Is Tumblr Allowing Lewd Art Again

The Other Readers
A curated set by Heidi Neilson

Measure out and Dismeasure in the Photobook
by Duncan Wooldridge

Letting the JPEGs Degrade
EJ Major in conversation with Mishka Henner

Pirates, Cowboys and Bootleggers
Mishka Henner in conversation with Eric Doeringer

——————————————————————————————

A Free Interview
Elisabeth Tonnard in chat with Fred Free

ET: "This interview volition focus on time in the studio while also incorporating walks, conversation, studio visits, and readings every bit we contemplate the structure of experience. Such an interview is like hiking up a mount. As one climbs and becomes aware of wider and wider vistas, it is important to non lose sight of details, at least non the critical ones. We must permit go of some, however; life is too brusque."

"What'southward your background?"

FF: My formal background is in architecture – both in education and practice.

ET: "When did you lot decide to get an artist?"

FF: Answer A – I never really decided to get an creative person. Information technology'south all I've ever been. From early childhood on I made books, I took pictures, I drew buildings, I designed graphics, I rearranged things. I focused everything into architecture at one point and and then unfocused again about ten years later. I haven't refocused since.

Reply B – 1990

ET: We set out with the intention of doing an interview using only establish cliché questions, just I now take to pause the mould already and inquire you a specific question. How do you think your background in compages has informed your present practice? At that place is a chapter in Victor Hugo'southward Notre Matriarch de Paris that discusses the relation between compages and the volume from the line: "This will destroy that. The book volition destroy the edifice." Hugo discusses architecture every bit a form of writing, and says that after Gutenberg it lost its identify as the universal form of writing. The pocket-sized and light took over from the large and heavy. Did yous in fact feel this aforementioned move?

FF: Although I think that quote is probably an apt observation, my move was less about architectural design and its place in the/my world and rather about something more than personal. All the interests I started out with earlier focusing on architecture were getting lost in a 9 to five sameness I never idea would happen doing something I loved. The office life, the long duration of projects, the tediousness of done to death details and imaginationless clients – information technology all drained me to the indicate that I needed to unplug and unfocus before I lost all my joy in that area. And then to answer your first question, my background in (the practice of) architecture informs my present practice by reminding me of how I don't want to live and work. How architecture as design or a fashion of thinking informs what I practice today, I don't really know. My sense of club, colour, context, and spatial relationships were certainly honed during that fourth dimension, merely because of a witting effort to explore and experiment with my process and product on an ongoing footing, any direct connectedness feels remote at this point.

da office blueprint (1987)

ET: You talk about 'unfocus' as a strategy for regaining joy in your piece of work. Tin you tell a bit more than about this, and is 'unfocused' also a quality that tin be seen visibly in your work, or is it merely there in the background? Is unfocused the same as costless, your final proper noun?

FF: Unfocusing meant fine art-tripping through Europe playing pool, drinking many beers and drawing for fun again. It meant rediscovering collage and making books and leaving total-time architecture work to become a combination of freelance designer, illustrator and fine artist. In that re-showtime I took any work came my fashion (how-to diagrams for Boob tube shows, renderings of other peoples buildings for assorted awarding presentations, construction drawings of a recycling plant, reorganizing a suburban house!) while creating whatever piece of work came into my head (photocopy experiments, bootleg slides, imaginary worlds, documentation books). I treated it like being on a mapless roadtrip and still do. And although the unfocusing has/had more to exercise with the process of what I piece of work on and when I work on it, I do think that concept tin can be seen in many projects as well. Specially my collages. They are unplanned and are more near an exploration than a destination.

Diagrams for the Boob tube show, New Yankee Workshop (1990) and books from the slide series (1993)

The name "free" is actually brusque for "freelance" and since that was an important part of my unfocusing – yes.

ET: Let'southward talk more about your collages. When y'all say they are more nearly exploration than destination, what is it that you lot are exploring? Is it that you are exploring aspects of the original materials y'all are working with or is it that you are exploring how to form a wholly new shape? And when does the exploring end, when is a collage finished? Or isn't it? By the way, your previous answer now has me picturing the collage I have from you (titled 12,five%) equally a game of pool. There is something near the angles of the pieces of newspaper in it that is also suggesting this. Would you agree on such a matter?

12.v% (2008)

FF: Yes it'south nigh exploring materials and form. And order, disorder, color, connections, coincidence, time, speed, endurance, equations, mystery, history, personal history, identity, intuition, educational activity, pre-conception, rules, commodity, customs, communication, language. And more I'k sure. It's e'er dissimilar. Depends on the piece. On the day.

I don't recollect the exploring always really ends, but like being on that roadtrip, I (usually) know when I get somewhere. And then I go somewhere else.

That's a wonderful interpretation of that piece. From a visual perspective I tin see the connection, but pool never entered my caput while making it. Ironically, pool for me is about existence very focused, involving precision and an most mapped-out strategy.

