ABAD Austrailia, Mate!

Heather Matthew and Julie Barratt are bringing ABAD 2013 to Australia! The show is scheduled to open at the Tweed River Art Gallery in Murwillumbah, Australia on October 13, 2013. Click here for the artists' call and join the fun down under. Help the ABAD Universe flip off the Mayans.

ABAD 23 Books to be Entered in New Show

I am preparing to enter our 2 handbound art books from ABAD 23 into a new exhibition at the Islip Art Museum. The show is called "New York Bound: International Book Art Biennial." It is billed as the first of its kind in the US, and is scheduled to open in September 2013. Dorthea Fliess of the Museum of Art Satu-Mare in Romania is the guest curator.

New Mixed Media Work at Divaworks

I've launched a website, "Divaworks," that includes a new body of work I've been playing with. The project is called "Union,' and my intent is to mix the digital with the traditional; the new with the old.

I begin with one of my original photographs and turn it into a watercolor style image on the Mac. Then I print it out on 120-140 lb cold press watercolor paper and finish it by hand with traditional watercolor pigments.

I'm very excited about the result, and I've just hung a new show featuring a dozen of these images at the Town Hall in Islip, NY. If you're in the area, it's open now through Oct. 1, M-F 9am-4pm on the second floor.

Or, click here to see a few of the images on my new website and let me know what you think!

A Return to ??

Now that ABAD: The Ties That Bind is winding down, I am slowly returning my attentions to all those things that went by the wayside during the past few months like creating work for other shows, cleaning up my studio and vaccuming my house maybe?

The reception went off beautifully and we were thrilled to have a lovely write-up in the NY Times Metro section as well. The Joe Saylor Brass Band wowed the crowd and our performance artists AnnMarie Tornabene, Antonia Palazzo, Meera Thomas and Steve Dalachinsky were all very well received. The Firehouse Gallery is already asking what I'll do there next year...hmmmmmmm, any ideas??

Construction Has Nearly Halted

Sorry to say I've become stalled in the continued construction of this blog. There are many reasons, chief among them is the new ABAD I'm curating. It is eating up more and more of my non-existent spare time.

I had a wonderful conversation with the godfather of ABAD, Matthew Rose (so cool that he called me from Paris!) and he had lots of excellent ideas. He also made me feel a little less panicky. For now.

One of his great ideas was to put the show on Kickstarter, a website that raises money for art projects. It dawned on me that in the past two years, no one has expanded the ABAD Universe to include music. So I have the big ambition to get a real live New Orleans Funeral Jazz Band to play at the reception but, alas, they cost $$$. So I've been hard at work getting 'The Ties That Bind' up and running on the fundraising site. Which is exactly like making another website. Again.

And then I have to practice coptic bookbinding...

For Matthew Rose's THE DEFENSE D'AFFICHER PROJECT

For Matthew's poster project. I'm sure that like many others, I am extremely upset about the recent events in Japan and their worldwide ramifications. This is the expression of my fear, my anger and my hope.

Download Hi-Res JPG for Print

See The Defense d'Afficher Project

5. ABAD in the HEARTLAND

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7/31 – 8/22/2010

I made it a point after the UK show to keep up on all things ABAD. I began to generate new work unique to each new call. Louise Millmann and Rob Gilmer opened "ABAD Omaha: 'Till Death Due Us Part" at the RNG Gallery in Nebraska. They had the participation of 107 artists from around the world.

I created a show poster and two postcards– one dedicated to my grandparents (who raised me) and one for my sweet father in law who recently passed. This was the first time that I sent work of a more personal nature, exploring the deaths of people who were very dear to me. 

I found the photo for my poster in a big box of vintage family pictures given to me by my mother in law. Unfortunately, she had no idea who they were, only that somehow, we were connected.

I used a gorgeous vintage photo for this poster that was in a 
big old box of photos. This was a real wedding! (minus the skull faces...)

This card is about my wonderful grandparents, Cosmo and Anna. 
Even though I was lucky to have them with me long enough to 
meet their second great-grandchild (my son, Dylan), I still miss them every day.

This is my amazing father in law, Joseph, who was a decorated
Purple Heart Koran War Vet and quiet guy with a wicked sense of humor.

4. ABAD OPENS AT THE MoMA, WALES

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4/27/2010

I became aware of the new calls only with the Museum of Modern Art, Wales exhibition undertaken by Sonja Benskin-Mesher. Sonja set this show apart in a number of interesting ways. 

She installed her late husband's chair in the gallery space. She also opened a box of cards from the original exhibition at the Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery in a quiet, almost ceremonial fashion. Then, each artist was listed in a "Book of the Living," which became part of the exhibition. Along with a full installation of the works from New York, MoMA Wales included nearly all the posters from previous shows, and several hundred new works created especially for this exhibition.

