for submission details in the months ahead.
You’re invited to send items to burn in the Tieton New Year’s Bonfire!
There are some reasons for hope, cheer, and good fortune, so let’s welcome 2009 with good wishes, tidings, and blessings. Marquand Books and Mighty Tieton will mark the transition from messy old 2008 to bright and shiny 2009 with a bonfire in Tieton, Washington, on New Year’s Eve.
We invite family, friends, associates, clients, colleagues, and neighbors to participate by mailing symbolic paper or wood items for us to toss onto the flames for you.
Letters, paper dolls, photos, charms, sketches, carvings, notes, diary entries, effigies, bad poems, good poems, greeting cards, little voodoo dolls, mortgage papers, financial reports, parking tickets, expired coupons, report cards, foreclosure notices, IRA statements, campaign literature, rejection letters, love notes, résumés, collages, whatever. Any symbols that will bring better fortune for 2009.
Here’s how it works:
Gather up your items. Package in a neat envelope or bundle, and seal it tight. (We won’t open anything unless instructed to.) Mark your bundle “2008″ if you would like it tossed on the flames before the end of the year, or “2009″ if you want it tossed on once the new year has begun. Add instructions if special incantations are required. No books or musical instruments, please.
Mail to: Mighty Tieton New Year PO Box 369 Tieton, WA 98947
Be sure to send it to arrive by Wednesday, December 31, and we will be sure your wishes are granted!
If you’re in the Washington DC area this Wednesday, December 3, check out author and curator David Wagner’s lecture on the history of the wildlife art at the U.S. Department of Interior Museum. Copies of Wagner’s book, American Wildlife Art, will be available for signing by the author.
The lecture begins at 10:00 a.m. and is presented in conjunction with Endangered Species: Flora and Fauna in Peril at the Wildling Art Museum.
A jury of book design professionals will select the US entries to submit to Stiftung Buchkunst. An international jury will review all final US submissions, paying special attention to quality of typesetting, reproduction, printing, paper, and binding. Typography and graphic design as aesthetic elements of the book will also be examined.
Finalists will be juried in February 2009, followed by the exhibition during the 2009 Leipzig Book Fair and the exhibition “Book Art International” during the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair. All prizewinning book editions are archived and will be available for perusal at the foundation in Frankfurt.
Entries are limited to three books per individual designer. Please send two copies of each submission. Submission deadline is DECEMBER 15, 2008. Participation is free of charge.
Send two copies of each book with the following information to Marquand Books, STIFTUNG BUCHKUNST COMPETITION, 1402 Third Avenue, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98101.
Sorry, submissions will not be returned. Finalists will be selected and featured on Marquand’s blog in early January 2009. Contact stiftungbuchkunst@marquand.com for more information.
The first question I was asked by almost everyone I met at the Frankfurt Book Fair was regarding the economy—editors, printers, and others were all constantly discussing the health of the publishing trade in general, not simply the stability of their own firm or institution. I found it a difficult question to answer. In my eyes, little had changed from previous years, though I thought some publishers’ booths might have been a smidge smaller and less extravagant. And the rumor mill hinted that conservatism dominated the big-book deal making on the floor of the Messe.
In our tiny corner of the Fair, the daily bustle seemed fairly routine despite the worsening economic news. Museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum, National Gallery, and Getty are unsure as to how the economic downturn will affect their publications programs. There may be some adjustments in the future, but none of these institutions, at least, are about to stop publishing books. Fingers crossed.
My favorites at the Fair: Actar, the Spanish design and architecture publisher; DAP, with its thousands of compelling titles; Steidl, cool as ever, and continuing to define the look of the art book; Prestel, showing off The Hyena and Other Men, a fascinating book of photographs by Pieter Hugo; and Moleskine, whose booth design is always captivating.
The show and accompanying book highlight art from 39 Salish nations, from basketry and weaving to photographs and paintings. Seattle Times art critic Sheila Farr wrote a nice piece on the exhibit, which opens Friday with a lecture by curator Barbara Brotherton at 7 p.m.
Join artist Deborah Lawrence and LA Weekly art critic Peter Frank on Saturday, October 25 at MOCA for a reception and signing in honor of the artist’s new book, Dee Dee Does Utopia, produced by Marquand Books. Event is free and open to the public. RSVP to 310-289-5223 or artcatalogues@moca.org.
The Frankfurt Book Fair is staggering in scale. The American hall alone feels like it could fit two football fields comfortably within its walls, and it’s only one of eight exhibition spaces in the Fair, many of which are two levels. The small Marquand Books booth is a tiny speck in a sea of books. But we like it just fine that way.
The Frankfurt Book Fair’s origins date back 500 years to the nearby city of Mainz, Gutenberg’s birthplace and the cradle of European printing. The Fair in its current incarnation is an expression of our time: publishers, booksellers, librarians, and others from hundreds of countries buying and selling international rights, promoting services, fingering some wonderful books, and smoking a whole lot of cigarettes. (Smoking was “banned” in the halls last year, which seems to have meant only that each booth wasn’t provided with an ashtray.) The global economy churns away.
While the overall effect can at times be overwhelming and somewhat numbing, the experience of looking at books is always an intimate one, no matter the setting. At the Fair there are countless stands of fascinating, surprising books; books whose designs catch your attention; books whose production techniques spark ideas for future projects; books you didn’t know you needed but resolve to buy the second you get home. I’m not complaining.
Marquand Books attends the Fair primarily to meet with American publishers, to whom we present books we’re producing for museums—usually exhibition catalogues that may be worthy of wider distribution. I love the chance to talk with the art editors, figuring out which subjects they’re drawn to and what books fit best on their lists, hearing the buzz on their favorites at the Fair, catching bits of publishing gossip. When I can sneak away, I’ll be poking around the stands of illustrated book publishers, especially in hall 4, where I’ll be spending as much time as possible in the Stiftung-Buchkunst area.
If you happen to be going to the Fair, you can find Marquand Books in hall 8, row O, stand 934. It will just be me this year. Come by and say hello.