ET: That is part of what I meant. Even though there may be a storm of activity behind it, the collages you brand do look precise and focused, and almost mapped-out if I may say. They are not chaotic madness. They take place inside the boundaries of a sheet of paper. The difference to for instance pool might exist that there is no set up of constricting rules. Do y'all ever utilise stock-still rules or constraints to produce work?

larn this today (2011)

FF: From the outside looking in, I can definitely run into your view of the piece of work – compared to cluttered madness, I guess they can look precise and focused. From my procedure-oriented seat and compared to my previously precise and focused life of compages, or fifty-fifty my other work, they are anything but. On most pieces I look for whatever random bit lying near or in a book or magazine, settle on one for ordinarily no particular reason and then glue it down onto something. And then get/react from there, seeking and/or finding i or two pieces at a time based on the explorations listed above or just convenience, happenstance, the vocal playing at the fourth dimension, or zippo at all. E'er gluing as I go and rarely looking alee. Never laying-/mapping-out. If I'one thousand lucky, my hands and eyes just accept over. Seeing, cutting, pasting. But I do utilize constraints now and and then equally role of the exploration besides. Sometimes I'll decide at the outset to simply use bits from a certain book or box or pile. Or like basic parameter. Minimal rules in all cases. In my latest volume project, math periodical, the ane rule I prepare for myself was to not use any text bits – something very difficult for me – just that was it. Otherwise it was another random trip to nowhere.

Bonus roadtrip metaphor answer: you probably don't come across much chaotic madness because although I may be unfocused and not map things out and accept footling idea where I'g headed, I still manage to stay on the road. (As opposed to driving on the sidewalk, through front yards and over pedestrians.) That'south merely the style I am. Usually.

ET: That'south great to acquire a fleck more than about your process, peculiarly your clarification of your easily and eyes taking over. There is a trend in me to quote too much from others, but there is an amazing poem by Eugen Gomringer that y'all might exist interested in, titled nicht wissen wo (non knowing where). It strikes a chord with what y'all've been proverb then far. On our online ABC forum, where members discuss ABC affairs and projects, you seem to have the most balanced and gentle vocalization. If in that location are any clashes, you lot restore the peace. At that place is something philosophical about this. I don't believe this could just be caused past drinking beer and playing pool. If that were truthful, the world would already be a much better place. Your answers indicate as well a certain zen-like lack of ego, even to the bespeak that you don't use capitals when you write (note to the reader: for the sake of uniformity this interview has been edited to include capitals before information technology was published). Are you influenced by any type of philosophy?

FF: It strikes a familiar chord with me equally well. Wonderful poem. And my meager ii years of high schoolhouse High german linguistic communication report from 35 years ago were really good plenty to understand information technology in its entirety. Thanks for not telling me where to find it. Perfect.

Thank you for the thoughtful words too. I have a healthy ego. I'one thousand just a Libra. We're all about balance. Or so i've been told. Actually though, I don't prescribe to whatever ane detail philosophy. Information technology'due south a collage of influences for sure. But if anything, much of what you lot sense stems from two aspects of my childhood. The outset was growing up in house where I was always the peacemaker. I was the youngest and just 1 in the family related to everyone else. My father had two sons with his beginning wife who died giving birth to the second son. My mother came forth a few years after and was met with hostility from the first son. I was born a few years later that, subsequently which the doctors told my mother she couldn't have any more children. Equally I got a piffling older I sensed all of that put me in a special spot so I just went with it. And I had to often every bit the dysfunctional dynamics of my family merged uncomfortably and fifty-fifty dangerously with the drug culture and generational disharmonism of the late 1960s and early 70s. So by the time I was bullied in high school – the second aspect – I was already well seasoned in how to get along. Non that it didn't bear upon me considering it did profoundly. But I beat it with humor and past condign focused on what I would practice afterwards loftier school. Later childhood. And that was compages.

Fred and family (1972)

Lowercase footnote: there is an equalness in writing that style. Cypher is proper. Nothing is less or more than important than the other. And on the internet, information technology's the reverse of shouting. I like that also.

Beer and pool follow-upwards: don't under-judge their awesome power. So important to where I am today that they almost deserve capital letters.

ET: As nosotros have moved to the middle of the road on our speedy intercontinental route trip, and are talking about equalness and balancing opposites, or forming a bridge from one to the other – how would you say these qualities play out in your volume complimentary verse #11819146 which in your words is explained every bit of a combination of "random sentence generator and image search engine"? Can you tell a bit more than nearly this volume and about the effect of combining image and text in it?

FF: free verse #11819146 was created with a completely systematic mapped-out process. 30-eight sentences were generated with an online random sentence generator. Each random sentence was plugged into an image search engine. The number of words in each random sentence determined which prototype was chosen from the image search results pages. Each chosen image was enlarged so that the smallest dimension filled the entire area of a v x 8 page template. The random sentences and enlarged images were centered on each page. The pages were ordered in the same sequence in which the random sentences were generated. The folio count was determined by the maximum corporeality of pages allowed within the printer'south 40 folio cost rate. The number in the championship is the appointment and time when I added the embrace. The contrast with my collage process and more specifically, the other book I was making at the same time, self-portrait #7277 – an intuitive, personal and unsystematic re-presentation of some of my childhood photos – is where whatever balance resides inside – or rather in conjunction with – free verse #11819146. And since the main purpose of the bookmaking procedure was to take me out of the equation as much as possible, the result or success of the text/image combining was given up to run a risk and as such I think some work improve than others.