The show ran until May 8, at which time the MoMA UK acquired it for their Permanent Collection. Below is the piece I did expressly for this show. It was exhibited along with my art from the first ABAD in NYC.

My Egyptian Book of the Dead piece created expressly for the UK show.
I took that photo of the Temple of Dendur (MY Temple) at the Met in NYC.

My 2009 Tibetan Book of the Dead piece at the MoMA UK show, 
in the red box, upper left of the wall.

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3. THE GLOBAL ABAD WAVE BEGINS

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9/19/2009

Artists from all over the world attended the NYC show. Many gathered complete collections of the Unbound Book and brought them home. 

Then, a wonderful thing began to happen: the exhibition moved many of them to arrange ABAD shows in their own towns.

Some were re-presentations of the NYC show, while others issued new calls for companion works to be shown alongside the original show.

A listing of the travelling ABADs through April 2010:

2009  Mobius, Boston, MA / September 19-20
2009  Ripe Art Gallery, Greenlawn, NY / October 11-18
2009  River Mill Art Gallery, NJ / October 17-31
2009  Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA / October 11-31
2009  Queens Museum of Art, NY / November 1-15
2009  La Sexta House of Music, Tijuana, Mexico / November 21
2010  Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, Brazil / February 6-28
2010  Vladimir Nazor Library, Zagreb, Croatia / February 26-March 21
2010  Steppling Art Gallery, San Diego State University, CA / March 10-April 9
2010  Prostor, Zagreb, Croatia / March 22-30
2010  ASA Art Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina / April 1-15

2010  Exit 11 Contmeporary Art, Grand-Leez, Belgium / April 11-June 27

2009 Mobius, Boston, MA

2009 Otis College, CA

2010 Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, Brazil

2010 Steppling Art Gallery, San Diego State University, CA

2010 ASA Art Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

2010 Vladimir Nazor Library, Zagreb, Croatia

2010 Exit 11 Contemporary Art, Grand-Leez, Belgium

 

2. THE FIRST ABAD AND ME

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9/10/2009

Below, photos from the astounding opening on Thursday, September 10, 2009. 

The line to get in wrapped around the block! 

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This is my first piece of ABAD art; 
no one knew that we would be exploring 
this theme through so many shows and
such a roster of countries.

1. THE CALL THAT STARTED IT ALL 3/13/2009

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3/13/2009

Below is the 2009 call for the original Soho, NY "A Book About Death" Exhibition.
Matthew Rose launched an art movement that is still sweeping across the world today.

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Friday, March 13, 2009
OPEN ARTIST CALL: A BOOK ABOUT DEATH
A BOOK ABOUT DEATH: AN UNBOUND BOOK ON THE SUBJECT OF DEATH
Opening, Thursday, 10 September 2009

Exhibition: 10 - 22 September 2009

Emily Harvey Foundation; 537 Broadway; New York City, New York 10012 USA
Artists Each Produce Their Edition Of 500 Postcards In The Sprawling Unbound 1000-Page A Book About Death. The Book Will Be A Limited Edition: 500 Copies (Following The Number Of Artist Produced Cards)

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH is an open, unbound book produced by artists worldwide. Artists are invited to create a "page" in the form of a postcard about death– any aspect about death. Works can be of any design, personal or conceptual, color or black and white.

The original work about death stays with you, the artist. The 500 postcards produced from the work is for the exhibition, and are sent to the gallery.

Artists can include any information about themselves on the cards, front or back. There are no taboos here, no age limits, no areas or ideas that are prohibited. The exhibition organizers only ask that you submit good work, worthy of an interesting and exciting page in this global book.

The 500 post cards are then mailed to the gallery in New York City for exhibition. DEADLINE FOR CARDS TO BE IN THE GALLERY: SEPTEMBER 5, 2009.

A BOOK ABOUT DEATH takes its inspiration from the late, underground American artist Ray Johnson (1927 - 1995). Ray Johnson’s unbound “book” of the same title was mailed to his New York Correspondence School “students” and included pages in his idiosyncratic style that were funny, sad and ironic “one-page essays” on death.  With the A BOOK ABOUT DEATH project, artists are invited to plunge into subject in creating their own pages that score the dramatic final dance of death. 

EXHIBITION and EVENT: Each artist contribution will be displayed in the Emily Harvey Foundation gallery space in New York. Visitors will be free to take cards and create their own book about death. As the cards are removed, the exhibition will disappear.
During the exhibition, a lecture/panel discussion will take place with a number of leading writers, curators, artists and collectors bringing together a number of salient ideas about death, books, mail art works, Ray Johnson and the global nature of A BOOK ABOUT DEATH.  The panel list will be announced when it is finalized this summer.