ET: It almost seems then that costless verse #11819146 was made and then that yous could make self-portrait #7277. And that self-portrait #7277 was fabricated so you could make free verse #11819146. Is this the reason yous work on several projects at the same time: to take yourself out of the equation continuously and make the work while y'all are focused on something else? By the style, how charged the word "focus" has now get! Would you also possibly tell something most self-portrait #7277? We meet a series of childhood photos from the remarkable collection that you as well share on Facebook. The photos seem heavily cropped at times. What places were you lot looking for in your babyhood photos?

free poesy #11819146 (2011) and self-portrait #7277 (2011)

FF: In this example, the two books were made at the aforementioned time for that reason, merely that isn't usually the situation. I actually adopt working on one project at a time. I do take myself out of the equation to varying degrees on a lot of things though – purposefully and not. In self-portrait #7277 all of the photos are originally of (mainly) me every bit the focus and taken during so-called special moments betwixt 1972 and 77 – birthdays, holidays, trips, parades, visits, firsts – almost all of my childhood photos are like these, with very few shots of the stuff that make upwards my actual memories – the everyday in-betwixt not-equally-special moments and things. In the book I attempted to re-view some of those typical "special" photos by zooming in and re-centering on anything merely me and the moment – the spaces between, distant views, certain objects, an empty seat – anything that would conjure up the everyday memories I was looking for and wish would have been front and center in more than of my old family snapshots to begin with. Then in this case, although I may accept visually shoved myself off to the side in guild to focus on other things, I'm very much in the equation by comparison – in initial photo choice, decisions on where to re-focus inside the pictures and ultimately considering information technology is a search for my personal memories. (On a side notation – the very brief description of the book on my site – "twenty-six dislocations" – is an oblique natural language-in-cheek nod to all the Ruscha edification out there in bookland. I was feeling left out at the time.)

ET: Cute. It reminds me a bit of a project I once saw in which images of landscapes with supposed UFOs in them were reworked: the UFOs were left out and attention was now focused on the landscapes themselves. In a way we become the UFOs of our own documented babyhood. Post-obit this idea, I remember it might too be argued that photographers get the UFOs of their own piece of work. Instead of the landscape they photograph, we encounter them. Instead of the person portrayed, nosotros see them. Quite a few artists have been trying to escape from this by turning to useful photography, evidence photography, vernacular photography, to see if there is not more than to discover in these establish images than in the images they would have themselves. What is your position towards photographic images? And is there a place for photos you lot yourself take in your work?

FF: I like the sound of that project – nonfictionalizing, reworking the reworked – and your statement as well. In that regard, I know of the escape to usefulness, appreciate it, have driven down that road at times and could imagine wholly prescribing to it if I had a lensman'due south (re)focus. Possibly. Simply in full general, I meet the camera also much as just some other tool and one not to be used in isolation from other tools. Photographic images – found or my own (yes at that place is a place – largely in some older photobooks) – are mainly just sources for my broader piece of work to exist used and reused, reframed, manipulated, pixelated, fictionalized, photocopied, cutting-up and recontextualized – or to be used equally is. Because of this, the level of UFOness found in any given project varies greatly. And I'm fine with that. I'm just not a photographic position purist in whatever direction I estimate. Or probably in annihilation. Likewise many roads to go on to be stuck in one spot for besides long.

ET: Yes okay, let'south keep moving. I'm curious what relation you accept to books. Are they as well one of the possible roads, or is there a special identify for them? And has print-on-demand inverse how you understand books?

FF: Definitely one of the roads. And sure books take a very special place. I've been drawn to nonfiction and picture books since I was a child. My granddaddy was the editor of the Philadelphia Bulletin Annual which exposed me early on to books filled with records and official photos and just a lot of organized information of all kinds. Mostly meaningless facts and images to me, but very appealing probably because of who put it all together. As such I'm sure he and his piece of work were inspirations to me when at ix I made my first book, The President In China – cut-out paper articles and photos about Nixon's visit to China, fastened to 95 notebook pages stapled and taped together in such a way that nothing was ever going to come undone (and nothing has). Books documenting instruments, food, nature, and the Olympics followed. And when architecture started to interest me, I designed libraries for fun, then worked in one and in a bookstore too, both changing and cementing my human relationship with books.

The Philadelphia Bulletin Annual and the president in china (1972)

When I unfocused from architecture later in my life, it was a chore I landed illustrating a furniture-making book that got me thinking near creating my own books again. Since and so I've made around 200 i-off or minimal edition documentation books and booklets. Just the one-offness wasn't always the want, rather the handicap of the pre-impress-on-need (pod) landscape. With pod I experience liberated to make the kind of books I've made all forth – themes I'm interested in and without restrictions from others, but in open published editions for a wider audience and where the book itself is non a precious unique fine art object. For the most part. Because although many of my book interests are conspicuously rooted in my granddad's almanac and influenced along the manner by a long list of photo-doc and text-based artists' books, the collagist in me besides sees pod as a take chances to mix it up a little on some projects. To combine the pod functionality and bones printed folio mindset with minimal alterations and/or additions to each volume as information technology is "demanded". Just I have barely begun to explore this territory. It'south still mostly just around the corner. Nonetheless to be found.

ET: Yes I can imagine that having "straight" books where one is printed just like the other, might be a scrap sterile for your work. In your latest volume math journal you lot combine a book that is printed on demand with handwritten math notations, bringing dorsum the activity of hand and eye to an object that otherwise comes direct from the factory. Is there a difference for you between doing this and for instance uploading an adapted file with dissimilar math notations for every book to the pod facility? And as a last question on our road trip, while I grab exit 39, where are y'all off to next?

math journal (2012)

FF: Adjusting uploaded files on demand is something I've idea about doing for awhile, simply that's 1 of those things that is just around the corner. For another projection. I wanted math journal to take handwritten notations so I would feel that particular process myself each and every time the volume was bought. Like getting homework. It's but what felt correct for this project. And that's actually the only important divergence. That it makes every volume unique is extra.

I don't know exactly where I'one thousand off to next. Nothing new about that. But I'm as well sharing the bike a lot lately by going on more and more collaborative explorations with artists I meet driving around the internet. So what little idea I already had about my itinerary, has been thrown into flux fifty-fifty more than than usual. And I wouldn't want information technology whatsoever other way.

(Thanks Elisabeth. It'due south been fun.)

may 1986 (2010)

——————————————————————————————

——————————————————————————————

Letting the JPEGs Degrade
EJ Major in chat with Mishka Henner

EJM: Can you tell us a bit about your background? Am I correct in thinking yous worked within the documentary realm in your earlier career?

MH: I studied folklore then drifted for almost of my twenties, trying various creative pursuits while working every bit an admin temp in London. I tried painting, writing short stories, plays, then worked in physical theatre for a couple of years. In 2003, my girlfriend at the fourth dimension had a membership to Tate Modern and I went to the Cruel and Tender exhibition. That afternoon, looking at the piece of work of Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher inverse my life.

I asked friends if they knew any photographers and was introduced to Liz Lock, a Toronto photographer living in London at the time. Nosotros started working together, interviewing our neighbours in Hackney, going out at nighttime with a Bronica, shooting interiors and portraits – it was a smashing way to detect and dive beneath the surface of the place you lived in. We did information technology in Hackney for a year and then moved to Manchester to devote ourselves fully to the arts and crafts, working on long-term projects on our doorstep for the next vi years; an exhausting experience salvaged by lots of epiphanies.

EJM: There are often political undertones to your work and at times overtly political discipline thing. Do you even so see your work as located within the documentary realm and could you explicate the shift in the emphasis of your exercise over the terminal few years?

MH:I don't believe an creative person can brand work that doesn't relate to anything, it just happens that some of my work deals with politically-charged subjects, but I wouldn't say in that location are articulate political motivations behind them.

One of the epiphanies I had related to the nature of images. The process of making documentary is far richer than the images tin ever be and it's wrapped up in all sorts of relationships betwixt yourself, your subjects, and your backers. It has little to practise with truth. Positions are constantly negotiated and shifting, it's something you cleave out equally y'all proceed, employing all sorts of tricks and devices to search for or convey authenticity. I got a little dissillusioned with chasing some elusive notion of truth and wanted to enjoy making images again.

So, just as we were starting to make a proper noun for ourselves in documentary, I rejected it. I besides discovered conceptual fine art for the first time and though I wouldn't call myself a conceptual creative person, the motility smashed through then many pretensions and façades that information technology appealed to me in a big fashion, especially in the work of cribbing artists. Information technology was nonetheless documentary to me, but not as we knew it. So the shift in my practice happened after thinking most all these things for a long time until I could come with something like Winning Mentality. Now, I'm happiest when I'1000 making something that doesn't look or feel like documentary photography but all the same manages to address a social context.

EJM: Do you consider self-publishing a political act in itself or simply an act of necessity?

MH: One of the myths of self-publishing is that it's vanity publishing, but what could be vainer than paying £fifteen,000 to a publisher for the printing of ii,000 books that will nigh certainly not sell out and which will near certainly be pulped? Self-publishing impress-on-demand books might not have the benefits of publicity and distribution that come with working with publishers, but it'south a liberating option for artists wanting to get their work in print. Information technology as well fits seamlessly with the net historic period. I've sold less than xx copies of 50-Ane United states War machine Outposts nonetheless thanks to the spider web and regardless of sales, the work has travelled far and wide in exhibitions and magazines. The internet's accomplish and its effortless ability to transmit information never cease to amaze me. The point of making books isn't that you lot necessarily take lots of copies that yous can put out into the world; information technology's that information technology demands a sure subject and rigour in creating the work. And you lot don't need a publisher to work that way.

EJM: The volume Photography Is lists a vast array of oft contradictory and sometimes agreeable definitions of photography. Is part of the betoken that in the internet age with all that photography is, in a sense photography isn't? Are your books in function a targeted test of this notion?

MH: I retrieve each work is in some way an investigation of photography in the internet age and this seems to exist a consistent thread in the different projects. Merely it'south been more rewarding to encounter some of these works leave the photography bubble, particularly No Man's Land and Astronomical, and to see the way they've horrified and appealed to a non-photography audience.

EJM: I recall I wrote when I first saw your book No Human's Country that it's a book that I would similar to have fabricated. Tin can y'all tell us the background to this work? Did you experience a scene similar to those you lot apply and and then effigy out a way of making work almost it or did you stumble upon these street-views which then led y'all to explore farther?

MH: Liz was working on her own long-term project documenting the experiences of sex workers in Manchester and one day, when she was running out of ideas, I helped her wait for locations used by the workers on Street View. That's when I stumbled across a number of online communities of men who used it to find sexual practice workers and I knew direct abroad I'd found a rich source of material for a project. Doug Rickard's New American Picture had just come out, as well every bit works by Andreas Schmidt and Jon Rafman so to some extent the ground had already been laid with Street View. Simply considering I was swimming in a soup of doubt about documentary, this seemed the perfect subject to be working with in a way that was very different to existing Street View projects. I also couldn't fully understand what I was making considering there were and so many layers to it and I just couldn't get my caput around the fact y'all could fifty-fifty produce piece of work similar this. All these complexities confirmed my faith in the project.

EJM: Has being a member of ABC influenced or broadened what yous exercise / how you remember?

MH: When I joined ABC I was suddenly surrounded by artists for whom the photographic prototype was entirely malleable. There was an openness of dialogue and sharing of noesis that was then refreshing and embracing that the first four of 5 books I fabricated in that first year were a direct response to other ABC artists' works. At that place's such a diverseness of work within the coop that to someone hungry for new ideas it's an countless buffet. You have the text-based works of Elisabeth Tonnard, the collages of Fred Free, the encyclopedic diaries of Wil van Iersel, the found photographs of Joachim Schmid, the pixelated works of Jonathan Lewis and the various experiments of Andreas Schmidt and Hermann Zschiegner to name simply a few. Being immersed in such a wealth of ideas is bound to influence my own piece of work.

EJM: Your answers to my previous questions reveal a restlessness at the point of understanding and a desire to push yourself and your piece of work into unfamiliar and peradventure even inhospitable territory, for instance working with or over other peoples photographs. You must take a lot of ideas, some of which you choose non to pursue. How yous determine on those you practise?

MH: Once a work's finished, I try to step back and guess if it'south decent. If there's a quality that tin't be grasped but feels substantial, I take information technology every bit a good sign. If it's likewise articulate I leave information technology to i side and permit the JPEGs degrade.

——————————————————————————————

Pirates, Cowboys and Bootleggers
Mishka Henner in conversation with Eric Doeringer

MH: Many of your works are bootlegs. In American football, I read that a Homemade play is called to confuse the defense past moving the quarterback directly behind the centre and away from where they wait him to be. I know zilch about American football game just I like the analogy in relation to your positioning in the art globe. Practise you think of yourself every bit a bootlegger? Or as an outlaw?

ED: I don't know much about football, either. I think of the word "bootleg" as a synonym for counterfeit trade, particularly that of poor quality. My Homemade series was inspired by the guys selling fake Louis Vuitton handbags and Rolex watches on Canal Street. I figured that since gimmicky art was another luxury good/status symbol, why not sell cheap knock-off's of Damien Hirst and Richard Prince? I painted small copies of paintings by all the art stars and hawked them outside of art fairs and Chelsea galleries for a fraction of the toll charged past "legitimate" dealers.

With newer works, such as my books, I'g still copying the work of other artists. But, I don't see these pieces equally bootlegs, per se. The Bootlegs were near the fine art market place and the creative person as brand, my new work is more almost the human relationship between the original and the copy. The Bootlegs were low-quality copies, whereas my new pieces mimic the "await" of the originals as closely as possible while simultaneously drawing attention to their differences. For example, I remade two books by Ed Ruscha called Some Los Angeles Apartments and Real Estate Opportunites. Ruscha'due south books contain "artless" photographs (inspired by the photographs in existent estate listings) of sites in Los Angeles. My books feature photographs of the same locations, but shot forty years afterward. My books have the same format as Ruscha'south, employ the aforementioned typography, and I shot my photographs from the same vantage points, but there's clearly a big departure between my photographs and Ruscha'southward due to the passage of fourth dimension. There'due south zilch in my books (other than perhaps the covers, which apply the same titles and font) that could be considered an infringement of Ruscha's copyright. The differences are more than subtle in some of my pieces, only I think of them as complements to the original works, non substitutes.

Tracy Emin, Eric Doeringer
Chalk on paper, nine x 12″, 2001

And so, I guess I'm a semi-reformed bootlegger. Equally to whether I'grand an outlaw, that depends on your definition of "freedom of expression". I am interested in exploring the grey areas of the law. Perhaps I cross the line into illegal behavior from time to time, but so far I've avoided beingness sued or arrested (although I've been threatened with legal activeness more than once). I think I could mount a adequately potent defense if I e'er demand to.

MH: There seem to be a number of sub-genres in cribbing art, one of which is artists focused on testing fickle notions of originality and on subverting the economics of the art market. But every bit much equally I dear the ability of this work to demystify and deflate the status of Big Artists, I also wonder what the endgame is and whether the tactic simply reinforces the inflated status of stars rather than challenge it. What's the criteria for you choosing which artists to bootleg? Is it down to appreciation of their piece of work or their condition in the world? As well, when working on your bootlegs, in that location must be a degree of scrutinizing your called creative person's process in order to replicate it. What does this practise to your understanding of the originals, if anything? And finally, how well do these bootlegs sell? Are the buyers homemade versions of the collectors that buy the originals?

ED: For the Bootleg series, I choose artists whose work I retrieve will sell. My choice is based on the fine art market, not my own preferences. It's all the "art stars". The artists likewise accept to take iconic styles that can be reproduced quickly and easily. Artists working in installation or performance are pretty much out, although I have made a few sculptures (Maurizio Cattelan, Paul McCarthy, Robert Gober, Mike Kelley, Tom Sachs). The paintings take definitely been the most popular works in the series, particularly copies of John Currin (who sent me a "finish and desist" letter of the alphabet, so I stopped making them), Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Elizabeth Peyton, Christopher Wool, and On Kawara. I've probably sold upwards of 100 copies of each of those paintings (all the works in the series are multiples and produced in open editions – I haven't kept track of how many of each I've sold).

The less pop Bootlegs get phased out as I copy new artists (which, I suppose, might make them more valuable, since there are fewer copies out there). The buyers have ranged from poor art students to collectors who own original works by the aforementioned artists. My newer pieces are based on works by artists I genuinely admire – I see these more as "remakes" or "recreations" than copies.

Douglas Gordon, Eric Doeringer
VHS video tape with cardboard cover, 7.5 ten 4 x 1″, 2001

I'm fatigued to works that question the concept of authenticity/originality or the primacy of the "hand" of the artist. I've mainly been remaking works of Conceptual Art from the late-60s, merely I recently made a serial of photographs based on Richard Prince'south Cowboys from the 1980s. These projects crave a lot of research and I endeavour to follow the original artists' processes fairly closely, as opposed to the Bootlegs, where I found diverse ways to quicken production by incorporating collage, acrylic paint instead of oil, etc.

The Bootlegs were consciously "bad" copies and didn't actually bring me closer to the original pieces (although, it is a weird feel when I come across the original of one of the works I've copied in a museum or gallery). The new "recreations", being more than true to the originals, accept led me to a greater understanding/ appreciation of the works.

For example, I redid two pieces by On Kawara: I Got Up (mailing a postcard every day stating the time I got out of bed that morning) and I Went (drawing my travels each day onto a photocopied map). I did each of these projects for more than a year – both required a lot of discipline and concentration. Kawara did his versions concurrently for more than ten years (while also list everyone he encountered in a slice called I Met). I can't imagine trying to keep track of all that information for so long, nor can I imagine working on the same handful of projects over such a lengthy period of time! I'd also say that I have a very dissimilar relationship with Ed Ruscha'southward Some Los Angeles Apartments afterwards having visited all of the buildings in person.

MH: So your selection of which artist to appropriate is downward to pure economics? Information technology seems like a smart option to make on a number of levels. Were you lot introduced to ideas of cribbing at art school (if you went to art schoolhouse), or was it a method you discovered and developed later? And what kind of art were you making before and so, if whatsoever?

ED: Well, over again, I'd like to split up the Bootlegs, which were my first foray into this type of work, from my more than recent copies. My selections for the Bootleg series were market-driven, the newer pieces are based more on the ideas behind the original works. I've become interested in the whole idea of what it ways to "copy" something. Although my focus is on contemporary fine art, I call back my work ties in with larger cultural phenomena like file sharing, musical sampling, video mash-ups, etc. Because digital technology has made it and so easy and cheap to re-create (and to distribute those copies), copying has get widespread and we need to re-evaluate the laws governing these practices.

The introduction of "ready-made" materials was probably the almost of import development in 20th century art. To suggest that guild would exist improve off without the contributions of Picasso, Johns, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Koons, and Prince (all of whom used copyrighted material in their art) is crazy! I was dismayed by the outcome of the recent Richard Prince/Patrick Cariou court case, and I hope Prince does amend on his appeal.

Damien Hirst, Eric Doeringer
Enamel on Canvas, 8 x 8″, 2005

I don't support outright piracy, only artists should be free to comprise images (or text, music, etc.) from the world around them into new works. I probably became aware of cribbing fine art in loftier school or during my first couple of years in college (I majored in visual art at a full general academy, then got an MFA at an art school). When I first discovered Richard Prince'due south Cowboys, I thought the idea was pretty stupid and lazy (plainly, I've changed my mind somewhat since so), simply I e'er liked Cindy Sherman (does she count as an appropriation artist?) and Jeff Koons. I didn't find artists like Sturtevant, Richard Pettibone, and Mike Bidlo (I remember I knew a little almost Bidlo) until later I started the Bootleg serial and people told me, "Oh, you should look at this artist."

When I was in college, I was mainly a painter. I went through a whole Expressionist phase that seems pretty typical for art students. I took a couple of sculpture classes towards the stop of college that were more than conceptually-based and opened my mind to new possibilities. When I went to grad school, I chose a program where I didn't take to focus on a unmarried medium. As a student, I made some piece of work using images from magazines, but I consider my MFA thesis to exist the first time I actually worked with appropriation. My thesis was a series of self-portraits based on pop culture artefacts: pigment-by-number kits, trading cards, garden gnomes, Halloween costumes, etc. Most of the pieces were multiples, and I proceed to enjoy making artwork that can be sold inexpensively and distributed widely.

MH: Could y'all tell me more about the Saddam murals y'all did? Why and how did you do them?

ED: I became interested in the Iraqi murals of Saddam Hussein when the US-led coalition invaded Iraq. Of class, everyone saw the images of the giant statue of Saddam being toppled, simply there as well were hundreds of murals across Republic of iraq that were vandalized and/or destroyed in the months following the invasion. I'1000 sure many were defaced by Iraqis, simply I saw lots of photos of murals covered in English language graffiti, crushed by US tanks, and being urinated on past The states soldiers. Obviously, as symbols of a dictator despised by near of the state, the murals couldn't be left in situ, just there didn't seem to be any kind of mission to certificate, study, or preserve the murals. Many contained elements depicting the history of Iraq, not only Saddam'southward rule, and some were quite stunning.

Although the subject area matter was clearly propagandistic, I don't call back it should exist ignored that Saddam put a lot of money into public fine art. I was specially struck by the lack of public outcry over the destruction of the murals in contrast with the uproar when the Taliban blew upward the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan a few months earlier. I understand that the Buddhas of Bamiyan were far older and arguably more "important" artworks than Saddam's murals, but iconoclasm is iconoclasm. So, I did a lot of research online to find photographs of the Iraqi murals, and so made a series of paintings reproducing some of them in their original "un-vandalized" state. I wasn't trying to valorize Saddam (who was evidently an oppressive ruler) only wanted to relieve these images from being erased from history.

Saddam With Burglarize and Dome of the Stone, Eric Doeringer
Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x thirty″, 2007

They say that history is written by the winners, and I was interested in what it would mean for an creative person from the "victorious" country to repaint images jubilant the "losing" regime (they also say that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it). Also, despite my research, there were elements in some paintings whose significant I couldn't decipher.

I see parallels between my ain lack of comprehension of Iraqi history and culture and America's broader misunderstanding of the Iraqi political, sectarian, and cultural landscape, which led to disaster after Saddam was removed from ability. Interestingly, when I talk over this series, people talk near the political aspects, merely the issue of copyright is never raised (unlike with most of my projects, where the first question is normally "Are you allowed to do that?"). People call up about the symbolism, but they don't really consider the artists who painted the murals. I'm sure it was painful for the artists to see their murals destroyed, whether or not they liked Saddam. In many countries, there are laws protecting artists' "moral rights" that prohibit the destruction and defacement of artwork, and the wholesale destruction of artwork in postal service-invasion Republic of iraq would clearly be criminal. I don't know if in that location are international laws covering this issue, but I accept to assume that vandalizing a portrait of Saddam was a serious crime in Iraq. Whether the Us armed forces encouraged the destruction of the murals or just turned a bullheaded center, I am embarrassed by our actions (nosotros didn't do a very good job of protecting the artefacts in the Baghdad museum, either).

MH: It makes me wonder why a default reaction is to frame the activity of cribbing artists as somehow criminal, rather than equally a legitimate critique or homage to the works of others. When I first saw your murals, it was clear to me at that place was a valuing and an affirmation of the original artists' work which was in direct dissimilarity to their violent destruction by an invading ground forces. Without romanticizing their original purpose, the hand of the artist is somehow preserved in your bootlegs. Is this a thread that runs through most of your works? And is in that location something going on here that's about fan appreciation? We accept it in sports and with the adulation of its superstars, even so it's a no no when it comes to artists. Why is that?

ED: Hollywood, the recording manufacture, Disney, and other corporate interests accept done their best to convince the public that any unauthorized use of their intellectual property is a offense. The judge in Cariou vs. Prince declared that Prince's employ of Cariou's photographs infringed his copyright, and actually she awarded Cariou ownership of Prince'due south piece of work (both the copyright and any paintings that hadn't been sold). Although appropriation is fairly accepted in the art world, its legality is nebulous. Legally, y'all can appropriate if y'all "transform" the original material sufficiently, but there is no standard for what the minimum transformation might be.

I am interested in the thought of fandom in the fine art world. My "Ruscha" books are certainly fanboy pieces. Going out to LA and visiting all of the locations in his books was like making a pilgrimage. And with Records, it was fun to mind to the albums and think, "Ed Ruscha endemic this record in 1971."

Records (after Ed Ruscha), Eric Doeringer
Perfect Bound Book, 7 x 5.5″, 72 pages, edition of k, 2011

The art globe is supposedly too sophisticated for fandom – people are connoisseurs, not fans. In reality, I call up there are lots of "fine art fans" out there. I have an online projection nearly the phenomenon at world wide web.cremasterfanatic.com. The site is a "fan site" for Matthew Barney, with information well-nigh his films, lots of photos, a news section, Barney-inspired fan art, etc. However, I'm not actually a fan of MB – I'm more than of a detective, hunting down everything I can find about him. Some of the stuff I've found is amazing – a toll list for his first group show in New York, erotic curt stories almost him having sex with Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, a pop song near his anus, and a Cremaster video game with five levels – one for each motion picture in the series.

MH: What appeals to me most this is it feels a petty like a car-boot sale arroyo to gimmicky art. I call back yous phone call it a yard-auction in the US. Hither in England, people turn up in a field with their cars, open their boots (trunks) and sell whatever they tin can out of them – everything from broken teacups to pirated videos. It seems that some of your interventions are intended to do exactly that. Where do yous usually go to try to sell contemporary art out of the trunk of your car?

ED: Well, like most New Yorkers, I don't have a auto or a yard (in Brooklyn we have "stoop sales"). When I first started selling Bootleg paintings on the street, I would ready a makeshift stand up on West 24th St. – the heart of the Chelsea gallery commune. My inspiration came more from guys selling fake designer handbags on the street corner than from yard sales / flea markets, but, as you say, those type of sales often feature counterfeit, stolen, or otherwise dodgy merchandise, and so there's a similar vibe. I had to alter my location several times over the years – I gear up in forepart of industrial businesses that were airtight on Saturdays, but they kept being replaced with luxury residences and boutiques. After a couple of years in Chelsea, someone suggested that I should take my Bootlegs to Switzerland for Art Basel. This was the early 2000s, when the art fair concept started taking off, and I began traveling to the major fairs: Fine art Basel in Switzerland and Miami, Frieze in London, and Fine art Chicago. At first, I was completely guerilla – I would testify upwards with my paintings in a big suitcase and set up in front end of the fairs. Somewhen, I started being invited to create "installations" of my paintings at some of the smaller satellite fine art fairs. The photo of me selling paintings out of a van is from one of the Scope art fairs in the Hamptons, an area a few hours out of NYC where a lot of wealthy New Yorkers accept vacation homes. I was an invited invitee of the fair, just the installation was consciously designed to look as though I might have but parked my van outside of the fair. More recently, Wink Fine art magazine has invited me to hang my paintings in their booth at some of the larger art fairs, so I've actually sold Bootleg paintings inside of Art Basel and the Arsenal Show. Information technology'due south great, because the "original" paintings are often hanging a few feet away (and, of form, selling for a lot more coin!).

"I haven't had any serious legal trouble, although an fine art dealer did call the police on me in 2005 (I wasn't copying the work of any of his artists – he was just aroused that I had a rent-free location in Chelsea)." [Source]

MH: I keep thinking about Elmyr de Hory, the groovy art forgerer depicted in Orson Wells' bully F is for Fake. I don't think of your piece of work every bit forgeries or fakes merely the parallel with de Hory is that your Bootlegs in some way undercut the art market and subvert the value of the originals, even if it's simply on a playful level. What do you lot recall of the Chinese artists that reproduce the great masters on demand? Do you see whatever similarities?

ED: For me, the interesting thing in F for Fake is the questions of whether De Hory is a fake faker. The movie presents the possibility that he is actually lying nearly being a forger (or at to the lowest degree exaggerating the extent his forgeries accept been accepted by fine art connoisseurs) to impress his friends.

My Bootlegs are less expensive than the "original" works, but I'm not sure how much they (or the Chinese copies) "subvert the value of the originals" – I don't call up anyone is going to decide not to buy i of the original works because they tin can purchase one from me for less money. Instead, my pieces allow people who tin't beget the originals to own a painting similar to the artwork they covet (actually, many people have told me they think my works are better than the originals). Information technology could even be argued that my works reinforce the value of the works I re-create, because they have to exist "important" pieces for me to reproduce them.

Nonetheless, I do see the Homemade series equally subverting the structure of the art market. They question ideas of uniqueness, authorship, "fine art stardom", etc., but it goes across that. Displaying one's paintings on the sidewalk is pretty much as debased equally possible in the art world (a footstep below hanging one's paintings in a cafe), but it fit the project conceptually and wound upward existence a keen way to go my piece of work in forepart of critics and collectors. The works are non signed or numbered (I mark the back of the canvasses with my proper noun and the date using a rubber postage stamp) and they are produced in open editions. I have no thought how many copies of each work I've made, but the less popular works accept been produced in smaller numbers, thus they are rarer and potentially more valuable.

The Chinese copies of gimmicky paintings didn't really exist when I started the project. You could buy a re-create of Monet or Van Gogh, merely I had never seen a false Richard Prince or Damien Hirst. If the Chinese copies had existed, I wouldn't have felt the need to make my own. I wonder what the Chinese painters think almost the artists they copy and the people who are buying their paintings. I imagine that their relationship with the original works is very different from mine.

MH: I prefer open editions too and with print-on-demand, I don't see why I should produce just 100 copies of something if in that location'southward a demand for 200 or if I can't even sell l. I get emails from collectors asking why I don't exercise limited editions since that would make the work more than bonny to them. But it feels wrong to put a finite number on a work when the technology allows you lot to bypass that convention. What's your rationale for having open editions?

ED: I chose to produce the Bootlegs in open editions partly considering it seemed to fit with the idea of the homemade (even though a handbag design might be produced in a express edition, the knock-offs are produced until people finish buying them) and partly to subvert the tradition of unique or express-edition works that provides the foundation for the fine art market place. Besides, because well-nigh of the Bootlegs include some hand painting, there are variations from canvas to sail, whereas in an edition, #1 and #25 are usually supposed to be identical.

Gerhard Richter, Eric Doeringer
Acrylic and collage on canvas, 10 x 8″, 2001

I accept also produced works that are editioned, signed & numbered, etc. Unremarkably these are works based on pieces that were originally produced in express editions. I call up print-on-need is a great way to produce artist'due south books. The up-front costs are minimal, and you don't have to store ane,000 books while you lot wait for them to sell over 10 or 20 years. My book Arcs Circles & Grids (after Sol LeWitt) is the first 1 I've published POD. I would like to publish more books on demand, but the problem for me is that well-nigh of the POD companies offer a limited number of book sizes, and I'chiliad usually trying to friction match an existing volume and need specific dimensions.

I call back there are ways to produce open editions and still make them desirable for collectors. My Bootleg paintings are stamped on the back with the date I fabricated them, and presumably an before painting is worth more than than a later i (some Bootlegs have sold on the secondary market, but not enough for me to brand any generalizations about resale value). With POD books, you can change the comprehend or add "Second Press" to the championship page later a given corporeality of time has passed or if you sell a certain number of copies. In that location are some companies selling fine art prints on demand now, too – Jen Bekman'south 20×200 is probably the most well known. The prints are unsigned, but the artist signs a pre-determined number of certificates of authenticity. The artwork is printed as it is purchased and shipped with a signed/numbered certificate. As long as the quality remains consistent (I know color shifts are a major problem with POD books), I think this is a smart way to publish prints by emerging artists.

MH: Which artists have you got your eye on at the moment and what'southward the next bootleg we can expect to see in your trunk?

ED: I have two new books coming out. One is a remake of Sol LeWitt's Squares With Sides And Corners Torn Off. The other is a sequel to Richard Prince'southward recent appropriation of Catcher in the Rye – it's basically a reprint of lx Years Later, the unauthorized sequel to JD Salinger's Catcher (whose US publication was blocked past the same judge who decided against Prince in the recent court case brought by Patrick Cariou).

As for what I'm working on in my studio at the moment, I've been making Damien Hirst-style spot paintings. They're larger and more well-crafted than the Bootleg "Hirst" paintings I made before – pretty much the same as the "existent" ones (which, of grade, are not painted by Hirst, either). I likewise have some more Marlboro advertisements that I plan to re-photograph in the way of Richard Prince and I'm working on some ideas based on Andy Warhol'southward work.

harrisonequesions.blogspot.com

Source: http://abcoop.tumblr.com/TEXT

Share this post